The Caribbean Region: Adaptation and Resilience to Global Change

International Seminar to be held at The University of the West Indies,

Mona campus, Jamaica, June 24th -27th, 2014 

The Department of Geography & Geology, University of the West Indies, Mona campus, in conjunction with DARG and the Climate Change Research Group, is hosting a Regional Meeting on ‘The Caribbean Region: Adaptation and Resilience to Global Change’ at The UWI Mona campus, Kingston, Jamaica in June 2014. Global change encompasses a multiplicity of interconnected economic, environmental, social and political factors that create vulnerabilities and invoke local responses. For small island developing states like those in the Caribbean region, the impacts of global change are often negative, though positive responses to new economic opportunities created by these changes are not precluded. Vulnerabilities to global change range in scale from national and regional economies, through  terrestrial and marine ecosystems, to communities, households and other social groups..

This is the 6th meeting in the RGS/IBG British-Caribbean Geography Series which, for two decades, has brought researchers periodically together to highlight geographical and related research on Caribbean economic and environmental change. The aim once again is to provide a forum for geographers and researchers in the natural and social sciences to present and discuss their work on the impacts of Global Change on Caribbean people, societies and landscape, modes of coping and adaptation, and strategies for building resilience.

Offers of Papers are invited on the following themes:

  • Climate variability and environmental change research in the Caribbean Basin.
  • Responding to economic and environmental shocks and stresses in Caribbean urban and rural settings.
  • Impacts of environmental and economic shocks and stresses on Caribbeanterrestrial and marine ecosystems.

Offers of papers, with an abstract of not more than 300 words, should be sent by 31 January 2014 to :

  • Dr Duncan McGregor (d.mcgregor@rhul.ac.uk) (Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey  TW20 0EX, UK)

Papers which fall outside these themes but are linked to the main theme will also be considered.

A Second Circular, with costings, will be sent out to those expressing an interest in attending, in January 2014.