For St Lucia National Coordinator Leshan Monrose, growing up to become an environmental manager was her "default" setting. After graduating with a degree in Management Studies, she obtained a Master's in Natural Resource and Environmental Management with a specialization in climate changeat the University of the West Indies. She says the ACP MEAs 3 project is like a push that can steer farming on this Caribbean island nation onto a more sustainable course.

LM: For as long as I can remember I loved the environment. I always knew I wanted to work with Nature, protecting it and helping people at the grassroots level.

I am St Lucian by birth and I grew up in the country about 20 minutes outside our capital, Castries. Growing up I spent a lot of time outdoors: I remember walking barefoot down to the river, and getting into all kinds of mischief.

As a child I looked forward to spending the summer at my grandparents' farm and this is where I witnessed agroforestry and agrobiodiversity conservation in action, before I knew what these words meant.

My grandparents were small-scale banana farmers, and they also kept cinnamon, coffee, cocoa, grapefruit and orange trees. My grandmother sold the fruit as an alternative source of income. She also processed coconuts into copra for sale, and grew rhizomes such as ginger and turmeric.

On a separate piece of land, my grandparents grew Blue Mahoe and mahogany trees, and sold the wood to local furniture makers. This way of mixing crops and trees is agroforestry, which in turn helps conserve biodiversity on farms.

A "nationally appropriate" project 

In St Lucia, ACP MEAs 3 focuses on agroforestry, agrobiodiversity conservation, and pesticide management. These areas were identified through a highly consultative process - this is what the stakeholders want.

The interventions are very timely and necessary, and because they are so stakeholder-driven they are also nationally appropriate, which is the most important thing. I think the approach taken by the ACP MEAs 3 project will give the people what they need.

In terms of pesticide management, our approach is both top-down and bottom-up. We're reviewing the procedures for pesticide imports, particularly Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs). For example, sometimes incoming HHPs are not labeled as such, and are passed off as another product. They can be difficult to catch at the border control level, so we need to look at  risk identification and management protocols.

Based on that, we will make recommendations to policymakers and provide training to Customs and Excise officials. It will be up to the government to implement those recommendations, but we will provide them with all the tools and information they need.

The bottom up component is training people on the ground through Farmer Field Schools (FFSs). The current FFS manual is from 2006 so it's a bit out of date. We're going to review it for climate resilience, integrated pest management (IPM), ecosystem-based practices and gender mainstreaming. Then we're going to train extension services and run a series of FFSs so farmers can be made aware of the hazards of pesticides, how to handle them better, and how to implement the alternatives.

Stakeholders "must take ownership"

St Lucia is a volcanic, mountainous island with many rivers, and we are totally dependent on surface water. So whatever happens near the river, or even further off on the farms, is relevant: for example when it rains, the runoff will end up in the river. Whatever is in that runoff, including pesticides, will affect our water quality. This is why we really need the stakeholders to take ownership of their natural resources.

For example, one of the ACP MEAs 3 activities is revegetating the riparian zones along three very degraded rivers. And yes we will plant trees, but we will also do considerable outreach to get local communities to buy into the process.

When revegetating, we must find a balance between native species and economically viable ones. In the past, other projects planted certain species, like mangoes, and the farmers ripped them out to plant root crops. So we're asking the farmers what types of trees they want, and we will work with them to ensure that the revegetation effort is successful. One of the suggestions has been citrus trees, because they don't take very long to mature and they're a pretty good cash crop.

We're also looking to get youth involved through site visits for schools, so that they can see the impacts of poor practices along the riverside with their own eyes. We will help them understand the importance of managing natural resources properly, so that they will be able to pass them on to their children.

"I am hoping behaviors will change"

Here in St Lucia we come from a history of colonialism and a plantation economy, which was heavy on pesticide use. Biodiversity was not treasured. We basically ripped out all our native vegetation to plant bananas, and poisoned our soils with hazardous chemicals.

I don't expect ACP MEAs 3 to solve all of my country's problems, but maybe this project can contribute to changing behaviors. We're hoping to push the development of the farming sector onto a more sustainable path. The project will end at some point, but the push is very necessary.