Vulnerability of Tourism-Dependent Caribbean Islands to Climate Change

Vulnerability of tourism-dependent Caribbean islands to climate change Johanna Forster Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of East Anglia June 2010 © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived therefrom, may be published without the author’s prior, written consent. Abstract Small islands in the Caribbean are expected to be particularly vulnerable to changing environmental and climate conditions because of their strong dependence on fragile marine and coastal resources for tourism and fisheries. The thesis investigates a range of issues surrounding the vulnerability of Caribbean marine and coastal tourism livelihoods to climatic change. Indicator-based vulnerability assessments are increasingly used as decision-support tools for policy development. A comparison of different assessment methods highlights some of the inherent methodological limitations of these approaches, and the value of case-study approaches to investigating island vulnerability. Subsequent analyses of marine and coastal characteristics of Caribbean islands, and of marine and coastal resource use by the tourism industry on the Caribbean island of Anguilla, identify important implications of climate-induced variations in hurricane activity for the tourism industry, and associated livelihoods and economies. An investigation of the social resilience of marine-dependent livelihoods on Anguilla highlights possibilities for adaptation to changing environmental conditions. However, these findings also emphasise the precariousness of natural resource- dependency on tropical small islands, and the urgent need for more effective environmental management to enhance the resilience of social-ecological marine systems. Finally, in order to understand current constraints to natural-resource management, an examination of the environmental governance of the Caribbean UK Overseas Territories suggests that a suite of common policy interventions, such as greater regional cooperation, capacity building and financial support, could help support sustainable and adaptive management of marine resources throughout the Caribbean. 2 Acknowledgements This research would not have been possible without the input and support of many people. Firstly, I would like to extend a huge thank you to my supervisors, Jenny Gill, Iain Lake and Andrew Watkinson, for their constant support and guidance during the course of my PhD. I would particularly like to thank Jenny who joined my supervisory panel during my second year and has provided me with unwavering academic support and encouragement ever since. I am extremely grateful both to ESRC and NERC for funding this PhD, to the School of Environmental Sciences at the UEA and the IUCN Réunion conference organisers who provided me with additional fieldwork funding. Thanks to the Climatic Research Unit who provided a very friendly working atmosphere, and excellent computer support throughout: thank you Mike! I am extremely grateful to all of the people who helped me during my fieldwork on the Caribbean island of Anguilla: Katie for her help with data collection, Stuart and Marnie for their professional and personal support, and to James Gumbs and staff at the Anguilla Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources and Farah Mukhida at the Anguilla National Trust for practical support. Thanks also to Ian Bateman and Stephanie Watkins who provided assistance with the choice experiment project design and to Alan Ovenden for supplying the maps of Anguilla. A very special thanks to my field researcher Peter, whose enthusiasm and diligence in data-entry saved me many hours on my return home! However, this research would not have existed at all without the many people who kindly gave up their work and holiday time to talk to me: the tourists, fishers and tourist operators of Anguilla. In addition, I would like to thank the UK and UKOT government and NGO representatives who willingly participated in the study. 3 This thesis has benefitted from the advice of a number of people at UEA. I would like to thank Peter Simmons, Lars Otto Naess and Allison Perry for their thought-provoking input on various aspects of this research. Thanks also to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research for welcoming me into the fold and introducing me to the world of interdisciplinary environmental sciences. Specifically, I would like to thank Kirsten Abernethy for her support and brain-storming walks around the lake, especially during the last few months of the write-up. To all of my friends, I would like to say thank you for their support and encouragement over the last three and a half years. In particular, thanks to my UEA friends: Michelle, Sarah, Alexandra, Foye, Kirsten, Emily, Pete, the coral groupers Lorenzo, Maria and Alli, and my Chelsea buddy Saffron. Thanks to Pat, my friend and fellow lady scientist, for her inspiration. Thanks to Beth, Zoë, Chloë, Amy, Tom, Osmaan and Holly for reminding me that there is a world outside of academia! Finally, I would like to thank my wonderful family, my parents Peter and Rosalyn, and brother Ali for their support and encouragement always, even making the trip over to the Caribbean to lend a hand! Last, but definitely not least, I want to say a very big thanks to Alex for being there during this entire project, with all of the inevitable ups and downs, and for his endless patience, love and support. 4 Table of contents Chapter 1 General Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Caribbean island vulnerability to climate change: a 18 comparison of vulnerability assessment methods Chapter 3 The vulnerability of tourism to environmental change in the 44 Caribbean island of Anguilla Chapter 4 The influence of changing risks of hurricane impact on 81 tourist preferences in the Caribbean Chapter 5 Caribbean island marine-dependent livelihoods and 118 resilience to environmental change Chapter 6 Marine biodiversity in the Caribbean UK Overseas 161 Territories: perceived threats and constraints to environmental management Chapter 7 General Conclusions 200 Appendix A 216 Appendix B 217 Appendix C 218 Appendix D 240 Appendix E 256 5 Chapter 1 General Introduction Sandy Island, Anguilla 1 Chapter 1: General Introduction Chapter 1 General Introduction Small islands are the subject of considerable environmental concern because of their vulnerability to numerous stressors, including habitat destruction, invasive species, resource over-exploitation and increasingly, the impacts of climate change (Wong et al. 2005). In addition, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified that small islands, primarily in the tropics and subtropics, share many common features that serve to increase their vulnerability to the effects of changing climatic and environmental conditions (Nurse & Sem 2001; Mimura et al. 2007). These characteristics include their geographical remoteness, small physical size and proneness to natural disasters, as well as socio-economic factors such as a dependence on natural resources, coastal infrastructure and limited financial support (Briguglio 1995; Nurse & Sem 2001). Climate change is expected to affect tropical island ecosystems significantly with, for example, sea-level rise leading to the flooding of important coastal habitats (Wong et al. 2005), elevated sea temperatures causing coral bleaching and mortality (McWilliams et al. 2005), and potential increases in the intensity and frequency of hurricanes leading to accelerated coastal erosion and habitat destruction (Webster et al. 2005; Nicholls et al. 2007). These impacts are anticipated to have severe socio- economic consequences for the economies and livelihoods that depend on marine and terrestrial ecosystems for important ecosystem goods and services (Fischlin et al. 2007). There is mounting evidence of direct global climate changes on island and coastal resource-dependent communities, principally in terms of negative impacts on marine and coastal tourism (Uyarra et al. 2005; Fish 2006), and fish stocks and fisheries 2 Chapter 1: General Introduction (Allison et al. 2009; Badjeck et al. 2010). Increases in the frequency and severity of coral bleaching in coastal zones is likely to affect reef-dependent tourism and fishing industries (McWilliams et al. 2005; Uyarra et al. 2005) and projected climate change impacts on fish species distributions may have major consequences for tropical fisheries (Cheung et al. 2009). For millions of people around the world that depend on marine and coastal resources for livelihood opportunities and food security, the repercussions of these environmental changes are expected to be considerable (Moberg & Folke 1999; Spalding et al. 2001). Natural resource-dependency describes the fundamental association between the livelihoods of individuals, sectors or communities, and a natural resource and its local economy (Adger 2000). Such close links between social and ecological systems, of which island and coastal resource-users are a prime example, are considered to have major implications for the capacity to cope with and adapt to environmental change (Adger et al. 2005; Thomas & Twyman 2005). Island communities that depend strongly on already depleted natural resources and degraded coastal systems, and that may have few viable economic alternatives, are therefore extremely susceptible to changes in the conditions of the natural resources upon which

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