 Today we are in Marigo, this is a very important place. Mangro Forest is a very important ecosystem, especially in the island states such as the OECS. As OECS we continue to promote and advocate for environmental sustainability and increasingly we can see even greater importance. Even with the situation of resilience we know that we face tremendous vulnerability to climate change and other impacts and right here in this mangrove ecosystem it is really one of our key tools to fight in this vulnerability. Mangrove stands for mangas are also important nurseries for fish and other species many of which are of commercial value. So you'll find that the estuaries or bays where you get mangroves they serve as nurseries for fish, for crabs, even for lobsters because the nutrient cycle which is taking place like the falling leaves that decay in the water you know produce nutrients which are consumed by smaller organisms which are eaten by larger organisms etc. In some mangroves you'll get fishes like the tap on, what you call the guaricai that tend to frequent at a certain part of the life cycle they might live in near the mangrove and so on. Mangrove is a cultural service if we look at it in terms of a cultural function for St Boucher and some of the eastern Caribbean countries crabs are a source of food for communities as well as the traditional knowledge and a cultural aspect for us. Mangrove plays a significant role in terms of helping to conserve our shorelines helping to serve as you know essentially your last line or first line of defence. In the OECS most of our communities are along the coast and mangroves serve to protect these communities from wave action especially when we think of hurricanes and storms and strong winds. When you get black mangrove some people say that the black mangrove their flowers are good for bees so you know when the bees forage they will sometimes frequent the black mangrove trees which produce good pollen which of course the bees use in honey production. You find across the region and in St Lucia in particular where we are right now that over the years mangrove swamps have been thinned out sometimes for charcoal sometimes to allow for construction and so on and sometimes mangrove swamps are filled in because they consider to be breeding grounds for mosquitoes and so on. That is unfortunate because the role that mangroves play in protecting our coastline in terms of helping to guarantee our food resource and so on it far outweighs any perceived nuisance value that they may have. Mangroves are excellent carbon sinks they take in carbon we know most all trees take in carbon and put out or respire oxygen but mangroves in particular because they are long-lived because of those intricate root systems are able to sequester even more carbon than the average tree. They also have to purify the water the coastal water because sediment which is in the water settles between the roots and in that way they also help to create new land so to speak. Mangroves also provide this intermittent kind of environment so we know we have the saltwater which you know is what our oceans and seas are made out of and normally we'd have freshwater resources as well. Mangroves are the place where those two meet mangroves are able to withstand high amounts of salt but also high amounts of fresh water of course different mangroves are able to take on different salt tolerance so red mangroves which is what we predominantly have here they are able to take on the most salt. We have different places here, different countries with new ecosystems, everyone is able to manage and protect their land for the benefit of everyone. As we promote greener and bluer economy approaches you know this is one of the resources that would be very critical in this arsenal and as we continue to promote resilience against vulnerability it also is a national in our in our fight. The biodiversity support program in ACP coastal environments which we call Biospace is a project that is funded by the European Union. We receive the grant from the European Union in the amount of 10.7 million euros. The Biospace project will be assisting the OECS member states in looking at activities which range from looking at the value of coastal species you know from reef looking at possibly the harvesting of crabs and regeneration but essentially helping the countries to effectively manage those coastal and marine resources to ensure not just conservation but sustainability so that the countries in the region and its peoples could benefit from the livelihoods that we depend on from these resources.