Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

When it comes to the con­ver­sa­tion of cli­mate change, Nicole Leo­taud would rather roll her sleeves up and get in­to the com­mu­ni­ties across the Caribbean that are be­ing af­fect­ed the most. The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Nat­ur­al Re­sources In­sti­tute (CA­NARI) has spent the last three decades in en­vi­ron­men­tal gov­er­nance and man­age­ment across the re­gion and be­lieves that the work must be ground­ed in the lived ex­pe­ri­ences of com­mu­ni­ties.

She al­so serves as an Elect­ed Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Pub­lic to the Es­cazú Agree­ment on Ac­cess to In­for­ma­tion, Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion and Jus­tice in En­vi­ron­men­tal Mat­ters in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, a ground­break­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal treaty which pro­tects the right to a healthy en­vi­ron­ment. She is al­so a fierce ad­vo­cate on Caribbean and Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment is­sues at re­gion­al and glob­al lev­els.

Leo­taud’s ca­reer des­ti­na­tion is no sur­prise for this once na­ture-lov­ing teenag­er. She cred­its her teach­ers at St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies for hon­ing that love she had for na­ture.

For Leo­taud, she finds pur­pose in help­ing a Caribbean pub­lic that doesn’t ful­ly have a say in ad­dress­ing the im­pacts of cli­mate change. “I think I see where there are a lot of peo­ple on the ground in Caribbean com­mu­ni­ties that don’t have a voice. They des­per­ate­ly re­ly on a healthy en­vi­ron­ment for their lives, their liveli­hoods, their cul­ture. But, they don’t have a voice in what’s hap­pen­ing around them; whether it’s at a very lo­cal lev­el with de­ci­sions about how de­vel­op­ment is hap­pen­ing, or whether it’s at the glob­al lev­el and how cli­mate change is im­pact­ing them. In my ad­vo­ca­cy, I re­al­ly try and share what I’ve heard, the con­cerns, the needs, the pri­or­i­ties of those who are not in the room, who are not in the space. The Caribbean is very un­der-rep­re­sent­ed in glob­al spaces.”

Her lead­er­ship thrives on work­ing with peo­ple, and Leo­taud be­lieves there is a lot more that unites us in the face of cli­mate change than di­vides us. She told the WE Mag­a­zine, “We have so much in com­mon. Com­mu­ni­ties in Latin Amer­i­ca and Africa face the same chal­lenges and is­sues. We need to work in sol­i­dar­i­ty. It’s not that the Caribbean is­sues are more im­por­tant than the Pa­cif­ic is­sues. No, how can we work in sol­i­dar­i­ty; work­ing with each oth­er to am­pli­fy those voic­es and bring for­ward the big is­sues? We are re­al­ly try­ing to get the at­ten­tion of some very pow­er­ful in­ter­ests, whether it’s those with eco­nom­ic pow­er or po­lit­i­cal pow­er. I think we need to do ad­vo­ca­cy in sol­i­dar­i­ty.”

Leo­taud has es­tab­lished her­self as one of the most im­por­tant civ­il so­ci­ety voic­es in the re­gion, but it wasn’t al­ways this way. She ad­mit­ted that as a young woman in the field, she faced dis­crim­i­na­tion and “the pa­tri­archy.”

She stat­ed, “I think I learned from that ex­pe­ri­ence to as­sert my­self, that I am here be­cause I’m qual­i­fied, be­cause I’m com­mit­ted, and be­cause I get things done.”

Now, she gives oth­er women around the re­gion a fair hear­ing. Most of the CA­NARI team is made up of women—not be­cause Leo­taud wants to bal­ance the scale—but be­cause they are the best qual­i­fied can­di­dates for their po­si­tions.

Speak­ing about women in Caribbean cli­mate change lead­er­ship, she not­ed that, “We have some ex­cel­lent women in very se­nior po­si­tions. I could think of many, in­clud­ing in cli­mate ne­go­ti­a­tions in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, the heads of pub­lic sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tions, of gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and the heads of many of our civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions are women… Women are ex­celling in this space, and they are de­liv­er­ing re­sults for the re­gion.”

But even for some­one like Leo­taud, who has ded­i­cat­ed her life to pur­su­ing cli­mate and en­vi­ron­men­tal jus­tice for the Caribbean, the weight of cli­mate change can some­times be dis­cour­ag­ing. Over the last two years, the Earth has reached sev­er­al cli­mate tip­ping points. She said, “I don’t know where we’re go­ing. I think it’s very easy to get dis­cour­aged. How many glob­al con­fer­ences, how many Con­fer­ences of the Par­ties (COPs) are we go­ing to have? I’m still bat­tling for the re­al trans­for­ma­tion­al changes need­ed. Every time we think we make progress with com­mit­ments to­wards stronger ac­tion or com­mit­ments to­wards cli­mate fi­nance, im­ple­men­ta­tion lags, or things go back­wards. I think it’s very, very dif­fi­cult for those work­ing in the cli­mate space, and it’s easy to be dis­cour­aged. But, we still see so much ded­i­ca­tion. The stakes are too high. We sim­ply can­not, not con­tin­ue this fight.”

Far away from the ne­go­ti­at­ing halls where de­ci­sions are made, Leo­taud has com­mit­ted her ca­reer to work­ing with those who suf­fer the most from the ef­fects of cli­mate change.

Last year, she spent three weeks with the Kali­na­go In­dige­nous Peo­ples in Do­mini­ca learn­ing about the chal­lenges they face and what they are do­ing to build their re­silience.

When asked about the lega­cy she would like to leave be­hind, Leo­taud said it was less about her and more about build­ing strong in­sti­tu­tions. “I think we need to fo­cus not on the in­di­vid­ual but al­so what are we build­ing, and build­ing strong or­gan­i­sa­tions. So, I’m very proud that CA­NARI is such a strong or­gan­i­sa­tion with so many strong peo­ple in it—whether or not Nicole is here, it doesn’t mat­ter. CA­NARI is strong, and the work is im­por­tant. I’m al­so very, very fo­cused on build­ing a strong Caribbean civ­il so­ci­ety. How can civ­il so­ci­ety work bet­ter, work more to­geth­er to achieve these big things? To me, it’s not about your per­son­al work but what are you do­ing to build peo­ple, to build great or­gan­i­sa­tions, to build strong sys­tems and poli­cies? To me, that’s one way of see­ing lega­cy.”

Now, she seeks to en­cour­age more women to en­ter the field of cli­mate change, in­clud­ing in the civ­il so­ci­ety sec­tor. For Leo­taud, the fu­ture of the Caribbean’s cli­mate move­ment will de­pend on the next gen­er­a­tion, find­ing both courage and pur­pose in the work.

She be­lieves more women, es­pe­cial­ly young Caribbean women, must see them­selves as lead­ers in shap­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy and pro­tect­ing vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties. While the chal­lenges re­main sig­nif­i­cant, Leo­taud in­sists the re­gion can­not af­ford si­lence or in­ac­tion. In­stead, she hopes more voic­es will rise speak­ing for the Caribbean, its peo­ple, and the en­vi­ron­ment that sus­tains them.