Earth Today | Nature: the best defence against future storms

WITH SUSTAINED winds of 297 kilometres per hour, Hurricane Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 storm in Jamaica last October, forever changing how we look at climate change readiness and disaster preparedness.

The island sustained an estimated USD 8.8 billion in physical damage, equivalent to 41 per cent of the country’s entire 2024 GDP, according to a joint assessment by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. The Planning Institute of Jamaica later put total losses even higher, at USD 12.2 billion. According to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), 95 people across the wider Caribbean lost their lives. The name Melissa has now been retired from the Atlantic hurricane list.

Another storm will come, and what we put between our communities and the next one matters enormously. The answer, in large part, is already here. The Nature Conservancy has documented that a healthy reef can reduce incoming wave energy by up to 97 per cent, and research following Hurricane Sandy found that wetlands reduced storm damage by more than 22 per cent. Every dollar invested in reef and wetland rehabilitation is estimated to yield seven dollars in flood-reduction benefits.

A World Bank study on Jamaica found that mangroves reduce wave height by between 36 and 55 per cent during storm events. Healthy mangrove systems can cut the number of people flooded during a major storm by nearly half. More than 770 hectares of mangrove have been lost in Jamaica over the past two decades, though researchers estimate that more than 70 per cent of those hectares remain candidates for rehabilitation.

Protecting ecosystems must be matched by financial tools that can move at the speed of a disaster. After Melissa, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) made record payouts of USD 91.9 million to the Government of Jamaica within 14 days. It also launched a new Livelihood Protection Policy designed to get cash directly to small farmers, fisherfolk, and market vendors within two weeks of an extreme weather event. This is parametric insurance that is triggered if the storm hits a certain threshold.

While it cannot undo the damage, it closes the gap between disaster and recovery, giving communities the breathing room to rebuild. The Nature Conservancy is now exploring how to extend these parametric models to protect the ecosystems themselves, with mangrove and reef insurance pilot projects already under way in The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean.

Melissa was devastating. It was consistent with a warming region where extreme storm conditions are becoming more likely and more intense. The forests we plant today, the reefs we rehabilitate this year, and the wetlands we protect next month will still be standing when the next one comes.

Contributed by Renée Smith, communications officer, Caribbean Biodiversity Fund