: After the storm: what an environmental tragedy can teach us about climate resilience and ecosystem restoration #IndiaNEWS #International A tiny Caribbean Island known as the flower of the ocean was

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After the storm: what an environmental tragedy can teach us about climate resilience and ecosystem restoration #IndiaNEWS #International
A tiny Caribbean Island known as the flower of the ocean was decimated by Hurricane Iota in 2020. Although the loss of human life was minimal, the impact on precious ecosystems deeply changed the perspective of its inhabitants. Two years later, they’re still working to restore their environmental treasures and preparing for whatever curveballs climate change might throw at them next.





The mountainous Colombian island of Providencia – which lies midway in the extension of the Caribbean Sea that separates Costa Rica and Jamaica – is home to stunning colours of the sea, lush underwater landscapes, extensive mangrove forests, and even tropical dry forests.
The diversity of marine ecosystems and surrounding natural wonders, including the yearly spectacle of thousands of rare black crabs descending from the mountains and heading to the sea to lay their eggs, and one of the world’s largest barrier reefs, which supports a stunning array of marine life, has led to its declaration as part of the Seaflower UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
However, as with all islands in the world, Providencia’s unique natural treasures are highly threatened by climate change and sea level rise, threats that are not ‘theories’ looming on the horizon, but that are instead terrible facts already impacting every facet of life there.
Its 6,000 inhabitants will never forget the night of November 16th, when Iota, the last and strongest hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic storm season— deemed then a Category 5* — decimated their beloved land.
 
“The most shocking thing was the sound. Our people say that the hurricane came with the devil because the sound was so strange and scary,� recalls Marcela Cano, a biologist and long-time resident who has made it her life’s work to preserve Providencia’s environmental treasures.
But that night, she would spend hours fighting to survive the storm.
She was at her home sleeping when at around midnight, she started hearing strange noises. This turned out to be wind gusts of over 155 miles an hour tearing across the island.
Power and communication were shortly lost.
“I stood up and noticed that my ceiling lights looked as if they were higher than usual. That’s when I realized that part of my roof had flown away,� Ms. Cano recalls now, adding that minutes later she heard two loud bangs from her guestroom and saw water pouring down the walls.
Her immediate reaction was to get out of the house, a decision that looking back now was definitely the best one, she says, because not only the roof but most of the walls of her house collapsed in the darkness under the force of the pounding rains and the wind.

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