Earth Today | Learning from climate-resilience approaches in Hispaniola

TUCKED INTO the southwest corner of Hispaniola, where the Dominican Republic meets Haiti, lies a stretch of land and sea unlike almost anywhere else on Earth. Mountains give way to dry forest, dry forest gives way to mangroves, and mangroves give way to some of the clearest waters in the Caribbean.

This is the Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo Biosphere Reserve, one of only 21 transboundary biosphere reserves in the world, jointly designated by UNESCO across two nations, where a new project is beginning to work with nature to help communities adapt to a changing climate.

By design, a biosphere reserve consists of distinct zones: a strictly protected core, a buffer area for careful sustainable use, and a wider transition zone where communities live, farm, and fish. That structure only works if the people living within it have real, practical reasons to want the ecosystem to stay healthy, because their own well-being depends on it.

The project, led by the international development organisation CESAL and backed by the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund’s (CBF’s) Ecosystem-based Adaptation Facility, will work across the border communities of Pedernales in the Dominican Republic and Anse-à-Pitre and Thiotte in Haiti.

Over three years, it will support agroforestry, sustainable fishing and beekeeping practices, coral reef and coastal dune rehabilitation, while creating opportunities for women and young people to take a greater role in conservation.

The landscape itself justifies that investment. The reserve covers approximately 4,850 square kilometres, including around 900 square kilometres of sea. Around 16 per cent of the plant life found on the Haitian side of the reserve exists in this specific region alone, according to UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme.

The area is home to more than 1,400 plant species, including 439 found nowhere else on Earth, as well as rare animals such as the Hispaniolan solenodon, hutia and the rhinoceros iguana. Lake Enriquillo, one of the Caribbean’s largest wetlands and the region’s first site designated under the international Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, lies at the heart of this landscape. Along its coastline sits Bahía de las Águilas, an approximately 8.5‑kilometre stretch of coastline recognised for its exceptional ecological importance.

This matters beyond Hispaniola. The Caribbean Islands Biodiversity Hotspot is recognised as one of the most biologically significant regions on Earth, with 72 per cent of its roughly 11,000 endemic plant species, and 755 plant and vertebrate species considered globally threatened.

A reserve like Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo is one of the region’s most concentrated repositories of irreplaceable biodiversity, and its health directly affects the resilience of the ecosystems surrounding it. Restored mangroves support fish populations that feed communities across the wider Caribbean. Healthy coral reefs reduce storm damage on coastlines far beyond the reserve’s boundaries. Intact dry forests regulate water flows that sustain agriculture across both sides of the border.

A 2021 study published in Sustainability estimated that the annual welfare value of the reserve to Dominican society alone is approximately US$128 million, reflecting provisioning, supporting, and cultural ecosystem services that communities depend on but rarely see priced or protected.

Working with nature here is a practical response to the hurricanes, droughts, and coastal changes that the communities inside this reserve face alongside the rest of the Caribbean.

The CBF’s EbA Facility, supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety through the International Climate Initiative and KfW, is backing this project because protecting the ecosystems communities depend on is the most durable form of climate resilience available for the Caribbean region that cannot afford to lose either.

Contributed by Kurt Prospere, technical officer, Caribbean Biodiversity Fund