Brain Drain

Brain drain is defined as the loss of skilled intellectual and technical labor through the movement of such labor to more favorable geographic, economic, or professional environments. The brain drain I am writing about in this post consists of the exodus of young people from islands in the Caribbean and Pacific. They are seeking higher education, opportunities, and jobs and migrating away for it. In some areas the numbers of migrators are so large that only the folks left behind are old people and children. This brain drain poses several problems. Not only have the islands lost potential doctors, researchers, and teachers, they are also losing the energy and ingenuity of their young people in helping mitigate the effects of climate change, and in turn also losing the ability to manage the impacts of hurricanes and tidal storm surges. Delegates from the islands in the Caribbean and Pacific met at the Small Island and Developing States conference to discuss the effects of climate change on small islands. Hopefully they will be able bring their countries together to project a united front and persuade bigger countries to do more in the fight to protect these beautiful, yet fragile island ecosystems from the negative effects of climate change.