Earth Centre Open House with Jonathan Barcant

Jonathan is a civil engineer specialized in soils, water and environment. He is the founder and Managing Director of a small green engineering company called Vetiver TT Ecological Engineering Solutions Ltd, and co-founder/MD of a Caribbean based NGO called IAMovement. IAMovement’s mission is ‘to facilitate an enlightened and empowered relationship between people and environment’; and it exists to serve as a catalyst for positive behavioral change on environment and climate action in the Caribbean.

IAMovement hosted the local People’s Climate Marches in Trinidad & Tobago in 2014 and 2015, produced numerous educational and documentary videos and films, and hosted 100+ Climate Talk events to date – and has developed and implemented different community focused education and empowerment projects in T&T and several other Caribbean countries. A particular model which IAMovement leads is called the Vetiver Education & Empowerment Project (VEEP), which introduces vetiver grass as a simple, cost-effective green infrastructure solution to communities and countries to help with land stabilization, erosion control, soil and water conservation and reforestation. Livelihood opportunities for communities are also created through the production of carbon-negative vetiver grass handicrafts, the production and sale of vetiver plants, agroforestry approaches, and more. A unique circular economy model which IAMovement has also helped to develop and lead is called Close The Loop, which focuses on capturing waste and transforming into good – primarily organic waste which is captured and channeled to the rehabilitation of degraded quarried lands, and composting using Elaine Ingham’s methods – and where both these activities sequester carbon, Close The Loop will soon allow companies and individuals to help in financing these and other regeneration and conservation activities in the Caribbean as a means to offset their carbon footprints.