Recent Activities

CCN hosted Hon. Lennox Linton, Leader of the Opposition in Dominica, in Washington, DC to attend ICCF’s U.S. Congressional International Conservation Leadership Awards Dinner, as well as associated side events with prominent members of other Conservation Caucuses in the global network supported by the ICCF Group.

The purpose of the visit was to build interest and familiarity in Dominica with the Conservation Caucus model and demonstrate the model’s commitment to non-partisanship and high-level buy-in globally.

Activities during the visit included:

• Discussion for the project team with Hon. Linton on his priority goals, which include sustainable energy, youth engagement with Parliament on environmental issues, resilience planning for natural disasters, biodiversity conservation, as well as his suggestion for a regional approach to the conservation caucus model in the Caribbean.
• Roundtable facilitated by Commonwealth Secretariat to present the Blue Charter, legislative roles in supporting, and the action groups that could be joined by participating countries. Partnership with Commonwealth Secretariat was discussed.
• Panel Discussion: Redefining the Africa Conservation Development Agenda (opportunity for networking with Members of Conservation Caucuses from Africa, including Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique). The event focused on the dangers of overreliance on tourism as the only investment opportunity in Africa's conservation landscapes, and explored diversification of investments in Africa, a topic of relevance to the Eastern Caribbean, as well.
• Oceans Caucus Foundation Ministerial Luncheon “Illegal Unregulated Unreported (IUU) Fishing: Transnational Exchange”. Provided an opportunity for open discussion on the subject between US and international policy-makers. Topics discussed by the panels included the prioritization of IUU fishing within the U.S. national security strategy, the role of technology in enforcement and monitoring, and the advantages of approaching IUU fishing in a holistic, all-of-government manner.
• New Conservation Caucuses Reception and Dinner with Keynote Speaker: Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO, the Global Environment Facility. Members of newly formed conservation caucuses in France, Botswana, the UK, and Mongolia gave brief remarks regarding their priority conservation issues and commitment to leveraging their positions as decisionmakers to address environmental issues ranging from plastics pollution to extractive industry externalities. The dinner provided an important platform for members of potential, new, and existing conservation caucuses to discuss the variance in caucus structure and function at the national levels, and to connect on common environmental initiatives to build political will on the international scale.