ByKimberly Ramkhalawan From Magnetic Media

Jamaica, May 30th 2017: Jamaica is currently playing host nation to the region’s first symposium on Climate Change and World Heritage.

This year’s theme, “Rallying for the protection of Culture and Heritage in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) under a sustainable 21st Century climate change agenda”. The aim, to bring awareness to the threat of climate change among world heritage site managers and policymakers, as well as the main elements of useful management strategies to respond to climate change.

The meeting is hosted by Jamaica’s Culture Gender, Entertainment and Sport Ministry in collaboration with UNESCO and the Climate Change Division of Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation.

Some 40 delegates from 12 Caribbean countries with existing World Heritage properties are expected to attend.

Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Dr. Janice Lindsay says participants are persons who manage the heritage sites and are able to speak on how they function, and give policy makers a better understanding so they can speak to the various Government responses from the different islands. In addition, Dr. Lindsay says the sector’s best practices will be shared among stakeholders. In acknowledging the impact World heritage sites has on local economies, a second workshop will be held as a follow-up in the near future.

IMAGE: Vaz pose with a group of other attendees of a three-day symposium on World Heritage and Climate Change which opened at the Jamaica Pegasus on May 29. The Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport is hosting the symposium. Others in the photograph are: (seated l-r) Melissa Marin Cabrera, Technical Officer, Livelihoods and Climate Change Unit, International Union for Conservation of Nature; Dr Janice Lindsay, Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport; Laleta Davis-Mattis, Chairman, Culture, Advisory Committee, Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO; (back row l-r) Vincent Sweeney, Head of the Caribbean Sub-Regional Office, UN Environment; Victor Marin, representing the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS); Dr Brenda Ekwurzel, Director of Climate Science, Union of Concerned Scientists; His Excellency Bernardo Guanche Hernandez, Cuba’s Ambassador to Jamaica and Yuri Peshkov, Cultural Programme Specialist, UNESCO Cluster Office.

For more on this story go to; http://magneticmediatv.com/2017/05/fnms-first-budget-presentation-economy-worse-than-plp-said/