Q: Can you tell us more about Workshop 1 (WS1)? What did you do and what did you find?

Aridane González:
“In WS1 we wanted to paint the bigger picture for the land-sea governance, using the example of the sea level rise. What are the hotspot sites for sea level rise and how are tourism and hospitality affected? As BGG we don’t want to tell people what to do, but we want to know the real problems and talk about solutions. People were very actively participating in the workshop.

The participants identified sea level rise and flooding as key environmental risks. They also emphasized coastal erosion, biodiversity loss, and the intensification of extreme weather events as factors affecting beaches and productive sectors such as tourism and fisheries, in addition to impacting essential ecosystem services.

These changes are seen as not only damaging the coastal zone but also jeopardizing the sustainability of marine-coastal environments and the quality of life of local communities. Other problems affecting coast and sea are the rapid expansion of tourism infrastructure, and additionally, salinization, pollution from untreated wastewater, industrial discharges, and agricultural runoff.

The most important conclusion was that the land-sea interface encounters a lot of regulations, linked to different levels of administration. This makes decision making difficult and hinders solutions. We also found that the communication between the different administration levels leaves room for improvement. Another conclusion was that problems are often solved in a sectoral way and that there are not always enough people with the right competence on the islands.

For example, there is a location where people could be relocated in the future because of sea level rise. They have been living there for 50, 100 years, so they don’t want to move. It is important to know why they don’t want to move, so we can address this problem in cooperation. The local population has different questions to address in relation with tradition, feelings, etc. In other words: to drive true change, it is essential to simplify bureaucracy, clarify responsibilities, secure sufficient resources, and promote collaboration among all involved actors.

None of these conclusions come as a great surprise. The point is, however, that different people from all levels and sectors of administration, NGOs, hospitality, businesses and residents had the opportunity to talk about these challenges together and cooperate to bring about solutions. The land-sea interface needs holistic solutions from all the stakeholders.”

Q: And what happened during Workshop 2 (WS2)?

Aridane González:
“We shared the results from WS1 with the participants, and interviewed several of them, as input for the next workshop. During WS2, we presented the previous results in order to show they are part of the project and their participation is taken into account. We explored different climate scenarios to get information about policy scenarios in the land-sea interface. We identified the different sides that participants represent and split into subgroups. Each subgroup focused on a different scenario in a different location, also chosen by the participants.

Originally the idea was to use the dashboard that is being developed in BGG, but we found them not to be applicable yet to our situation. We are working on getting regional projections. The data on which the tools are based are often too pixelated to be usable on small islands like ours. But of course, we did use the available data for projections of sea level, temperature rise and impacts. Note that we have different projections in the islands that are also linked with BGG and demonstrated that BGG is working in connection with the existing science.”

Q: What are the plans for Workshop 3 (WS3), later this year?

Aridane González:
“In the last workshop we hope to have the dashboard with foresight tools ready for us. We will present the scenarios from WS2, and the go directly to solutions. We are looking forward to it, and feel sure that the participants will again provide their input and creativity to find solutions together.”