[Jim Randall:] for - - at least for now
- and I was also
- up to this year - I'm on sabbatical
right now up to this year I was the - -
in Laurie's position; I was the
Coordinator for the Master of Arts in Island
Studies program
and the Chair of the Executive Committee for the
Institute
of Island Studies here so - -
I've enjoyed my - - this sort of
chapter in my
life in Island Studies and although I
was never born - - I wasn't born on an
island,  I'm, ah, as they say in the Maritimes, I'm
a Come From Away - or C.F.A. So, my job is to
- is to actually start the show out
at the 30 thousand foot level, so I've got a
few slides here that I'll show
and put up here, hold on a second,
here we go - oops.
So - and I just - just a bit of a plug
here,
I have a a textbook coming out in
mid-October
An undergraduate textbook, an
introduction to Island Studies
that you might want to keep an eye on,
you might hear more about as well...
So - I guess I just wanted to start
this by saying at that 30 thousand foot level
that - if we start looking at the topic of
islands and public health or
epidemiology, this is not the first time
that islands have
taken a focus and those of you on the
line probably know some of the work of
these
- these individuals better than I do.  
You have to look first to the work by
Andrew Cliff and Peter Haggett, and some of -  other colleagues as well, for the work
they did in the -
in the late 1970s into the 1980s as well.
Island epidemics and so on and - so
if you start looking at that work you
realize that islands have been special
places
for those people that are very
interested in public health
- - tracking illnesses epidemiology and
so on for a number of times
for a number of years. I have a couple of
slides up here, this first the one up in
the top corner is actually
derived from a Cliff and Haggett book
on Ireland epidemics and - - it looks - I won't
explain in detail but it really shows
- sort of that progression of a
hypothetical
illness moving from a mainland to an
island and then to a small community
within it.
And looks it on -  looks at it in the
perspective of those - - that percentage of the
population
that might be susceptible to the illness
- the
total threshold level that would need,
the illness would need
in order to stay in that community
constantly and below that threshold
then it sort of recurs or comes back
depends upon - - depending on the
introduction of it.
And that's - that's all about - they talked
about disease thresholds and - and
how small islands allow us to better
understand those
thresholds and - and and so on.
The second thing they looked at and
others have looked at is this issue of
accessibility - -
a topic a broader topic that island
studies
researchers have looked at many ways. But
historically this was very important
- and I just put a couple of slides up
here, if you look at the
the one down at the bottom here, of
course
this represented a dramatic change in
how illnesses
- - contagious illnesses are
transmitted
and how that  - - how  accessibility
would have affected the likelihood of
the spread of some of these illnesses. So
in 1957
there are about equal numbers of
passengers that move
between Europe and North America. 
In one year, that had changed  - - started to
change dramatically, and
by 1960,
well, there's almost two thirds were
going by air and only one third by sea
and of course,
other than cruise ships, now almost
everybody goes by air - when
they're allowed to go by air.
The other thing that some of these early
public health and island specialists
looked at
was the importance of islands for - -
because of the record keeping,
and especially in sort of understanding
index cases or the
the first person that they could trace
back. And part of this was because,
prior to the age of of air travel -
extensive air travel,
ship records were much more sort of - -
detailed and precise, and so if
epidemiologists wanted to
do contact tracing and tracing back to
the index cases
they could do it much more easily
on a sort of  - - an island environment
because of the existence of
of meticulous records. And fourthly, I
just wanted to put up this - - 
this point about places of
quarantine and islands as
places of quarantine. I have this image
of Australia here and many people are
familiar with - -
the histories of Christmas Island, 
Manus Island, Papua New Guinea and
Nauru - - as places of - -
political quarantine
but they and many other islands of the
world prior to them have had
long histories of places of
- - disease quarantine,  of - - reserving
a place for people that may may have
contracted or potentially contracted
illnesses and, of course, one of the more
famous historical examples of the
islands in and around Venice.
One of the things I think we need to
understand - -
about islands, and this is these are sort
of generic - -
kinds of comments - -  and they're not
intended to
- -  apply to every islands, is that we
have to look at some of the underlying
conditions that exist on a number of
islands the population
and - - some islands, especially those in
Oceania,
their populations can be more  - -
vulnerable because of the prevalence of
some kinds of underlying preconditions,
and for those of you who have studied
public health
in many of the islands of the Pacific
Ocean I realize that
obesity is - - is a prevalent -  public
health problem
and at least linked to it partly linked
to obesity are the problems of diabetes
- - kinds of problems and so on
and so those populations are therefore
at greater risk
for a variety of different kinds of
especially of respiratory kinds of
diseases.
The other vulnerability is - - access to
health care, access to therapeutics, and
access to vaccines-  -  equipment and so
on,
and the relative poverty of of some
islands.
- - But we shouldn't necessarily be that
simplistic about it because
many islands - - according to other kinds
of indicators
may actually have - - a greater level of
resilience
to certain kinds of public health issues
so if you look at it from a social
determinants of health perspective
and just take one indicator like the
Human Development Index [HDI]
that many of you are aware sort of  - - uses
a sort of a simple
composite score looking at - - at health
and education and at  - -  the economy
often the HDI for islands
are higher than the - - the typical HDI
for other small jurisdictions,
and especially higher for other
developing
jurisdictions, and then if you dig down a
little bit deeper and look at
sub-national island jurisdictions --
that Prince Edward Island is, and many
other islands are --
you see that sub-nationa-- the HDIs in
sub-national island jurisdictions
are actually higher on average than even
our four small island developing states.
So my last couple of slides, because I've
only got about seven or minutes and I'm
probably close to that end right now or
just - - I just wanted to raise a couple of
cautionary notes as we go into the more
specific
topics in the next several speakers and
the - -
and the Q&A. 
One is this issue of islands
as living labs or the trope of islands
of living labs. This is not
a new thing. Islands have been used
elegantly as - - considered a living
laboratory
and I think there's something about this,
an island that
has a coastline and it's separated from
the rest of the
the mainland or other island, that - -
make people think that they're closed or
their so-called 'pure systems'.
- - You see this in terms of - - the work
by Darwin and others on the Galapagos
where they would study evolution, and
even now we look at biodiversity in the
closed systems on - on islands.
You also see this in terms of some of
the research [coughs] that's taken place on -- islands that have
emerged, volcanic islands that have
emerged
from proto-islands or some - - submersive
islands.
And so they've emerged, such as Surtsey
off the the coast of Iceland,
and scientists have looked at how - how
life emerges there, how it - -
yeah, how it's how it is --  blown onto
that line, how it emerges,
and how it evolves once it it does
emerge. And then of course
- there's a long tradition of - -
colonial anthropologists
who have studied - - social life on
small islands. And although they may -
themselves may not have implied that
these are closed systems, others have
looked at that and looked at social
customs and characteristics and cultures
and thought of them as a partly as a
function of the closed system, those
islands.
And just maybe the the item in in yellow
I've got here is - -
we're all aware that in fact no place is
completely closed or completely pure
and in fact there is a case to be made
that many islands have very high levels
of connectivity
for many things as well. So just the
cautionary note is:
be careful about the assumptions we make
about - -
using islands as - - live-in
laboratories.
The second and - and last -- cautionary
world I'll break and bring and that is
this distinction between the unique and
the - the generalizable
or the - - the distinct -
and - this is not unique to island
studies of course, it's - -
it's a - it's a dilemma and an issue that
exists in any kind of - - field or discipline, but in terms of
island studies there is often a bit of a
debate about
the ways that islands are differ from
each other
and the ways that they differ from
mainland
and in fact are they unique in certain
ways
that allow us to think of them as  - -
the geography of them and the - the social
psychology of them,
as - - as geographic context in and
of themselves - and
the other point about this, is if they
are
unique then how do we deal with issues
of
transferability of - of both the
challenges and the solutions?
So if one of the things we're talking
about today is reopening
and the successes that some islands have
had in terms of reopening,
then how transferable is that solution
or success
either to other islands or to mainland
regions?
And, as I say, this is not unique but I
think we need to keep these in mind.
Whether the COVID-19 challenges, success
and reopening
experiences are - are not relevant to
other jurisdictions and what are the
unique features of each island that are
going to make the outcomes
differ on those other contexts. So I'm
going to stop right now,
and the stop share and turn it back to
Laurie.
[Laurie Brinklow] Thank you, Jim ,for those - mind opening
opening comments. It reminds me of those
two
great thinkers, John Donne, "No man is an island,"
and the other one, Simon and Garfunkel,
"I am a rock, I am an
island." And so where are we? Somewhere in
the middle, I suppose.
Thanks Jim. Our next - speaker is
Dr Francesco Sindico, who's the
Co-Director of the Strathclyde
Center for Environmental Law and
Governance or, as you've heard me say,
SCELG ["skelg"] when I can't quite get all the
syllables together.
- - He's based at the University of
Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland,
and he's that - - which is one of the
leading centers in the UK
in the field of environmental law. And we
had the great --
privilege of of getting to know Francesco over the past several months
as
he is one of the pioneers in - he and
James Ellsmoor
- spearheaded the huge database
collection of data from
islands around the world on responses to
COVID-19. So
I'll turn it now over to Francesco.
[Francesco Sindico:] Thank you. Thank you very much
- Laurie - as you said, I am the
founder and co-director of the Strathclude
Center for Environmental
Governance and it's an absolute pleasure
to be here today
and share this first part of the session
with -
with Jim. So, I'll start immediately with
the slides.
I will share them in just a second - 
so - share -
okay so - -
one second. Okay, there we are.
So what I want to do in the next
seven minutes and start now is -
to look at how we can move from a global
pandemic to a more sustainable
and resilient future. I would anticipate
I do not have the answers obviously
but I do want to start a conversation
which I hope -- especially in the Q&A
-- we can take forward and
- as - as Laurie said
together with James and Island
Innovation - SCELG
has carried out this survey and I will
say a little bit about it but
at the end of my presentation I will put
in the chat
links and a bit more information about
it so you can have a look at
yourselves. I want to do three things in
the next few minutes. First, I want to
tell you a little bit more about the
survey.
I want to highlight the policy
recommendations
that it has led to, and then I want to
move forward - - I want to
tell you a little bit about a further
project that we're dealing with
the Institute of Island Studies at
UPEI and Island Innovation on
sustainability and resilience which is
really about -
"let's take stock of where we are now and
try to
go forward."  So when it comes to the
survey
- the survey started with an idea of
gathering
practices in the first phase of COVID-19
when it was really starting when
countries and islands were locking down
and
we started it on the 22nd of March. It
finished
on the 1st of June 2020 and thanks to
Island Innovation in our network we
really were able to reach out
globally we were very very happy with
the result.
We got 130 respondents but a lot of them
were multiple because they provided
updates and really excellent insights
and we ended up having
input from 83 islands from 54 countries.
So
really a truly global global
representative.
We did it in order to share practices to
policy makers and wider stakeholders on
islands and
I'm really delighted to know that in
some cases these
insights were shared to policymakers
they did reach out
to those who were making very difficult
decisions
and it helped shape a little bit their
their thinking
and their policies. So
what were the final recommendations that
we came up with at Island Innovation and SCELG by
analyzing all this information?
So the first one is that except some
unfortunate circumstances and examples
such as Saaremaa in Estonia or [unclear] 
Venezuela
overall at the time islands
fared quite well. The island geography
helped.
So you can think of a very remote
islands like Tristan
or Saint Helena that James mentioned or
Fernando
de Noronha in Brazil, they really cut
themselves out
from the world in terms of transport.
This also happened in Scotland with most
of Scotland's isles, especially the Western
Isles,
and that kept them at bay, safe to some
extent.
But it's not only that - it was also the
timely and stringent measures adopted
throughout the lockdown period
that, to be honest, most islands around
the world really
took that timeliness that was really
really
paramount. Now
what has happened throughout the
pandemic and this I believe does not
apply only to islands.
It has revealed - something it has
revealed,
some aspects of the island's
socioeconomy that actually until very
recently were considered very strong - - 
think of tourism in many areas that
almost from one day to the other became
very
fragile, and clearly all around the world
we have seen such things -- tourism,
food security, health,
and digital infrastructure, amongst
others --
that really were highlighted in the
survey as...
"we need some rethinking" and this is very
much where
our work wants to go -  to use
the COVID-19 -- as unfortunate as it has
been,
and it is -- as an opportunity as well.
But in order to go somewhere, there needs
to be a conversation -  although I will
highlight what I mean by that.
So what came out from the survey is that
there needs to be an
open and transparent debate to drive
these post-COVID-19 recovery packages.
This is very important, especially and if
you see the pictures there
when you have, in a way, two sectors of
the island that
could seem to be antagonists but
actually should talk together.
In the poll that Laurie launched, it was
interesting to see that the first one
was
economic recovery 70[%] and environment and
sustainability
59[%].  The two should not be
either/or. One of the
possible successes going towards in the
future in a post-COVID-19 recovery
packages -
how do we do our recovery package that
yes, promotes economic recovery
but at the same time also promotes
environmental conversation.
The Cayman Islands, for
example: tourism is a big issue --
A lot of - cruises and so forth but
there's a debate
whether to have more cruises where in an
area of the islands where there's coral
reefs
and they could hinder that or have some
sort of governance structure
investment business that can promote the
two.
Now this is not an easy conversation to
have
clearly but it has to take into account
further complexity.
One is what already Jim mentioned, the
nature of island jurisdiction. So some
are island states, others are subnational
island jurisdictions.
Some of the examples that will be
mentioned later by my colleagues, for
example Giulia and Andrew -
Egadi Islands and Shetland islands -
highlight this complexity, this political,
legal, even constitutional landscape
complex.
Then we have something that although all
islands obviously in a way are different,
because they're all around the world
there is something called the
Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] which
all countries of the world have agreed
to
and there is a possibility to localize
the SDGs in a way to promote a different
kind, of more resilient and more
sustainable.
And then we need to do all of this in a
way that aligns with the goals of the
Paris Agreement because although
COVID-19 today still seems like
a huge problem and a massive challenge,
let's not forget about the other
challenges:
eradication of poverty, climate change.
One way to build this conversation is by
realizing just what we're doing now that
we can have - 
sorry - that we can have this conversation
not only around the table
but also digitally but at the same time.
We also don't have to lose track of
traditional knowledges and the
traditional approaches
to bring together island communities. So
these were the conclusions from the
report
again I will share the link in the chat
in just a second,
but what are we going to do now? What is
SCELG and the Institute of Island Studies
together with Island Innovation 
going to do now? Well we want to
move forward. It's not just about
managing the crisis now.
It's actually about considering the
future and going ahead
and what we're looking for is ways - 
policy-relevant ways to
move towards a more sustainable and more
resilient future.
We have identified 24 islands, some are
island states some are subnational island jurisdictions.
The ones
highlighted are the ones that
we will have some snippets some initial
insights from our futures
from our forthcoming speakers, but
we will not just look at these islands
and get a sense of how they
performed in COVID and where they're
moving in towards sustainability and
resilience,
but by analyzing these 24 islands we
will then
work together Island Innovation, - 
UPEI, SCELG, and any other partner who wants
to engage with us
in bringing together some brief  - - some
thematic briefs that could be
health, tourism, and food security, digital
connectivity, blue economy, but there
could be more - -
and present them and have a conversation
with the policy makers and
wider island stakeholders in these
islands to really put forward examples
and practices -
also from other items that could be used
as inspiration
to drive a different kind of future. It's
an ambitious project,
it's a project that has in a way already
started. We are collecting some of these
pieces
and we very much look forward to
presenting them both to you here in the
audience
and to a wider audience.  Laurie, thank you
very much.
[Laurie Brinklow:] Great, thank you - Francesco. We've had
our first question which I'll ask right
now because it's so pertinent to
- what you were just talking about -
Natalie Dietrich-Jones was asking when the survey was
actually conducted,
and will we be doing a follow-up, because
some islands of course have seen
increases since relaxing border
regulations
and previously imported cases have moved
to community spread.
[Francesco Sindico:] I think I'm still on, yes? So it's
definitely on the table
- I remember talking with James and at
some point around mid-May we said okay
well now we actually have to have some
time to digest all of this information.
- 84 islands, 53 countries, it was
getting - -
it was great but it was almost too much
at some point, so
we needed some time to actually actually
look at it and think it through but it
it is very likely
that again, joining forces with
Island Innovation and potentially also with
other partners,
we come up to with a revised set of
questions or,
you know, second set of questions - 
Giulia will know very well, we have seen
in Italy -
islands, even big islands like Sardinia,
that seemed
you know completely beyond the reach of
COVID and the moment they were opened - 
they are now the hot spots of COVID in
Italy, so clearly
clearly there are challenges and it may
well be that we reopen [the survey].
Thank you very much.
[Laurie Brinklow:] Great, thanks Francesco, and we'll look forward
to hearing -
more developments as we go forward. Again, the beauty of
the connectivity that we're all enjoying
- is that we can get things out there
quickly now.
Those - linkages have been made and
connections made to
bind us all together in that wonderful
way. Thanks Natalie
again for that great question. The
next part of our
discussion then is featuring some of
those individual
islands responses and examples of
resilience
and how people have responded. So first
up we have Dr Giulia
Sajeva who is the Marie Skłodowska
Curie - I know that name, but not the
middle part -
She's the individual fellowship holder
with Strathclyde Center for
Environmental Law and Governance so
- Giulia I'll ask you now to bring up
your video
and - tell us a little bit about your
island
of Egadi
[Giulia Sajeva:] Good morning, good afternoon, and good
evening depending on where you are at
the moment in the world.
Thank you Laurie for introducing me. As you
said I am part of the Strathclyde Center
for Environmental Law and Governance
just like - Francesco Sindico and I
am actually coming - I come from Sicily
which is a big island in the
Mediterranean Sea and I have worked so
far on Indigenous people's rights and I
am focusing at the moment
on the idea of rights for ecosystem
services
and in particular i'm looking at the
Egadi islands
that, as you can see from the map, are an
archipelago
based and - as an archipelago in the
Mediterranean Sea
- composed of three islands: Marettimo,
Favignana, and Levanzo
where about
four thousand people live at the moment
and -
I - I do take advantage of the fact that
- my hometown it's very close
to there, it's - Palermo, it's not far
away from from the Egadi - 
they - the Egadi are a municipality so they
have
a basic level of independence - but
they are a part of the Sicilian - of Sicilian territory and they
are
about 34 kilometers square of islands -
they are located within the Egadi Marine
Protected Area
which is the biggest marine protected
area in the - -
uh sorry, I have to -
the screen sharing was not working, well
I thought it was
okay so - okay so you as
you can see now - where the Egadis
are, where the
the red tuna fish is - close to
Sicily and this is how they usually look.
So they are, as I was saying, located in
the Egadi Marine Protected Area which is
the
- the biggest marine protected area in
the Mediterranean Sea
and they are -
basically have a double insularity, which
is what has so far shaded them
almost fully from COVID-19 cases as no
one was reported there.
The lockdown was in fact very strict
there,
as in the rest of Italy, and it was
really helpful to
highlight at the same time their
dependence
and independence from mainland. In fact
the population cope really well with the
isolation because they are actually used
to it because they are very
solitary during winter months but the
lockdown
- also highlighted their dependence on
food water and other goods coming from
mainland
and from another important good which is
tourists.
In fact the Egadi rely on summer
tourist activities as their main
economic
income, in fact on the 22nd of May which
is
shortly after the end of lockdown in
Italy
they joined the National Association of
Small Island Mayors [Municipalities]
to issue a manifesto actually calling
against the abandonment of Sicilian
islands
- by the government, by the Italian
government. They claimed
that they were in need of a very
flexible and locally based approach to
COVID-19 rules
because those that were imposed were not
sufficiently
adapt to small islands and they were of
course calling for more health
facilities.
however as the holiday season actually
began
they all attention shifted toward it. At
the beginning they were scared that no
one would come
but actually in July and August they had
a drastic increase in tourists,
so drastic that restriction - the new
restriction had to be imposed in the
island.
So for example certain beaches were
closed in the evening
to avoid the parties there and the
masks were required to be worn
in the streets of Favignana's main city
center which is very small but it was
very very crowded.
- As the fear for losing the
touristic revenues decreased the - the
fear for COVID-19 actually came back
again.
The inhabitants were afraid to become
- a hot spot, a COVID hotspot just
like Sardinia actually did
- because they know that on the
whole archipelago
there only are - three medical watches
which are basically - small structures
that only give first aid
support, and any other thing has to be
moved to the
mainland, including COVID-19 tests. They
ran a few tests
but they had to take the samples in the
island and then move
them to the mainland in order to have
results.
So even though during the last week of
lockdown
there was a lot of saying about turning
Egadi's tourism
in a more sustainable ways, lowering
numbers,
incorporating local knowledge and skills,
the reality
is that the wave of tourists were simply
waived according to usual habits.
Moreover and that is to be -
acknowledged,
the Egadi's plans had to be probably all -
well all Egadi's plans for
sustainability or anything else
were actually halted by the fact that
- the mayor
and a few other public servants
close to him were arrested - shortly
after lockdown
for corruption and for favouring friends
and relatives.
So that actually left quite of a lack of
leadership in the islands.
The only real leaders at the moment for
sustainability and sustainable
development there
are the administrators of the Egadi
Marine Protected Area which, as I said,
incorporates the whole archipelago.
They are working on many environmental
projects concerning their environmental
education, valorization,
research and monitoring, communication,
patrolling,
but they were doing those - this project
right before COVID-19 as well, so what really happened is
that the COVID-19
kind of gave them more issues and halted
a bit
what they were doing but it was not a
way of saying "okay let's change things
because they're already struggling with
the local realities" as it was before
COVID-19. So what really happened is
that the
Egadi showed what - lockdown can do in
an island
but also what can happen when it is
lifted and tourism
reaches it as well. The thing is - the
important thing though for them was that
they were really lucky
so they did not - so far they have not had
cases
but similar path could have actually led
to very opposite
results. So thank you.
[Laurie Brinklow:] That's fantastic, thank you so much Giulia.
And
we've already had a question about
tourism but I'll leave it until the end
because I think that all of us on the
call will have something to say about
tourism just as as you have,
Giulia. Next up we have Dr John Telesford.
John is the Associate Dean of the School
of Continuing Education
at the T.A. Marryshow College - Community
College in St. George, Grenada -
and John is one of our
Institute of Island Studies Research
Associates and really glad to have you
part of the conversation, John.
[John Telesford:] Good morning good afternoon good evening
and thanks laurie for and uh
francisco for having me being a part of
this uh
interesting provide 19 recovery plans
for
for islands it is really a pleasure to
share
with you um from grenada
what has transpired um thus far um
here in grenada as laurie indicated i am
the
associate dean and uh
lecturer at this uh tam cc ta martial
community college
in grenada um also a research associate
with the institute of uh
island studies at prince edward island
my research focuses mainly on island
sustainability
through various lenses including
social metabolism climate change in
mitigation and adaptation the
sustainable development goals governance
and policy
now looking at issues of uh
kovid 19. so in grenada we had our first
case
of uh kovi 19 on the 22nd
of march and immediately the borders
were closed
legal instruments were put in place to
effect restrictions on movement
between parishes and restrictions of
movements of persons
many all schools churches social
gatherings were halted
and tourism which is one of the mainstay
of our economy was on a
drastic uh decline and almost uh
collapsed
um to date there are only
there were only 24 uh confirmed cases we
have no active cases to date
thank god there were no fatalities and
the borders through the international
airport
is open but cautiously
using a risk uh risk a risk
assessment method based on uh where
where your country is located on the
case load of these countries
so for example we are open fully to uh
caribbean islands with very low case
loads uh
and high risk we're basically close to
the usa
at this point in time which is
considered to be high risk
as i indicated as the lockdown
titan persons definitely lost their jobs
the tourism sector shot
was shot tight and as grenada
is considered to be what uh dr
axe at the university of the west indies
refers to
one egg one basket type of economy where
tourism is the egg
in that one basket economy when the egg
broke
the pressure began to to rise
and what we saw as a effect of that
was persons losing their jobs high
unemployment began began to rise and
that
put an economic squeeze on the
government
which had to put in um
measures to cushion the effects
of uh this economic squeeze
um so what has happened the government
is reporting now that the
revenues um projected for 2020 has
decreased
uh by about 40 to 50 percent um
they another important aspect here um
what i call
what i refer to as educational tourism
is that grenada uh has
a very large uh offshore university the
saint george's university which is a
medical school
and this this uh service
education service contributes about 20
of the gdp of grenada on an annual basis
and with the closure of saint george's
university
we saw that all this impacted
on the actual uh gdp growth projected
by the government for the 2020
uh period so kobe 19 did have
a very strong impact
on the economy but even more so
on the the the health facilities change
we did not have many cases so we did not
have to test
the full metal of the public health
facilities
so but we know that our health
facilities are quite fragile
and a lot of funds would have been
directed into
also trying to to bolster
the the the the the public health
system to combat the the um
the covet 19 um impacts
so what is happening now is that we are
still
we're still um
under the legal requirements to practice
social distancing to wear masks
schools will be reopening on the 7th of
september
but with very limited um attendance and
a strong
blended approach to assist with the
the um the delivery of the teaching
learning process
we also saw that um during the the covet
19 when we
shot our schools it did show up the
some of the issues that we had with
local connectivity
as many schools had to offer their
programs on online
and many students were having issues
with
accessing their classes online due to
issues with the connectivity within um
within the within the island um
going forward the government of grenada
has
implemented uh four
one two three four seven prong approach
to a recovery and it's looking at it in
the context of tourism
and what the citizen by investment
program
um construction education services as i
indicated in and george's university
was a key contributor to to gdp
small businesses macro small and medium
enterprise
agricultural and fisheries uh wholesale
and retail trade
and e-commerce and uh digitization
and these committees are putting the
what
the government refers to as recovery
plans in place
unfortunately as stakeholders we have
not seen yet
the output of these plans but i know
that they're being
tabled that cabinet and hopefully we
would have
as grenadians have an opportunity to see
them and to maybe comment on them
later another key issue um
that we that i can speak to
is how we look at the cov19 recovery in
the context of
sustainable development goals and uh
grenada is localizing
the sustainable development goals
through its national sustainable
development plan
2020 to 2035
and in there i was part of the technical
working group that worked on
issues of that plan and we did revisit
the plan to see
where we need to to adjust and to
accommodate issues of the coving 19 and
pandemics
in general going into the future um
and just to give you an idea of where
we we we targeted um
the whole issue of pandemics um and and
and the likes
the plans has a overarching goal of
high human and social development
putting people at the center of
sustainable development
and transformation and one of the key
outcomes there
is a healthy population we think that we
need a health health population to get
to that goal
um and that this goal
and all the other goals within the plan
there are three overarching goals but
all the other goals
are implemented through what we call
medium term action plans
and we adjusted our medium term action
plan in the
in the context of covid to
look at strengthening the public health
system to look at uh
remedy in the the issues of connectivity
because we are knowing moving forward
connectivity would be very critical
for delivering our educational services
and also strengthening social protection
nets
and and psychosocial support
for uh persons who would have been
socially and mentally impacted by the
kovit 19
lockdowns and all these feed up into
the sustainable development goal of
ensuring healthy lifestyles
and to promote uh well-being
for all and at all ages so i'll stop
here
and would be happy to entertain any uh
questions
or comments on what is happening in
grenada thanks again laurie and
colleagues
great thank you john really appreciate
it and
i'm sure that there will be some
questions because you've hinted at some
of those
policy things that are are coming your
way and i think we would love to hear
more about them
next up we have dr andrew jennings and
uh
andrew is a good friend um shetland
and he is with the institute of northern
studies and the university of highlands
and islands
at lyric shetland uh welcome andrew
thanks laurie it's uh great to be here
um
yes so as laurie said i'm with the
institute for northern studies
and i'm the program leader on the m-lit
island studies and i think that there
are a few students
from that listening today and possibly a
few graduates
um as well and i'm very pleased to
tell you um a little bit of overview
of how shetland has coped with covert 19
and to see if there are any
potential lessons for uh shaping policy
so i'll attempt to keep this under three
minutes
so i suppose the general situation is
that it could be summed up as
a big impact but not totally devastating
yet so uh covert 19 hit shetlands
early with seven deaths by may the sixth
sixty percent of them were in care homes
uh thankfully there haven't been any
more deaths since
56 people have been tested positive
altogether which is a high per capita
number
including um one new case
um in august so it hasn't gone yet
and shetland closed at schools a week
before the rest of scotland
claiming operational reasons i.e not
enough staff they said
but um i wonder if it was a canny local
move
um schools have recently reopened
so i'd like to look at the impact on the
economy
uh firstly let's look at tourism this is
an important industry for shetland
but small in per capita terms compared
with other islands
the pandemic lockdown meant that the
boats and aircraft to the mainland
were reduced to almost nothing and they
were only for islanders with essential
needs
and as you can imagine this had a
dramatic impact on hotel accommodation
providers
and which were already under stress for
other reasons
tourism was opened up in july but
because of social distancing
capacity on the boats and aircraft is
still restricted
and inter-island ferries still need to
be booked so if you come to shetland and
you want to advanced
you have to book ahead this continues to
impact on outer
islands where tourism is a bigger part
of the economy
interestingly however the self-catering
industry has shown some resilience
with local visitors taking up some of
the slack having
weekend breaks in different parts of the
islands however the businesses
that have recently been built up um
to cater for the cruise ship industry um
have been devastated because they've had
no custom and there have been no cruise
ships
and um 105 ships and 90
000 visitors had been expected this year
if we turn to retail local food
providers have actually been very
very busy supply lines with the mainland
were maintained although there
was some wholesale difficulty initially
and some staffing problems
however postal and courier deliveries
have never been busier and in may
lairwick topped the list of uk
postal delivery hotspots local essential
shops throughout the islands have
flourished because of home deliveries
which they continue
and the value of local retail services
has been acknowledged and is much
appreciated
by the community and moving to fishing
uh shetland's fishing industry which is
worth about a third of the whole of the
shetland economy
took a serious early hit um
um which you know such a large amount is
um as you can imagine international
markets
for farmed atlantic salmon mussels and
shellfish
disappeared overnight however the
scottish government provided financial
support
offering five million pounds in march to
scotland's inshore fishermen
which included those on shetland and a
further two million equivalent
in june recent data for salmon exports
shows a fall of 33 for scotland as a
whole in the first
six months of 2020 and shetland makes up
a large proportion
of the scottish total however once
markets reopened
in france and in italy exports have
rebounded
similarly although whitefish landing it
continued during the the sort of the
heart of the outbreak in may landings
were down by 40 percent
um again the opening up of markets in
france and italy has helped that
and by june catches were almost up to
last year's average
um it's important to realize that as
part of scotland and the uk
the uk job retention scheme known as
furloughing also applies in shetland
and 25 uptake this is one of the lowest
in the uk the scottish average is 32
percent
however two and a half million pounds
has been claimed and brought into the
shetland economy
which is 3100 claimants receiving money
from the scheme
there's also been a doubling in the
claimant count for job seekers and
universal credit from may to july
which indicates unemployment in the
islands however
um this is from a low level so going
from 3.7 percent to 6.5
and this perhaps gives a false
impression of economic health
because if you lose your job in shetland
you leave and go to the mainland
however um it's still a big leap
for shetland which has had historically
very low
levels of unemployment 600 locals also
got grants
from the self-employment support scheme
and that's an uptake of 69
the second lowest in scotland and it
should also be noted that the public
sector is large
in shetland so many jobs were protected
and home working
hugely increased for example i haven't
been into the college now for
i don't know six months i think it is um
interestingly
in the housing market there's been no
fall in prices
house surveyors are repeatedly very busy
and the online
site right move which um people
look at to see um them get their house
porn as it were to find out where an
interesting place might be to stay
and have shown a huge amount of interest
in people looking at houses in shetland
a large number of large industrial
projects have been delayed
viking energy at 370
megawatt capacity one of the biggest
onshore wind farms
the interconnect project to link
shipping to the mainland were both
delayed but work has restarted
and oil rigged decommissioning has also
restarted and last week the world's
largest
ship arrived to deposit an oil rig for
decommissioning
so um what's the outlook like well
2021 could be a difficult year as the
job retention scheme
comes to an end however shetland is in
some ways a self-contained area that has
its own economy
based on being an offshore platform of
scottish industry with a large
proportion of scotland's fishing
aquaculture and oil and gas industries
and these will continue
but they are dependent
on um foreign markets it
has a more diverse economic portfolio
than many other small islands
and there are also some large industrial
projects
happening now which i've mentioned or in
the pipeline so
viking energy the interconnector
decommissioning of rigs
the thing called the shetland energy hub
which uh might produce five percent of
the uk's low carbon
energy by 2050 the development in layer
wick of um
one of the island's biggest urban
development schemes
and a spaceport on unst are all either
um they have either started or will be
starting at some point soon
those should maintain the shetland
economy into the future however
there's a potentially bigger cloud on
the horizon than kovid 19
and that's brexit a no deal scenario
could be a real problem for an export
economy
like shetlands and just as a ps
um there's been an interesting
development within shetland council
yesterday they held a meeting to discuss
shetland autonomy and i have a feeling
this could be a result
of the covid situation so there we go
that's that's shetland and you can tell
me whether there's anything of relevance
there to islands more generally
oh my goodness i think so andrew
i really look forward to uh re having
this all down in front of me so that i
can uh yeah pull it apart and i think
that other people
will too because there's a lot of meat
in in what you just said
and uh really appreciate it and uh wow
talk about a perfect storm
with uh covid and brexit and
maybe now shetland autonomy all right
talk about island studies andrew is a
featured guest speaker in my class so
you can tell us
you can see why thanks andrew okay last
but not least
we are going to go come back to prince
edward island where we have jane
leadwell standing by
jane is also a good friend of mine um
probably my
longest time friend that uh on this
panel here
um she's i've known her since she was
just a girl
and i was a young girl so um jane is a
researcher policy analyst and executive
director of the pei advisory council on
the status of women
and outside of her full-time work she is
a writer
editor and poet jane ledwell
great can you hear me
yes we can great great so i'm going to
quickly
share my share a screen here um that
shows what prince edward island looks
like
and uh and for those of you who are not
here today
um i've i've shared both summer and
winter
so that's what we look like here um as
laurie said i'm
currently the executive director of the
institut of the
uh pei advisory council on the status of
women
i have also in the past been a denizen
of the institute of island studies at
upei
um and so it's an honor to be here today
um but
the the my current work with the
advisory council on the status of women
is
um is to it to work with a group that
has a mandate to advise the pei
government and educate the public
on issues that affect the status of
prince edward island women
and so my focus today will really be not
so much on the details of recovery plans
but to make the case
for putting gender equality
considerations at the center of recovery
plans
here in prince edward island and
elsewhere because
we have seen that covet 19 and the
challenges it creates
have certainly been an issue that
affects gender equality
and that the circulation of disease and
the pandemic responses including public
health measures
have affected different genders
differently
and unequally so our capacity in prince
edward island as a small island
jurisdiction
to impose manageable border controls has
resulted in a very low infection rate
but it has also shut down tourism and
other industries hospitality sectors
that
are familiar in other islands as well
and that employ
an awful lot of island women not to
mention
the effects of those shutdowns have had
on women-dominated social service
sectors
the closure of schools and child care
facilities
limitations on visiting of long-term
care homes
for um for for those who are ill
or or who are elderly so
in pei um women's unemployment rates
have
outpaced men's unemployment rates
since the beginning of the pandemic by
margins that are
incredible and that are unseen in any
other parts of canada
um so as part of my work i've been
helping to capture some first-person
stories of women connected to our
council and their experiences
through this pandemic time and a primary
theme is that women
especially women with caregiving
responsibilities
are bearing the brunt of lockdown
measures
as a result of covet 19 and that has not
only economic effects
but also social and emotional effects
and ultimately
cultural effects covet 19 has laid bare
some of the gender inequalities along
with other inequalities such as
racial inequalities or poverty and
economic inequalities
that are significant societal
vulnerabilities for our small island
and if families community is and
institutions in prince edward island are
going to recover well
we're going to recover well to the
extent that we support the resilience
of caregivers and in fact there will be
no economic recovery
without supports for caregiving and
especially
child care so we need to transform our
understandings of labor and the value of
unpaid labor that keeps the individuals
families communities and societies
resilient
in in in this part of the world and
around the world
so to achieve that women and gender
minorities need to be central as
participants in the recovery plans
in order not only to ensure that they
are are part of decision making
but to ensure they are more equal
beneficiaries of recovery plans
because we know in every context that's
been studied around the world
more diversity in decision making and
and more gender diversity around
decision making
tables results in decisions that are
more durable
more sustainable and that work better
for more people
so as a small island jurisdiction i
think another consideration is that
coordinating solutions for gender
sensitive and gender responsive
recovery plans needs to be integrated
really closely
with our climate change adaptation plans
and that that's really essential
as an element since i have very little
time
i'll just end with one reflection and
that's that to reflect that
um we must not forget on a small island
uh
where those border controls can be so
effective
in quarantining us from disease uh it
creates not only economic effects
but also social and cultural effects
including an epidemic
that we hear from the women in our
circles of loneliness
due to the quarantining that isolates us
from not only from disease but from
beloved family members
beloved support systems beloved
islanders who now live away
and cannot return and it really reveals
islands uh global interdependence and
ireland's
true interconnectedness with global
systems
um and that these are all things that we
have to
to hold in our hearts and hold in our
minds as we decide on policy directions
for
recovery uh from an island place in the
world
um thank you jane so much for bringing
that um
into the conversation because that is
definitely what we are um
seeing here on prince edward island and
i love the way you make the connection
between
the local and the global which is
exactly what we're trying to do here
today
so that's the end of our formal um
presentations
and um this is the time where i would
love to
ask the audience for any questions or
comments that they would like to make
um we've had one question come in and
i'll just read it this was just after
francesco
was speaking and it's kind of been um
dealt with or addressed not really dealt
with but addressed um and
while i'm talking how about all of our
panelists please
come back on screen with your uh your
pictures that'd be great to see
everybody that that would be
wonderful um the question is despite
having challenges
for um the recurrence of cove but quite
a few island states have to open their
frontiers
since their economy is mainly based on
tourism so are there any policies in
place
specifically for tourism now i've been
on a few
calls and zoom calls and webinars over
the past several months that
talk about tourism and i know that
specifically or
particularly in the caribbean that you
guys have been dealing with it here in
prince edward island we have
all over the world since tourism is such
a huge issue for us
and um economic generator for so many
islands i think that it's um
top of mind for many people so just
curious if any of our
panelists would like to jump in for
maybe
um you know a couple of comments about
tourism and then
equally so is um what francesco had put
in the chat about
policy and having boots on the ground
doing stuff about it we can't just
talk in and check about what's going on
we need some
actual solutions or at least best
practices that might be adapted and
adopted by islands
so john you have your microphone off did
you want to say something
actually no that was not the intent but
um maybe maybe since i'm here i can
i can actually make uh maybe a comment
or two on the whole issue of um
of tourism as i mentioned very briefly
in my um
presentation um one of the
the committees that was established by
the government of united
actually focuses on tourism and the
citizen by investment program
my only worry
about the trust that uh
i'm seeing is that it
is not bringing anything new pussy um it
still seems to be focused on what
um is the trust of mass tourism
um it simply went back to three
projects of um resort tourism
construction outside of the main tourism
belt
in the north of the island and in the
salt
eastern corridor of the island and
it did bring some
push back from stakeholders um because
these tourism developments are actually
happening in very
uh ecologically sensitive areas
so they it
i am not seeing from my government per
se
a innovative approach
to dealing with tourism
what i would refer to or what other
comment commentators would refer to as
high value tourism
looking at the key niches in ecotourism
um and other aspects of the features of
the island that can be used
for future tourism development
that can be more nimble and be more
flexible
to the shocks um that we experience on
islands um the external shocks like
pandemics
that we do experience from ireland so
that is where that's where i would
end my comments great thank you thank
you john um orissa beck
one of our masters students from sweden
has mentioned that one of the things
that they did right away was to quickly
relocate
employees from tourism to the health
sector which eased the economic and
health pressure so that was an
interesting move
uh jim you put your hand up uh sure
thanks uh lori
and i'm clear i'm not a tourism
specialist either but
um i will say friend and those
uh that are part of the group the
participants here will
perhaps under this and understand this
better than i am but from an atlantic
canada eastern canada perspective
there are two very broad policies that
uh
that our atlantic provinces put in place
in order
i'm sure at least um partly if not
uh mainly a function of um the tourist
economy and that is
first of all to create a bubble that uh
allowed for
the relatively free movement of of
people
who are already resident within any of
the four atlantic provinces
and that was not without controversy but
then the next step
at least from a prince edward island
perspective
was to allow seasonal residents in other
words those who have
summer homes that are located elsewhere
in canada
to come back uh and uh and stay here as
long as they self-isolate for the first
two weeks
and once again that was a policy that
was that was quite controversial at a
time
but uh it was an attempt to try to
recover
at least some of the tourism dollars
and it would just be a modest percentage
of the total tourism revenue that's
generated
but some of them and i agree with john i
don't think there's really been
at least in a transparent way there may
be a lot of thinking going on behind the
scenes
uh but transparently there's not been a
lot of thought about how
a reopening could shape tourism to
be much greener or allow the province to
be more resilient
it'll stop there great
thank you thank you jim um we have a
question in the uh comment changing the
subject from tourism to education this
is from carla de georgio who i know is
here on prince edward island what role
do you see for universities colleges and
schools
as reflectors and leaders for support
and policy
for learners and cultures do you see
islands as being potentially closer and
more able to address this in their
communities
and i know we have a few educators here
on the line so i'm wondering if anybody
would like to
address that i know that we here at the
institute of island studies through our
master of arts and island studies
program have been
working with our students to address
many of these issues
and as jim mentioned in his overview
talking about what
the key role that islands can play
in educating and um you know do we have
lessons that can be passed on to
to other people so i just throw that out
there this was
what role do you see for universities
colleges and schools as reflectors and
leaders for support
and policy for learners and cultures
andrew did you have anything that you'd
like to add being the director of the
mlit and island studies
at uhi
well it's a very good question isn't it
it's one of these ones that you want to
ponder um
well yes they they definitely do um
i've just recently been um
asked uh in this debate about uh
shit and autonomy um well my name was
put forward if they want
more detailed information about how
other island autonomies work
uh they they can always approach um a
said expert
at the shetland college ie myself um
so i think we we have in a very
important role as
um disseminators of uh
of knowledge and uh because of the
networks that we've already established
between
upei malta and other places we can
we can answer many of the questions i
think that policymakers in ireland
might need answered i think we have a
central role but whether
whether the policy makers know that
we're here that's a
that's another thing we we need to be
seen
and so that we can disperse
our our wisdom
yeah i i agree about that being uh we
serve here as a bridge between the
university and the community and helped
to
um contribute to public policy making on
prince edward island through the
institute of island studies and that is
is a very big role and some of the
information
and theses and reports and stuff that
our students come up with certainly feed
into the public policy arena
um i know that uh shelley jessup is uh
somewhere
here on our call and shelly is working
with the rural
pei business women's uh research center
and i'm wondering
shelly if you wanted to just come up and
say a couple of words
about um how business world business
women are dealing with covet 19 and are
there any examples of
you know really great things that people
are doing
great can you hear me yes we can
hello nice to uh nice to meet you lori
thank you very much um enjoying this
session here today uh
my name is shelly jessup i'm the manager
of the rural women's business center in
central badac
we are part of the pei business women's
association a member-based organization
that supports women
in business throughout pei um our center
out in central badak was just open last
november
and extends the services that piba
offers
to reach more women in rural areas
as jane had mentioned gender equity is
on top of mind
during the pandemic what we have seen
are both the struggles and resilience of
the local business community as a whole
but particularly women the women that we
serve
oftentimes uh primary caregivers of
children and family
essential workers uh women women have
had to adapt and balance work and home
life
on a different level and the creativity
strength and perseverance that we have
seen
in women is inspiring brings hope in
these challenging times
i feel that being heard is critical and
creating forums for women to connect
express challenges and share experience
is key
at piba we are continually engaging with
our membership
and women in the community to hear their
challenges
identify gaps and determine how we can
fill those gaps
we have flexible programming that is
required uh
during um during these during the
pandemic um not only to persevere uh
through the pandemic to but to adapt and
to find a new way to thrive
uh during these uncertain and uh
changing times
well that that's great thank you so much
ellie and just following on about the
rural part i know sarah mennis had to go
she's the president of the canadian
rural revitalization foundation but she
put a link in the chat to
a series of rural insight papers that
have been
written by academics and policy makers
from across the country dealing with
various
issues sector issues with covet 19 and
so it's a very rich
library of actual you know i say that
again boots on the ground
suggestions of of policy making so thank
you very much shelly
i'm just we have five minutes left um
and then we have to pop off because um
the island uh innovation is a very
popular
um zoom license today with lots going on
around the world and so who knows where
this uh call will be going to next
um anyway uh we've had another couple of
comments in the chat
about tourism and margaret patterson one
of our um
uh may students writes tourism was quite
in
prior to covid tourism was quite an
unfettered high-touch
industry going for what ideas have been
proposed
open tourism in different and
socio-culturally new ways
to preserve economies but also health
preservation and this makes me think of
something that the pharaohs did
which of course was closed to tourism
but they opened up a whole
whack of online experiences so that you
could actually go
and visit the pharaohs from your without
having to fly there and and
potentially bring covet 19. does anybody
have um francesco yeah that would be
great if you wanted to jump in here
thanks
thank you very much gloria i was going
to write tomorrow so i'll just
stay here i just had a very interesting
conversation with uh
colleagues and people in the seychelles
precisely about this and i think
what comes out from that conversation is
that i think it would be very useful to
move away from
tourism is bad
or tourism is the only way forward it's
always your question about
two things about diversification
any country any island if it only puts
all eggs in one basket via tourism
be it aluminium industry
there is a risk so that's the first
thing the second thing and this
obviously comes when the person is a
show that i was speaking to
it also depends how the revenue in
tourism
is used so according to this person
in this show actually a lot of the
tourism is not
the super investment coming from
overseas that only benefits the
foreign direct investment and i don't
know the cooks of the world
or the virgin
of the world actually it did reverberate
quite nicely
into the local economy so i do think
like many other sectors and we think of
tourism going forward
yes we can talk about ecotourism and we
can talk about virtual tourism as you
said but it's
it's about moving away from that it's
it's either
it's either nothing or everything we we
really
and again the most important thing in my
opinion although it's just setting up
the platform and then as i said in the
chat we need actions
is we need both players around the table
we need let's say obviously john can
confirm but
in the caribbean and grenada we need the
cruise line
you may like it or may just like it but
you need that part of the business and
you need the environmental aspect of
sustainability
if you don't have both it's a difficult
conversation
to have clearly but it's one that may
take you
i'll stop them great thanks
thanks francesco so um i'm at 12
29 i think we're going to get the lights
are going to go out in about one minute
i just wanted to say again thank you
very much for joining us today
we i believe are recording this we'll
make the recording available
online on our website islandstudies.com
just also wanted to add that this is a
teaser event um
for the virtual island summit and next
week on september 8th at 5 00 pm
atlantic daylight we will be here again
uh presenting um some of us will be here
again uh jim and john tells bird for
instance are also on this um entitled
towards sustainable island futures
comparing small island states and
sub-national island jurisdictions so
we'll also be bringing in speakers from
newfoundland and labrador and new
zealand and
someone else from the caribbean so again
thank you very much for being here and
adding to this conversation
and i really hope that we can continue
it i know that
the virtual island summit there's going
to be lots of opportunity for this kind
of
interchange with global leaders and
researchers policy makers and regular
citizens from all around the world so i
hope you'll join in
and thanks again and see you next week
bye bye bye
bye
