Natural Capital in the Overseas Territories

Natural Capital in the Caribbean and South Atlantic Overseas Territories:? Valuation, Vulnerability and Monitoring Change

The UK Overseas Territories are highly dependent on the natural environment for their economic and social well-being. The environment provides goods and services of significant cultural and economic value, and provides a key role in protecting man-made assets and protecting human life. The natural environment is susceptible to damage from human activities, resulting in significant loss of value to the economies of the Territories and an increased risk from natural disasters such as hurricane-generated storm surges and flooding.

Background

JNCC embarked on the?‘ Natural Capital in the Caribbean and South Atlantic Overseas Territories ’ project, funded by the? Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) ,?in late 2016.? The project will provide an assessment of natural capital in a number of the UK’s Caribbean and South Atlantic Overseas Territories, and will build capacity to monitor environmental change and integrate environmental evidence into economic policy making and infrastructure planning.?

The project builds on a body of existing work and techniques supported and pioneered by the UK Government in the two regions.? Working with the OT governments, and with a number of research organisations and private sector specialists, the project will be?using economic assessments and analysis, spatial mapping, and satellite data to:

assess the economic and social value of the terrestrial and marine natural environment for each of the Territories;
identify the priority natural capital assets and metrics (or measurable attributes) to monitor changes in value through time;
integrate natural capital valuations into national mapping (GIS) to define the spatial distribution of the assets (value mapping), and to promote the integration of such valuations into planning and policy making.

In addition, the projects place an emphasis on capacity building, skill sharing and knowledge exchange through:

On-island or regional training programmes to build long-term capacity in the OTs;
Building regional Territory networks?to encourage territory to territory support;
Development of? outreach programmes to cultivate links between the Territories and adjacent islands and states, in order to encourage wider regional exchange of information and ideas, and the development of partnerships and collaborations.

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Outputs

Reports on JNCC's Overseas Territories natural capital work will be posted on this page as the work draws to a close. Documents will include natural capital reports for individual Territories, synthesising the results of the work programme in each OT; underpinning reports based on projects with a specific technical focus; reports on training programmes undertaken to support building capacity in the OTs, and the results of the initial consultations used to define individual OT priorities for the work programme. A priority for JNCC has been to work with each Territory to ensure the natural capital work programme supports their own aspirations for environmental management and economic development whilst building an understanding of the importance of natural capital for policy making and planning. The programme is also designed to ensure that new data are made available to the Territories, and new human capacity developed, to allow individual OTs to build on the CSSF supported programme in the future.

Additional Resources & Previous Work

Documents & Resources

Report produced by JNCC in response to the ‘Safeguarding the environment in British Overseas Territories: call for evidence’, which was undertaken in 2019

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee response to ‘Safeguarding the environment in British Overseas Territories: call for evidence’ (July 2019)

Much of the CSSF work has been complemented by ODA-funded projects in Montserrat.

Relevant reports from these projects include:

Montserrat Training Report ? QGIS Beginner and Intermediate ?(March 2019)

The Montserrat Data Management Project ? Establishing a Tool for Providing a Sound Evidence Base for Natural Capital Assessment in Montserrat ?(March 2018)

Montserrat Fisheries ? An Economic Valuation and Qualitative Analysis of the Commercial Fishing Sector in Montserrat ?(June 2017)

Montserrat Workshop Report ? Collecting Quality Data to Support Sustainable Fisheries ?(June 2017)

Montserrat Fisheries Report ? A Guide to Data and Biological Sampling ?(2017)

Montserrat Workshop Report ? T2T ?Montserrat & Falkland Islands Knowledge?and Skills Transfer ? (November 2016)