Earlier this month, the Department of Environment (DoE) through the “Preventing COSTS of Invasive Alien Species (IAS) in Barbados and the OECS Countries” Project otherwise known as the IAS Project, distributed tablets to a number of local government agencies in an effort to build capacity to collect data on species and habitat mapping of invasive alien species (IAS) at ports of entry in Antigua and Barbuda. This project is a regional project focusing on IAS which poses a problem economically and environmentally across the Caribbean. The project seeks to reduce the pathways of invasion and enhance the biosecurity of the region on a whole, and Barbados and Organisation of the Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) countries specifically, including Antigua and Barbuda.
The government agencies that received these tablets included the Customs and Excise Division, the Fisheries Division, the Plant Protection Unit, the Veterinary & Livestock Division the Central Board of Health, and the Forestry Division.
The IAS Project is being implemented by the Antigua and Barbuda Department of Environment in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and The Global Environment Facility (GEF), through funding from the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI).