The islands are located along the path of hurricanes, which irremissibly come to us every year. This is something that the islands have lived with since time immemorial, that is to say, the aspects related to regional beauty are linked to the phenomena that affect us every year but as nature lives in harmony with itself, it has the ability to recover from the effects of hurricanes, regenerating plants and redirecting the course of rivers that overflow their banks; in addition to bringing moisture to dry lands.

We humans have occupied the natural environment but have not learnt to co-exist with our habitat. Our societies have not been able to formulate mechanisms to prevent natural events from producing the social disasters that we usually have every year in one or several of our countries.

In other words, hurricanes are natural, but disasters are man-made, since the responsibility for the damages brought about by hurricanes is eminently social; it is therefore up to us humans to seek harmony with nature so that its phenomena would not have the negative effects that we regrettably suffer from time to time.

Since we can influence neither the occurrence nor the trajectory of hurricanes, we must be prepared, so as to avoid or at least reduce such negative effects. In that respect, there have been great advancements in scientific knowledge pertaining to such phenomena, such as their origin, speed, wave height, wind force, temperature, that is to say, everything we need in order to know the exact time of arrival and departure, which puts us in a position to anticipate how we will be affected, taking into consideration the environmental conditions of the islands.

To date, we have been living at a level of risk that we have been unable to assume without producing victims and losses in goods and properties. This has to change by developing a high degree of preparedness that would give us a greater preventive response capacity in order to reduce damages.

With respect to natural phenomena, their management calls for a multisectoral approach that would involve all technical and social sectors in order to include response at all levels. But the most important factor is political participation, which is responsible for undoing the bureaucratic knots that restrict the coordination of activities at the governmental level and in conjunction with civil society.

Reducing the vulnerability of our peoples must take into account the fact that this is created in a physical sense, by affecting the living conditions of persons (housing, access to jobs, health, food, means of communication and transport, etc.) though it is, in turn, part of a social process that creates and increases poverty.

Given that hurricanes concern all countries of the region, the management strategy must be formulated jointly, opening up a suitable space to increase co-operation and coordination within the region. In that respect, the Association of Caribbean States is working on strengthening ties between countries and the bodies responsible for disaster prevention, mitigation and reduction.

Dr. Rubén Silié Valdez is the Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States. The views expressed are not necessarily the official views of the ACS. Feedback can be sent to mail@acs-aec.org

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20 September, 2004