 The Solution National Conservation Fund has been seven to eight years in the making. It started with the Sustainable Financing and Management of Eastern Caribbean Marine Ecosystems Project, which started in 2011 and ended in 2016. The relevant components of that project to the Solution National Conservation Fund were the establishment of a sustainable financing architecture, leading to the establishment of the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund. And equally important, the establishment of National Conservation Trust Funds in five of the participating countries, five OECS participating countries. So we should all be very proud that we are in fact taking the lead in the establishment of a National Conservation Fund and endowment fund at that too. A footnote that I would like to add here is that the Conservation Trust Fund standards have identified a gasation period of at least ten years for the establishment of these funds. And we have been able to do it in seven to eight years. And that's through a lot of hard work, through a lot of agencies and a lot of assistance. The Endowment Funds for the respective National Conservation Trust Funds were obtained from the Jeff Four Cycle. Each country allocated 4.5 million US dollars to the individual Endowment Funds. And that in many sense helped us to expedite from that ten years to seven to eight years. These funds are managed by the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund. And the board of the CBF is responsible for identifying and engaging the asset managers. As an Endowment Fund, the National Conservation Trust Funds are allowed to draw down on their annual interest. For the first two years, these National Conservation Trust Funds are eligible to draw down the entire interest. After the second anniversary, these funds will have to provide a one-to-one match. So you can imagine after this launch, most of the work is going to be focused on raising funds to further capitalize our Endowment Fund. During the project phase, a group of agencies and like-minded persons had constituted a project steering committee. And this project steering committee really worked very hard to establish the structure, composition and governance of the proposed St. Louisian National Conservation Fund. Many times we went to meetings and we didn't have quorum. Many times people would say they would come to meetings and they'd be in short. But we persist that we are here today. Many of you who worked so diligently are in the audience. And I'm really quite repetitious to call names, lest I mistock some. Nevertheless, it would be remiss of us not to mention the hard work put in by Mr. John Callix, who had chaired the project steering committee at that time. Many a meeting was held in his office. Ms. Shana Emanuel, who at that time represented the Fish Fish Department. Ms. Caroline Eugene, who represented the Department of Sustainable Development. Mr. Bishnu Tulsi and his team from the St. Louisian National Trust. Ms. Snalya Mahal from the CYE and Mr. Vaughan Charles, who at that time was representing the SMMA. And of course, we cannot forget Robbie Bovino from the Nature Conservancy. I said, many a discussion, many a misunderstanding not knowing where we are going, not knowing what the CBF was, what the relationship between us and the CBF is going to be. But I think that hard work has paid. In 2015, the cabinet approved the participation of four government agencies on the board. We also requested for a not-for-profit status for the SLUNCF. In addition, this core group of persons who formed the project steering committee worked on identifying the board membership and various governance documents, including a plan for identifying sustainable financing mechanisms for the St. Louisian National Conservation Fund. In 2016, the AG's office approved our not-for-profit status, and we became incorporated as the SLUNCF Inc under the Companies Act, Chapter 13.01 under the revised laws of St. Lucia. At that time, three members were identified as founding members, the St. Lucia National Trust, the St. Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association, and the Government Ministry responsible for economic development and planning. And these three founding members were responsible for undertaking all the necessary paperwork for incorporating the SLUNCF. In addition to the three founding members, there are eight other ordinary members. And based on the original intention of the creation of the National Conservation Fund, the St. Lucia National Conservation Fund is an example of public-private partnership. There are four public sector agencies and eight other agencies representing the private sector NGOs and CBOs. Together with the Antigua Mapper Trust, we signed the first pre-financing agreement in September 2016. In June 2017, we signed the partnership agreement once again with the Caribbean by Adam Stefan. Today, of the CBF participating countries that have operational national conservation trust funds, we stand next only to the Fonda Marion in the Dominican Republic and the Mapper Trust in Antigua and Barbuda. So we are way ahead with the rest of the pack. Indeed, together with Fonda Marion, we will be issuing grants this year. And this is indeed also very exciting. We've spent so much time operationalizing the fund. Now we are ready to issue grants. I want to make special mention of Ms. Anita James. Where's Anita? Anita was the first biodiversity coordinator. And she always made the clarion call and worked hard for the establishment of a biodiversity fund. She provided us guidance and assistance. I also must mention that in addition to the call for a biodiversity fund, Crispin and his team and the National Environmental Commission had also made requests for the establishment of an environmental fund. And more recently, the establishment of a climate change or climate change adaptation fund. All of this augurs well in the sense that we now have a fund that can provide the model for all other sub funds or all other new funds to be created. We cannot of course forget the Jeff Small Grants program. The program's objectives are very similar to and aligned very closely with those of the Solution National Conservation Fund. And we hope that we will work very closely in a strategic alliance as we look at how we can co-finance and co-sponsor different projects that meet our collective goals and objectives. Work is now ongoing on strengthening the National Designated Authority and designing the country programming for the Green Climate Fund. We hope that there will be close coordination with the SLUNCF and that we can also benefit from the Green Climate Fund. I also need to mention that attempts are on the way for mobilizing financing for sustainable forest management in collaboration with the UN Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network. So there is now an increased impetus, if you will, in mobilizing resources for conservation and environmental management. Finally, with the increased funding opportunities available for St. Lucia, we hope that there will be coordination and collaboration so that the strategic alliances can be formed in order to ensure that the funds are put to good use. The SLUNCF and the Jeff and the SLUNCF and the SLHTA Tourism Enhancement Fund have already been speaking about creating strategic alliances and we hope that we will be the model for such other alliances and collaboration. Thank you very much. The journey to this point has been a long and arduous one, with many peaks and troughs. To be able to launch the fund today is a dream come true for many people who have worked very hard to get to this point. Chief among them, I must say, is Dr. Versantia Chase and Mr. John Carrick. They started this journey eight to nine years ago. I am proud to state that the fund is taking the lead among all conservation trust funds within the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund network. We are among the first to sign the partnership agreement with the CBF and we will also be the first to be issuing grants, working in strategic alliance with the Jeff Small Grants Program in St. Lucia. This grant is for species conservation and restoration of the habitat of the white breasted thrush. We are in the process of designing and collaborating with a consortium of agencies in St. Lucia to apply for funding from the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund's ecosystem-based adaptation facility. So, you are behind from us very soon. I am delighted to announce the SLU NCF will be signing an MOU with the SLHTA Tourism Enhancement Fund. We are also in discussion with the IGY, Rodney B. Marina and Capella Resorts in Marigold for partnership to develop an environmental marina program through co-financing of such programs. Recently, we registered with the Accelerator Global Giving Community which will provide the SLU NCF the opportunity to build skills, access tools and grow our base of supporters to achieve crowdfunding success. The SLU NCF is developing a resource mobilization plan that will target national, regional and international entities in order to raise funds to further capitalise our endowment fund. There are some 52 standards for our conservation trust fund and we can safely say that the SLU NCF has achieved at least 80% of that standard. This stands us in good stead because it shows our governance instruments and documents of international standard. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the official launch of the SLU National Conservation Fund. Thank you. I must say I am quite excited to be here today and I was even more excited when Dr. Chase called me about a week ago or two weeks ago to ask me to just provide the experiences that we went through establishing the fund. I must say I was introduced to the project to establish a fund by two individuals. One is there and one is not here and I know Chris may not remember but several years ago, somewhere about 2009 or 2010 or so, both yourself and Miranda Morris from the System Development Department came to me to tell me there was this exciting project that they are involved in. It involves financing but they needed to get to the permanent secretary, Mr. Isaac Antony at the time to get his views or his lessons, you know, to participate in the project. Now, being a WDPS, you thought I was the right conduit to go to Mr. Antony. So having given me the objectives of the project and the details for the project, I proceeded to inform Mr. Antony and the first thing he told me was, okay, John, get the small committee together to examine some of the financing options that have been provided and provide a response back to Crispin and Miranda. So I proceeded to do so and there were several options that were provided which included things like putting some kind of tax on grocery passengers or tax on overseas visitors, tax on water extraction, trying to increase the fees for dives and some of the other activities that we do on islands. So the committee met and we said, you know, at that time, it was 2009, eight, nine or so, and we were just going through the financial crisis and the possible government at that time was, you know, no increases in anything in taxes and fees or whatever it was. So we went back and we told the committee or Mr. Dover and Miranda that, look, these alternatives, these finance mechanisms that you have given to us, you know, they're not able to be, they're not possible. They cannot work, so therefore, you know, we have to look for alternative, you know, strategies. So I was happy. I felt that was the end for me of my involvement in the project because they cannot be objectives of the project where we were supposed to establish the funds and really thinking of going through legislation and we had to, the fund is from the CBF is a marching grant. So we had to generate our own financing for the project. So I was very apprehensive about, you know, identifying strategies to help us achieve the wanton marching grant. So I was never very happy because I realized that it had been very difficult for us to, you know, identify the types of strategies to do so. And secondly, anytime you speak about, you know, establishing anything by legislation, it means that you have to go through the AG's office. You have to develop the legislation through the draft people. It always takes some time. So I thought, you know, hey, this product is really going to be, you know, a very, I would say, difficult but very challenging project. And, you know, do we have what we have, do we have what it takes to, you know, to go the full course? So I was quite happy to tell, you know, Chris Menendez around here, you know, so please tell the World Bank and GEM that we need to have some alternative strategies. However, what came back was okay, John, these strategies kind of work, then you may have to, you on the committee may have to know, identify other strategies to help us identify the funds. So obviously, I mean, I don't share it from challenges, so we took up a challenge. And we began trying to think of, you know, alternatives, you know, for the project. But along the way, Hurricane Thomas struck, so our attention was moved from the financing project into, you know, trying to recover from Hurricane Thomas. So having done all of this, we encountered a number of challenges along the way. And the first one, as I said, was to identify the, you know, alternatives for the strategies to finance our local trust funds. Another challenge that we also faced along the way was, why is people, you know, discussing and meeting and trying to come up with these strategies? The CDB, who was supposed to have been the project, what I call coordinators, suddenly pulled out. So we said, okay, we'll have the OECS secretary, so they are used to working with, you know, Caribbean countries, or the OECS countries, so there would be the natural choice. They started, but they pulled out again. So we said, well, I felt why it looked like the project wouldn't continue because there was nobody who we had in mind to be the project supervisor or coordinator because of eight countries involved. But then suddenly the TNC said, look, you know, we don't mind, we worked in the region, we worked in all the islands, so why not have us as the project coordinators? There were discussions amongst the islands, and we all agreed because we didn't want to lose the funding and we felt that even though the project was a challenge, but the objectives of trying to establish a sustainable financing mechanism for protected areas was a noble objective, and we could really put our shoulders together and try to get the project organized. So we supported the TNC in the project, being the project's coordinator. The next step was that I think in 2011 or 2012, there's a meeting in Grenada where all of the countries came together. That's in 2010, where we all discussed the issues with the strategies and we're all adamant that, you know, we were not able to use the strategies provided to come up with the financing mechanism. So at the meeting, another issue was raised. Why is it that we had to have the matching grants? Why is it that we couldn't not just receive the funding from the CVF without providing the matching grants? There was another alternative which we provided was, okay, why can't we get a percentage of the funds from the CVF instead of having to, you know, because you know we couldn't have raised whatever allocation we received. And the third point was, by the way, what is each country's allocation? So we could determine what we have to match in each country. So these were discussed at the meeting and it was agreed that, okay, fine, you couldn't raise the funds with the strategies. So why not have somebody come in to assist all of the countries in identifying new strategies? So we agreed to that. And that is where Dr. Haas came into the picture. Dr. Haas was from the U.S. and he was contracted to come to the Caribbean. And in 2013, he met with myself and some of the officers from the budget, the officer of the budget. And based on that meeting, we agreed to have seminar sustainable finance and options for conservation to help us to design and come up with, you know, these strategies. So we actually came up with a number of objectives for the seminar. And they were one, to raise awareness of the range of available mechanisms and the highest levels of governments. We wanted to get everybody involved from not just the officers but the ministers of governments, the permanent secretaries, deputy permanent secretaries. And two, to generate a forum momentum and a kind of action for designing and implementing the mechanism of a suit of mechanisms in Senusia. So again, you can see Senusia was always, you know, in the forefront of all of these discussions. We took upon our own to say that we couldn't do it so less from our own figure out what are the best alternatives that we can use and Dr. Haas gladly decided to assist us. The first workshop was held in 2014. And we had a number of panel experts. We had Karen McDonald who is here today. I can't remember that first meeting. There was Professor Haas from the Colorado State University and he was who specializes in tourism, natural resource management and protective area financing. He was represented from the Belize PA Conservation Trust who also had experience in identifying resources. And he had Ms. Jennifer Alexis-Ellard who was a travel philanthropy specialist. Coming out of that meeting, there were several strategies that were identified. There's one philanthropy. So we said, look, we will see the people like Oprah Winfrey, come to Senusia, you know, and a number of other movie stars, you know, whether they come in quietly. But we're not approach them because they think we'll understand what we're trying to do. So that was one. Support by local companies. Major companies like, well, Massies at that time was SuperJ, Digicel, it was Lime at the Time on Flow, Sunset Distillers, the Brewery. Why not, you know, try to get these companies involved too? Maybe give us a one-shot, you know, allocation or disbursement. We also spoke about amalgamating payment fees when divers and other people come into Senusia. They have to pay several different fees at several different times. So we said, look, why not amalgamate all the fees? Let the trust fund collect the fees, distribute to these companies, and we then retail to the three, four percent, you know, to go to the trust fund. They serve credit cards and debit cards. Again, people can pay for these tools, whatever it is, overseas. So again, they use the trust funds website, and we again retail in a small fee for our service. Then we also looked at the voluntary fees on online passenger tickets, or on... Well, visitors who are here, and the fee for cruise ship passengers. We found the cruise ship passengers fee was not something that they wanted to get into at the moment, because of what happened several years ago, where I think the head tax for the Karakom has a government leader, and I agree to put on the ten-dollar U.S. head tax on cruise ship passengers. But somehow that never materialized, because by the time the Prime Minister got back home, everybody was looking to see how they could have reduced that fee, so that never materialized. So we felt that that was not a good idea. The voluntary fee on online passenger tickets, we thought it could work, but it could work if it is implemented by everybody, or the countries participating. And we felt we could have spoken to some of the original organizations like TNC themselves, Karakom, to see whether that would have been a possibility. So that is still on the cards. I don't think we have ever taken it off, so it's still something that I think the trust fund can also consider as they move along. At that time, as Dr. Chase pointed out, we decided to already put together a small committee to look into not just the financial options, but to oversee the entire project. And again, somehow, I'm not sure how I got involved, but I'm not sure how I became the chair of that committee, but it's just a project that just not once grew for me, for whatever reasons, and I'm not sure. But I'm happy that I stayed. I must say the committee as Dr. Chase pointed out were very committed, very dedicated. She mentioned some of the names of the people on the committee, and some of them are here, Caroline and Snally or Vaughn is here as well. Shana is also here. Ms. Peter who is here and sometimes Mr. Nelson who used to deputize for her, they're all here. And I must say I worked on many, many committees in my short life, but that committee I really enjoyed working with them. There were numerous disagreements on, you know, some of the issues. They know, but still we came back day after day, month after month, you know, to be the challenge of trying to get this project, you know, up and running. I think one of the good things that we did was we began organizing ourselves even long before the actual project document was signed. The project was signed or approved by the World Bank in 2011 and TNT signed the documents in 2012. But as I said before by 28 and 29, we were ready for some of the activities. So even if the first between 2012 and 10 and 12 the activities were sent to the around trying to get TNT to meet all the conditions to get the document signed. But we still worked very diligently calling meetings probably every month. Sometimes we spent a whole afternoon, you know, discussing the issues. But slowly but surely we saw that we were making some headway with the project. So after the project was signed, it meant that now, you know, we really had to be looking at, you know, how do we establish the National Conservation Trust fund. Yes, we were talking about the financing mechanisms and so on, but the thing was the project is signed, we have four years you know, to get everything organized. So as all of the annals that, you know, we had all meetings everybody would say, okay, let's we have to legislate, go to parliament, etc. So yes, as part of the project we brought it under tourney. And just saying, you know, but wait a minute, you know, there is a simpler way to do this activity and a quicker way. If you want to establish a not-for-profit making an organization or a statutory which has the same objectives of the statutory body that you want to establish why not establish a company a not-for-profit making company with bylaws and articles of association and it would have the same impact that you want with your you know, your statutory body. So we were all surprised and at first we thought it wouldn't work. So we had several discussions but then we said okay, we give the go ahead for her to begin looking at, you know, a company. So within a couple of months she based on, you know, with advice from the steering committee she was able to prepare the bylaws and the articles of association for us to review. So we began reviewing the documents and at that time the TNC were also on our steering committee through Mr. Robbie Bovino. And so we were able to use the lawyers to guide us and help us to, you know, improve the articles and the bylaws. And so by the end of that year we had a completely revised set of articles of association bylaws. But then when we went back to your tourney to begin the registration process two things happened. One we were told that what we had revised did not follow the formats and the company's acts. So we had to go back and do some further revision. And secondly the original tourney was not available. So we were in the country because we're saying to get somebody new to come back and do the same all over again is going to cause a problem. However, we did, through Dr. Chase's, at first we did find another tourney and she was very instrumental in helping us to put together the bylaws and article association. And she was also very instrumental in helping us to establish the company. So at that time we were discussing with some of the other islands and I must say when we started the process in terms of doing the establishment company we started last. All of the other islands were ahead of us in terms of speaking to the AG's office about the legislation and what they wanted to do and I said to myself every time we go to a meeting this component we have nothing but to say. So I told the committee we need to get this thing going and let's see how we can meet our deadlines the quickest possible way. Which is why the tourney came up with getting the company organized and surprisingly when we began talking to the other countries and we indicated we got in this company organized and the same thing that you want to do people began listening and they began thinking maybe this might work for us as well. So we began sharing the information with them either directly or through TNC. I remember meeting Diane Black from Antigua at some meeting in Nevis and as soon as I met her she said Joanne I heard you were doing something different from all of us so what is it that you're doing? So I explained to her okay can you send me your biologs and your articles of association and probably your company's act so I did send it to her I didn't hear from her for a while then at our next meeting Antigua was also considering doing the same thing then since Benson said look we will have another problem with the legislation so again it came to us how did you establish your company? So it told me okay but come across to Benson they speak to our company and our PSS there explain what you're doing and see if you can convince them to go our route. So through TNC support or CBF I'm not sure probably CBF both okay so I was able to go to Amsterdam Benson and I met with the committee I met with the chair and everybody and I met the Minister of Tourism and I was able to explain I gave them a couple of biologs article of association company's act and to them look as long as they have a company's act in fact I also met their attorney who was doing the same thing and she told me no it can work based on what their company's act says are always very similar a few changes have to be made and in fact for a while because we had to change our attorneys Benson actually got the trust fund registered before ours because we had to go through a study different process where all of our directors had to be interviewed by the AG's office before that was done. I don't think that's the case in Benson so for a while they will study ahead I also got an invitation to go to the Bahamas I remember I've been in office one morning and I got a call from Mr. Rich in Bahamas can I come across to the Bahamas this week to discuss the same the same thing with their Bahamas trust fund but their trust fund was being done through legislation so they wanted to see how the two mechanisms were different the two systems are different so I spoke to the PS and they said ok you can go ahead another three days again through TNC and CBF and again they were quite amazed at what we were doing because for them it took them almost two years to go through the legislation get the AG's office to get everything organized and to get departments and they also recognized some advantages to our process because one of the things that we did in establishing our company was that we were able to be a little flexible by having by making it possible to have different windows attached to the trust fund so for instance you can have a window for the environment and I remember there was a consultancy with the Sustainable Development Department where they were looking at an environmental trust fund and we were saying look we have the trust fund being established so why can't we have a window within the trust fund to take care of the environment and again they went with that and if you look at the reports they did suggest that we also use the trust fund for that so we can have a window for adaptation measures for climate change a window for energy so all we have to do is ensure we have the right mechanism and structure for each of these windows but you have the same agency involved in managing funds for financial resource management so that's one area which I think we are totally different from the other countries where if we activate these windows we can have a structure or modality that everybody has in the Caribbean can emulate so we are able to establish the trust fund finally and the next step was to have our executive director and that is where Mr Cherry came in as our first executive director and this task basically was to help us to get all the documents ready the initial grant operational grant from the CBF and I must say Mr Cherry was able to accomplish at least the grant making document and the operational document for access to grants from the CBF and in 2016 when the CBF held its annual meeting here we signed that agreement right there in this setting to access that facility from the CBF and I think the second in all of the islands to do so and as I said before we were very instrumental in being very innovative so we're here today and like I said I'm very happy that I'm here I'm excited I always felt that this trust fund was a very innovative idea and a number of innovations can come out of the trust fund so I'm hoping that as the trust fund develops and grows we can see the innovation continuing with the trust fund I believe that when I settled from day one because of the various windows that we have and the structure of the trust fund we might be able to whether the trust fund developed we should be able to access grant funding from the green climate fund and other types of funding being offered for natural resource management so once again Dr Chase I want to say thank you for inviting me here I also want to pledge my support to the trust just want to say one more thing as I said before some of this project doesn't seem to want to leave me when I left the Ministry of Economic Development and to the Ministry of Education at that time the government changed and guess what happened sustainable development became part of the ministry so I was still involved in the trust fund I left the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Agriculture natural resources there fisheries is there so I'm still involved with the trust fund so I believe that thanks to Chris Spin I don't know if you have the foresight Chris Spin but I've been involved for a while and I do want to remain involved and I look forward to Dr Chase making whatever contribution I can you know to the trust fund feel free to call me and I can provide the necessary thank you everybody and really the way I see this process of the launching of the fund is that everyone at the head table and all of you in the audience are true champions of this process all of you have put a lot of effort in this we've heard already from Dr Chase Mr Sherry and Mr Kalix about the rich history in getting to this point there was something mentioned during the prayer that really resonated with me and that is the word nourishment I think that's the task we all have now that you all have now we have made it to this point there have been some strong wins as you saw already that have been trying to get the maybe the fund of course or taking another route but we have had great sailors and captains keeping on track but now comes the time to continue to nourish this trust fund and that is what the CBF and the San Lucia National Conservation Fund partnership is about it's about nourishing the fund here and nourishing the ones in the rest of the Caribbean the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund it's proud to be a partner of the San Lucia National Conservation Fund I won't repeat again how the SLUNCF has been a leader a shining star in this whole process I think we already heard right now from Mr. Kulix about how even in the strategy to develop the trust funds San Lucia played a leading role and now in the more operational phase of the establishment of the other trust funds San Lucia is also serving as an example to the rest of the countries today that initial process that began they were talking about 10 years or so it's actually more like 12 believe it or not in 2006 was when two countries Grenada and Bahamas really challenged the rest of their peers to come together in this process that is also linked to the Caribbean Challenge Initiative today we have 10 countries that are involved in this financial architecture being built and truly I really would like to thank everyone here at the head table for your leadership role in this process we also like to see this partnership as something beyond channeling resources from the CBF to the National Conservation Trust Fund this partnership goes well beyond that it's about knowledge sharing it's about participatory governance I don't know how many of you here in the room or I don't know how to call this a room in this setting realize that when we sign a partnership agreement with one of the conservation trust funds that also means that one of the members of the board of the national fund the respective national fund becomes a member of our fund so it's not only about financial resources flow it's about joint decision making transparent participatory decision making and Mr. Sherry is actually a CBF so the San Lucia National Fund nominated him to be part of our board and he's now a full-fledged member of our board so I think that's a very important aspect of this partnership we are trying to be holistic encompassing and really moving forward as a true network it was mentioned during the different remarks also about the sustainable financial mechanisms and match requirements this partnership is also about working with the San Lucia fund and finding the avenues and the ways of fulfilling those match requirements it is not just a requirement that we put on a piece of paper when we signed the partnership agreement it's something we are here to work together with you and we are sure that all the efforts that you're already making are going to be fruitful we can see that already with the mentioning of the MOU with the San Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association we are really happy to see those kinds of innovative partnerships coming to life with that I would like to end my remarks by saying that the San Lucia National Fund and all of you champions in this room really have an open door and a friend in the CBF and all of our staff to continue to move forward in this great process this is literally this launch event this is literally the beginning it's not an end it is the beginning of the rest of the journey thank you very much this is a historic day a suspicious day for us for me in particular many many years ago 30-something years ago I sat on a table with people like Gabriel Charles and Robert DeVoe sitting combo in the south talking about San Lucia's first protected areas plan where there was a need to find co-financing and we had to go all around the world the Swedish Development Fund USAID we had to go to different the World Wildlife Fund the Macafa Foundations the Kellogg's Foundations very difficult very competitive very exhaustive so as I walked in here today I was reminiscing a bit about our ideas we had ideas that were rich in stars that we had no money and because we had no money many of those ideas stayed in our in our drawers and never got implemented so this moment in the evolution of environmental thought in San Lucia, environmental practice in San Lucia, this is auspicious this is historic, this is important and from that perspective in San Lucia, I see this as being a moment in time a moment that has to be marked because it has given us resources to do what many of our forefathers for parents, grandfathers wanted to do and I must thank the Nature Conservancy because they were there with us back in the late 1980s people like Brad Nothra came to San Lucia and helped us to design this stewardship plan on private property for San Lucia so this is not your first time in San Lucia in that respect you all have been there with us in the early days of protected areas on behalf of Steven O'Malley our resident representative UN resident coordinator for Barbados in the OECS Yoko Watanabe who is the global manager for the small grants program out of here in New York Dr Barbara Graham the chair of our National Stern Committee we congratulate you for such an excellent job piloting the early days P.S. colleagues on the excellent work you all have done we are looking forward to collaboration to partnerships that can bring San Lucia to another stage of development when the history of environment and movement in San Lucia is written this will be marked as an important congratulations San Lucia National Contribution Plan this project meant a lot to me the first thing that was handed to me in November 2012 when I was at the Department of Fisheries and believe me there have been so many learning opportunities and so much has happened and a lot has passed but to be here to be standing here in front of all of you today it means a lot and Dr Chase you know a lot of people held my hand through this I was the fisheries focal point and it means a lot to be here at the launch we had a lot of back and forth about who should be first and how we're going to be first and it really really built me I think and built me into a better person and I honestly believe in this fund I know it's going to be a game changer it has already been a game changer this entire process has changed everything for this country and I want to say that on the behalf of the Department of Sustainable Development we finally have a national donor agency our very own with all the decisions being nationally determined by a board that is committed to making a difference and it feels good to be here and to be a part of this process and I know at the Department with our mandate for coastal zone biodiversity climate change and of course sustainable development in itself we will be here and we will be supporting the fund all the way through so I bid congratulations to everyone involved and I also want to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of this process and I know it's just the beginning like Java said and though it's the beginning it's a well deserved beginning thank you very much the Caribbean Youth Environment Network joined this process a little later on about 2014-2015 but in it has been a very very great learning experience for me personally I work directly with the fund operationalizing or assisting in operationalizing it and seeing it at this it's very emotional and seeing how all of our efforts have finally been realized and I am happy today to be part of this process I also want to say that whoever thought that it was important that the Caribbean Youth Environment Network should be part of this process and also given the opportunity to sit as a member of the Board of the Salvation National Conservation Fund I think it is a very important milestone in the sense that you have young persons participating in decision-making processes that are very very important to the development of Saint Lucia and I think that just the fact that myself and also our assistant secretary Mr Cornelius Williams who is the alternate director on the Board I think it augurs well for our future as a small island developing state and also for young persons so that we also know that we are not left behind in the development of our country so I am very very happy to be here and I congratulate Dr Chase and every other member of the Saint Lucia National Conservation Fund Board I got a lot of support from the Caribbean University Fund from the Nature Conservancy and I want to say a special thank you to Dr Chase and to Mr Calix for their support over the past few years they encourage me all the time and Shana of course also I am not forgetting Shana whatever questions that I had she answered them we spoke a lot we collaborated we discussed and I think it is very important that as a young person on my way out in a sense I think that this this fund is a shining example for all of us in Saint Lucia and by extension in the region and internationally that we can do things once we put our minds to it and then we work hard collaboratively not forgetting that yes there are challenges but once we have one goal in mind thinking of what the future will be for our younger generations I think that it is something that we should always keep in our hearts that yes it is possible once we are determined to get it done congratulations once again