 Hello and welcome to a Department of Sustainable Development feature on issues and answers, a production of the Government Information Service. My name is Jesse Leance, Information Assistant at the Department of Sustainable Development. I'm joined by colleague Kate Wilson. She is the National Focal Point for the Escazoa Agreement and our legal officer of, well, the Conference of the Parties will be happening for the Escazoa Agreement, the third one in Santiago de Chile. I know Kate, you are preparing for that. So thank you so much for taking some time out to speak to us today. Wonderful. Thank you very much, Jesse. You know, it's always, always a pleasure to be sitting with you to continue our dialogue on the Escazoa Agreement, which full name is the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters, not only in Latin America but in the Caribbean as well. Thank you, Kate. St. Lucian and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean was initially recognized as a region that did not have too many mechanisms for transparency and access to environmental information. We have seen so far, since the adoption of the Escazoa Agreement, quite a bit of work that has been happening in the region speak to us about the extent to which the needle has been pushed where Escazoa is concerned in the region in terms of pushing its mandate, in terms of public participation, environmental decision making, environmental decision making and justice in environmental matters. Yes, wonderful, Jesse. Indeed, as you said, it is not just pushing the thread. We have now had a complete needle work has been done. During the first conference of parties, which took place under the Escazoa Agreement, when the agreement comes into force, one year after it comes into force, you are required to have the first conference of parties. The Escazoa Agreement came into force on April 22nd, which is very aptly named Mother Earth Day, and it came into force in 2021. So the year after, which was 2022, April 22nd, was when the first conference of parties was held, and it was held at the headquarters of the secretariat to the agreement, which is the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean UN ECLAC, and they are based in Santiago de Chile. So, what happened at the first conference of parties? Well, a number of things will endost and approved. First and foremost, we needed to create the subsidiary. First and foremost, we needed to create the rules and procedures of how we are going to conduct the conference of parties, and the modalities to deal with it, how it is going to work on a day-to-day basis. We also needed to put in place the subsidiary bodies of the Escazoa Agreement, which are committees like to support implementation and compliance. You needed to have the rules to support that. Before you can put any structure in place, you need to have rules by which they are governed. So, the first conference of parties took care of that. And then the second conference of parties came, and it was an extraordinary meeting. It took place in Buenos Aires, which is the capital of Argentina, and that was in 2023 last year. And it was an extraordinary meeting simply because it is a meeting which was called for the specific purpose of creating the members to sit on the committee to support implementation and compliance. And so, right now, as we are coming towards the third cup, and we will speak about that in due course, which is to be held in Santiago de Chile next week, from the 22nd of April through to the 24th, you find that the structures have been put in place, the rules are now in place. There are people sitting on that committee, and now the implementation plans for most countries are already in place now. Some countries are still working on them, but for St Lucia, St Lucia has completed its national roadmap. So now at this upcoming cup, the whole intention now is to ensure that we get endorsement of the national plans so that we begin the actual work on the ground. We have put in all those recommendations that are in the various national implementation plans from the countries that have worked on them to put them in place at the national level. And most importantly, the action plan for human rights defenders, and we will talk about that as we go along. Absolutely. And we're going to speak a little bit more about COP3 in just a moment. St Lucia, we ratified in 2020, December of 2020, and since then, speak to us about what has happened procedurally. I understand that after ratification, we would have had to develop a concept note, begin to prepare the way forward as you indicated, preparing an implementation roadmap. Tell us what we have achieved so far on the ground. Okay, wonderful. So St Lucia, as you rightly said, we were one of the first countries together with Antigua and Guyana who signed on the agreement when it was open for signature on the 27th of April 2017. 2018, sorry. And then a year after, two years after, we ratified. So after ratification, and you know the difference between signature ratification, ratification ensures that we are now legally bound to put the structures in place to ensure that the Eskazoo agreement is implemented effectively in St Lucia. So then what we embarked on doing, first and foremost, we had not, the secretariat didn't have all the procedures and the subsidiary bodies in place at the time, so when ratification was done, so what we proceeded to do was to have, first and foremost, educated the public about what the Eskazoo agreement is about, why is it important, what is the meaning of ratification, and you know, so we had to do that sort of thing. So we went on the ground in the schools, went all of the place talking, if you go down on YouTube, or you use the, on Facebook pages of the various media houses, or you look on the observatory, which serves as a clearinghouse for all things Eskazoo, which is on the Ecklach Secretariat website. There is a specific website for the Eskazoo agreement, which is called the Observatory, principle 10 Observatory, where we find so much information on the Eskazoo agreement. You can see the videos of COP 1, a ball-by-ball commentary of what happened on, at video of what happened at COP 1 as well as COP 2. So let's get into what happened, the integrity. So apart from the public awareness, we had, as I said, we went through, as St. Lucia sat on the committee to put, to work together with Mexico and Uruguay, Argentina to get the rules and modalities for the operation of the committee to support implementation on compliance, which is a very, very important. So St. Lucia was represented? St. Lucia was represented on that committee who formed the rules. You would recall at COP 2, or was it COP 1, that I presented it on behalf of that committee and it was adopted and endorsed. So we had the rules of that, we also had the rules of the conference of parties that was adopted and endorsed. So then the first thing we had to do was to put the committee in place. So we got, we had a call, you recall you and I worked closely on that. A call was sent throughout Latin America asking for persons who, and there was a set criteria to sit on that committee. We got at least 46 at the time, we got 46 entries for persons who obviously we had to do our due diligence and we had to vet it. We took it down to 25, it went down again to 10 and finally we had to take it down to seven. And there was a rigorous process and eventually, as I said, in Argentina last year, we finally settled on the seven members. And what I'm very, very happy to say is that we have three persons who have been elected for six years to represent. The two from the Caribbean, we have Justice Olivetti, Rita Olivetti-Joseph from Grenada and we have Carol Excel Stevens from Jamaica and of course we have Patricia Madudal from Costa Rica. These are the persons who are going to be serving for six years and that is very good because that means we now have Caribbean representation for a significant period of time on that committee. And the committee, as its name says, implementation and compliance to ensure that we implement what the Eskazoo Agreement says and also to ensure that the member states, when they ratify, they actually comply with their obligations under the Eskazoo Agreement. So a lot has been done but the real work, you know, anything to do with the environment doesn't, there's no time frame on it. It continues, the work must continue, the advocacy must continue, the public awareness, the training capacity building, the cooperation, developing cooperation with other countries, with agencies within the country, developing partnerships, putting out a voluntary fund, getting it on board because obviously when we do those projects, somebody has to pay for it. Absolutely. So St. Lucia has covered quite a bit of ground as you indicated in public education, public awareness of the Eskazoo Agreement. The whole idea of access to environmental information, the whole idea to justice for environmental rights defenders. So post, along with the continuation of the public awareness, speak to us about what else has transpired so far for St. Lucia towards its implementation and compliance of this agreement. Wonderful. So what we were doing very recently is that we were from as early as, well, from November of last year, we worked closely with a consultant and that consultant comes with a lot of experience. She was an elected representative of the public for Jamaica when we were negotiating the Eskazoo Agreement. Her name is Mrs. Danielle Andrade-Goff. She's a lawyer by profession, an environmental lawyer and as I said, she's familiar with the Eskazoo process. So she worked very closely with us. She was elected by the Secretariat, Eklak, to work with us, to work with St. Lucia. So we worked very closely with the Department of Sustainable Development to get our national implementation roadmap up and running. So first and foremost, the Eklak, Eklak as the Secretariat, they publish, they develop what is known as an implementation guide and that guide, again, I'm imploring members of the public. It is a free thing. You don't have to pay for it. If you go on the Eklak website, you just Google E-C-L-A-C-Eklak or C-P-L-C-E-P-A-L, which is the Spanish version of it, .org, and you scroll down there, you would see a line that says observatories. If you click on that, it will take you to four, I think there are four or six observatories. One of them is Principle 10, P10. You click on that, it will give you all, it will take you right there to the Eskazo agreement and it will give you infographics, it will give you publications. As I said, it will give you the videos of the various cops. It will give you public and now on PSAs, public service announcements. We have done anything that you want to find out about the Eskazo agreement. That page, that observatory is a clearinghouse for it. And what we do is we feed information. As information comes, as national focal point, this is what we are required to do. The Department of Sustainable Development houses myself as the national focal point and we feed as the information comes in, we feed it to the secretariat and they put it into the clearinghouse, into the observatory. So say, for example, we have our climate change bill that has gone through parliament. That would be something that would be there. You understand? If you have a styrofoam bill to deal with plastics and to take care of the styrofoam and single-use plastics, that would be on the observatory. So everything to do with the environment, our national determined contributions, you would be able to click and find information on that. Our state of the environment report, you may be able to find stuff like that. So we have done that. And then we are going a little further, as I told you. We were putting the structures in place. To get this implementation plan up and running for St. Lucia. So we are at the stage where it has gone to the printers. And this upcoming COP next week, which is April 22nd to the 24th in Santiago de Chile, we will be presenting the printed version to the conference of parties for the endorsement and their approval. St. Lucia's implementation roadmap. Yes. Understood. And with that, we will take a quick break. You are watching Issues and Answers, a Department of Sustainable Development feature, looking at COP 3 for the Escazo Agreement coming up. St. Lucia will be represented by the National Focal Point, Miss Kate Wilson. And she will be going over to Santiago de Chile to present, as she indicated, the implementation roadmap, how St. Lucia is going to put in place the measures that have been advised under the Escazo Agreement into St. Lucia and change our way of life as it pertains to access to environmental information. Do stay tuned. Fisher folk in St. Lucia are facing many negative effects of climate change. Life is difficult because it can go deeper. We can't buy more fuel to make our lives better, but we can buy more gasoline. That's why life is difficult. Part of this is because it affects our life. It affects our lives, it affects our lives and it affects our machines. It also affects the placement of fish. It's difficult for a fish to sit on a chair when it's hot, it's better to put it in place and adapt to climate change. Thank you so much for staying tuned. You are watching Issues and Answers, a Department of Sustainable Development feature. We're talking COP 3 for the Escazo Agreement. We will be soon having this conference of the parties representing us, representing St. Lucia, will be the national focal point, Kate Wilson, along with our permanent secretary at the department, Mrs. Anita Montout. Just before we went to break, Kate, we were just speaking about St. Lucia being able to present this year, this year's COP, the implementation roadmap for St. Lucia. Speak to us a little bit about what that contains. I know there has been extensive consultation in the lead-up to the development of this roadmap. Tell us what can we expect going forward. Yes, thank you very much, Jesse. You would recall a while back, after we had ratified what the Department of Sustainable Development, what we had done was develop a concept note. We had gone through the Escazo Agreement and picked out all the obligations and the things that we needed to put in place at the national level, and we developed a concept note. But what the Escazo Secretariat did, they developed, after we had developed this concept note, which was endorsed and adopted by our cabinet, the cabinet of ministers. But the Secretariat, having developed the implementation plan, and that implementation plan was a plan to be a guide to be used by all the countries, and that is open to all 43 countries that are eligible to be part of the Escazo Agreement. That is the 43 countries forming the Latin American and Caribbean region. So far, I think we have 15 who have ratified, and we have maybe about 22 or 23 who have signed on. But among those, we have those that a number of countries were developing the roadmap. And so we have moved past that concept note, and that roadmap, as I said, we're working closely with Mrs. Andrade, who was a consultant contracted by the Secretariat to assist us. And this comes with a significant consultation with the public. So the first thing we had to do was develop a baseline assessment of all our laws, our policies, our plans to see if they are in line with the Escazo Agreement. We also looked at our constitution to see, in certain countries of Latin America, they already have rights of nature, rights of the environment as part of the enshrined in the constitution. We do not have that. So one of the main things in the development of that roadmap, the National Implementation Roadmap, was to do the baseline assessment. The second thing they did was to do a stakeholder, to have what is known as a mapping of stakeholders. Who is the Escazo Agreement intended for? So you must know that. You must have a target audience. So we had to look, of course, you know, as I said before, and I keep saying this, environmental matters should not be handled by governments alone. They are cross-cutting in nature, and everybody should have a seat at the table, at the decision-making table. So of course we had to map out who those persons are. So we had, we looked at the youth, we looked at women, we looked at academia, civil society, government, you know, organizations like the National Trust, you know, the CYEN, the Caribbean Youth Environmental Network. So we had an extensive mapping of the stakeholders. So and then we developed the stick, we took it down to those that are closer to the agreement in terms of who is going to actually implement the, you know, because you will have a smaller core group of persons who will actually be involved in the access to information process, you know, and access to justice process, which is the judiciary. And then you have the wider body, which would be a consultative body where everybody is involved. So we had to strategically look at that, to map that out. So that was the second part of it. Then the third part we had to look at was the governance and organizational structure with everything, like a school. You must have a principal, you must have teachers, you know, who is going to guide the students. Well, it's the same thing with the implementation roadmap. We must have a structure in terms of who's going to govern it, who's going to be the advisory body, who's going to be, so all of that was done. And then of course we have how the, one of the main things is to develop how we are going to deal with human rights defenders. And let me go back to the Eskazo agreement. The Eskazo agreement is the only agreement in the world which has provisions for the protection, the promotion, and the, you know, to ensure and punish attacks against persons who are human rights defenders, when of environmental matters that is. So when they are in the course of doing their work, defending the environment, they cannot be arbitrarily killed. And you know our region, the Latin American region, is one of the most dangerous region in the world for human rights defenders. So obviously our roadmap needed to have, you know, an input in terms of how we are going to deal with human rights defenders. Now you may ask me, and I'm not going to preempt you here, but you, one may say, oh we do not have that issue in the Caribbean. That is not so, because you have in Jamaica, you have persons who are agitating against the box-site mining and some of those human rights defenders are being threatened. You have, you know, but it is worse in the Latin American countries. But in St. Lucia, for example, you have had issues where you have seen our persons on the beach lobly, and you remember that video that went viral about St. Lucia, we don't know anybody who was singing the song, Jack, don't want me to behave on my beach, where, you know, we were denied access. The public was being denied access to, you know, a beach that they were normally always using because of a project, you understand? And that's important because the, as you indicated, the Excalibur Agreement reinforces that connection between human rights and environmental information, environmental rights, and so on. But the line seems to be blurred for small island developing states a lot, I should say, because once you are a developing nation, you have foreign investment, you have all of these things happening, then those issues seem to be lost and displaced. So, I mean, you indicated about the beach and not having access to the beach, but in what other ways do we find ourselves? How can we reconcile that context for islands like St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada? Wonderful, Jesse, you are quite right because one must not forget that the Excalibur Agreement is not simply an environmental agreement on environmental treaty. It is a wonderful tool for the development of democracy, for transparency, for accountability, you understand? And if you want good governance, and it is also a good tool for the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, you understand? Now, when we talk about development, we are small island developing states and we are interested in developing our people and developing the scarce resources that we have. But we must maintain a balance. And how do we do this? We must do this in a sustainable way and to do this in a sustainable way to ensure that there is equity among the people, that the developers don't just get the bigger share of the pie, but that the public, their health and the health of our flora and fauna are not compromised. And this is where the Excalibur Agreement is extremely important, you understand? The Excalibur Agreement is designed to touch the poor and marginalize vulnerable groups and persons and human rights defenders, indigenous persons, fall within that group. I understood. Just circling back to COP as we wrap up, speak to us a little bit about, well, this year's COP is going to be ordinary, but you've mentioned that we will be presenting our implementation roadmap, so I think it's quite extraordinary for St. Lucia. Speak to us about your role particularly, just briefly, at the COP so far. I know you've been a presiding officer looking at the Committee for Implementation and Compliance. Speak to us about that feat, because it's quite a considerable amount of work has gone into that. And, of course, what we can expect as we wrap up this interview. Okay, wonderful, Jesse. So this third COP, it's not, it's an ordinary meeting and as you rightly said in the usual context of the word, it is extraordinary because we are going to be presenting our, finally, our printed version of our national implementation plan. So to me, that's extraordinary. But when we talk about an extraordinary and an ordinary meeting within the context of a conference of parties, an extraordinary meeting. I understand. An extraordinary meeting, a meeting that is called when the parties, together with the Secretariat, feels that it is necessary, which was what happened last year when we needed to put the Committee to support implementation and compliance in place. So we call that extraordinary meeting. So what an ordinary meeting would be a meeting of the COP that we deal with, you know, the agenda as per usual. Okay, and that is to be at least once every two years, which is when the ordinary meeting. So the next one is coming up. And as I said, next week it starts on the 22nd of April and it will go to the 24th. But then we have the 25th and the 26th when you have a few other meetings being held. So you would have a meeting of the Committee to support implementation and compliance, as well as other meetings to deal with, you know, matters extraneous to the Eskazoo agreement. Okay, so one of the things, as I said, what is going to happen on the first day, which is the 22nd, as usual, for everything you'd have the registration of parties. And then you will have, later in the morning from about nine, you'll have the Committee to support implementation and compliance are going to hold their third meeting. And of course, whatever they are, whatever they have done over the, since the extraordinary meeting of COPS since last year, they are going to report to the Conference of Parties to see where they're at in terms of what they've done and what structures they've developed, the modalities of operation. And that was again done through a rigorous process of consultation. There were several different versions of the rules. We gave our input and we sent it to the elected members of the public and through the regional mechanisms, they got the feedback from the public until they finally came up with, you know, modalities which they are going to take to the Conference of Parties next week for their endorsement. So that is going to be done. Then we also will be having a meeting of the presiding officers. And you know, St. Lucia, we sit in the vice chair position. There is Uruguay chairs with Dr. Machelo Cusias. He sits as the chair of the Conference of Parties. And then there are four countries, St. Lucia included, who sits in the vice chair position. So this year, we are going to have around about 10 o'clock. We are going to have, at the same time that the committee to support implementation and compliance are having their meeting, we will be having a meeting of the presiding officers. Technically, we should both be at the same meeting, but because of space and time, you find we are having them parallel. But again, the presiding officers are going to be reporting to the Conference of Parties what they are doing, because this is the year when we are electing new, we are expected to elect new presiding officers. Because we have reached the two-year mark, and then it is now for a new speed of presiding officers to come on. Now, there may be one or two things. The presiding officers may continue, the current presiding officers may continue, or we may have an election of the other presiding officers. So let me very quickly tell you again. And then, of course, there will be the opening ceremony. And as usual, if opening ceremonies, you have the president of Chile, I expect is going to be there. And of course, we have elected representatives of the public. But on the second day, which is the Tuesday, that is when we will be presenting our roadmap. And of course, we will be giving a report on where we are at in terms of national implementation. So that's very, very important. Focal points are going to be telling what Central Asia is doing, and Tiga is going to say what Tiga is doing. So it's an exciting, exciting day. And then we have lots of side events happening, you know, with those conferences. You have lots of different discussions on access to justice, access to... So, thanks, Justine. No problem. For the sake of programming, we have to stick a pin in it. Certainly, we can continue on social media, engaging the general public on what persons can expect for this year's Eskizu COP. As I indicated, you can go on to our social media platforms, Department of Sustainable Development, St. Lucia on our Facebook, Instagram, and we will be following, while you are in Santiago de Chile, following what's happening in the Alie Eskizu Agreements COP. And we will be providing updates round the clock. Thank you once again, Kate Wilson, our legal officer at the Department of Sustainable Development. She's also the national focal point for the Eskizu Agreement. COP 3, an ordinary meeting. St. Lucia will be presenting its implementation roadmap for how we will see the Eskizu Agreement implemented here on Island. We're talking about access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision making, as well as justice for environmental rights defenders here on Island. Thank you so much for watching. Again, the conversation continues on our social media platforms. We will be providing very some snippets on basic ways you can understand better the Eskizu Agreement and what it intends to do for countries like St. Lucia and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. My name is Jesse Leance, Information Assistant at the Department of Sustainable Development. Do stay tuned for more programming on this station. Goodbye. Thank you.