The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) focuses on the roles of ecosystems and renewable natural resources in improving wellbeing and livelihoods. CANARI’s Strategic Plan 2021-2030 establishes Biodiversity and Ecosystems as one of five strategic direction where CANARI can make a difference in the Caribbean.

Biodiversity conservation and sustainable use have always been a focus of CANARI’s work, and remain central to achieving our mission. Our work focuses on developing and sharing methods and approaches for biodiversity and ecosystem management that are aligned to national, regional and international frameworks and that optimise the contribution of nature to development. Major areas of work will include:

• supporting local-level natural resource stewardship;
• promoting landscape management initiatives;
• building the health and resilience of Caribbean ecosystems;
• rehabilitating and restoring ecosystems;
• strengthening participatory frameworks, mechanisms and knowledge bases.

Through our Local Ecosystem Stewardship Flagship area, CANARI aims to deliver:

• Healthy ecosystems delivering ecosystem goods and services that support Caribbean people, their health and livelihoods.
• Greater ownership, responsibility for, and action by local community members, CBOs and SMEs to conserve and sustainably manage biodiversity and ecosystems in the Caribbean.
• Increased recognition of the current and potential role and impact of community members, CBOs and SMEs in stewardship for biodiversity conservation, protection, sustainable use and restoration.

Through our Nature-based Solutions Flagship, CANARI aims to deliver:

• Sustained and enhanced delivery of ecosystem goods and services to support resilient local livelihoods, especially given the dependence on natural resource-based livelihoods in the Caribbean.

Key implementation methods for the Strategic Plan include co-creating knowledge and developing tools, integrating local, traditional and scientific knowledge, facilitating access to knowledge, capacity-building, technical assistance to support policy development, and communication to raise awareness and influence policy and practice. 

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To support implementation of the Strategic Plan, CANARI continues to engage with a range of partners including governmental agencies, intergovernmental agencies, civil society, organisations, donors, and national, regional, and international networks.

CANARI develops partnerships in various areas of work, including research, policy development, issues analysis and strategy development, capacity-building and technical support, and action learning and field implementation.

In support of the biodiversity and ecosystems commitments in the Strategic Plan, CANARI has taken action to:

• enhance ecological and socio-economic resilience on the South Coast, St. Vincent through piloting a local blue-green economic development model that protects, restores and sustainably uses coastal and marine ecosystems;
• promote mainstreaming of the ecosystem approach to fisheries to enhance climate change adaptation, conservation and sustainable management of small-scale fisheries in Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago;
• strengthen awareness and build the capacity of policymakers to incorporate Indigenous and Local Knowledge and effectively engage Indigenous Peoples and local communities in biodiversity decision-making and policy formulation in Trinidad and Tobago;
• promote sustainable development in Saint Lucia by integrating Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and ecosystem valuation into the tourism, agriculture, and urban sectors;
• build local conservation leadership and nurture sustainable development by developing locally-driven conservation strategies and providing implementation grants to civil society organisations in Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines;
• design and implement a Fellowship programme (Yves Renard Fellowship Programme) to strengthen sustainable livelihoods for biodiversity conservation in Haiti; and
• partner with the Government of Grenada from to execute a National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) of the tri-island state of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique.