A climate game changer for U.S. Caribbean island communities

Gathered in the offices of the USDA Caribbean Climate Hub in Puerto Rico, four sets of teams comprising farmers, agriculture extension experts and young interns with the U.S. Forestry Service are having fun while honing their strategic and systems thinking skills in a high-stakes game.  

The object of the contest is the survival of their own communities’ farms, and by extension, island-wide resilience – as determined by which teams can make smart, adaptive, sustainable use of increasingly climate-imperiled resources. How can they protect livestock and crops as temperatures skyrocket and saltwater threatens scarce freshwater reserves? How can coastal farm communities proactively prepare for rising sea levels and displacement? How can vital ecosystem assets, including mangroves and seagrass beds – which impede erosion, stabilize island shorelines and support biodiversity – be better managed and preserved?  

The Caribbean Climate Resilience (CCR) Game, part of a project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the U.S. Caribbean region, is designed to help government officials, educators, foresters, farmers and others game out these challenges. In doing so, the new game is holding a mirror to the increasingly stark conditions experienced by millions of other island-bound community members around the world.  

The interactive role-playing game, developed and currently being piloted by Winrock, focuses on agricultural adaptation, climate change and resilience.  

Designed as an experiential learning tool, the goal is to help players use critical thinking skills to better understand how their farm management decisions can affect their farm’s profitability, soil health and climate resilience. Players, whether as individuals or on teams, must make decisions that generate income while balancing the ability to recover from natural disasters, as well as other climate-related and economic impacts. The choices made determine the overall resilience of their farms, as well as preservation of income and the protection of critical natural resources such as healthy soil. 

In four rounds, four teams must learn how to utilize their cash and soil health tokens, roll the “disaster dice,” and collect community chance and agricultural cards to protect their lands and incomes. Each team represents a farm in the U.S. Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico and must invest in resilience activities such as green infrastructure, drip irrigation, water management, composting, rotational grazing, or planting crop resistant varieties, to protect their farms in the face of disaster.  

In each round, teams roll dice that can bring a resource-wrecking hurricane, flood, or drought. Meanwhile, they must continuously pay land rent costs, which compounds each round, while a moderator shepherds and motivates players to take informed and timely actions.  

Those who manage to keep the most cash and soil health tokens, in the end, are named winners — although the real winners are those who learn the most about climate resilience activities. 

USDA Caribbean Climate Hub Director William Gould called the game “unique and exciting.”   

“It uses an interactive board game format that integrates relevant agricultural and forest management scenarios in a fun and competitive way,” he said, adding that it also fosters climate literacy, critical thinking, analysis, and conversation among team members. “By simulating real-world challenges, players can explore and develop strategies for climate resiliency, adaptation mechanisms and climate-smart practices.”  

Krysla Lima, an agricultural and environmental economist with Winrock’s Ecosystem Servicesteam, facilitated a series of practice sessions in Puerto Rico to fine-tune the still-evolving game. She moderated in-person matchups at the Climate Hub offices, answering questions from players, keeping things moving and observing closely to learn what works, what can be improved, and what might be added or removed to ensure the game reflects real conditions and scenarios faced by farmers and other islanders who are already keenly aware of the effects of climate change on their livelihoods and in their communities. 

The game is part of the USDA’s Enabling Climate-Smart Decisions for Agriculture and Forestry in the U.S. Caribbean project, which aims to build connections between farmers, foresters, educators and others in the region, in addition to increasing climate literacy by supporting informed management decisions that can impact water security and quality, crop yields and livelihoods.  

The project also has a soil health learning component. Many of the Caribbean’s luscious island ecosystems rely on healthy soils to support diverse species but are threatened by climate factors including a five-month hurricane season coupled with increasingly extreme precipitation, often followed by drought, and blistering temperatures. In 2023 alone, for example, the Caribbean region experienced an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season, with a total of 20 named storms, of which seven became hurricanes, with three intensifying into major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  

“Hurricanes, increasingly powerful storms, and rising sea levels are already harming human health, ecosystems, water and food supplies, and critical infrastructure in the US Caribbean, with underserved communities suffering disproportionate impacts. Effective adaptation to support resilience in the region could be enhanced by decentralization, shared governance, and stronger partnerships across the Caribbean region and the US mainland.” — U.S. Fifth National Climate Assessment published in 2023. 

Winrock’s work developing the game is just one facet of the larger USDA project, which is funded through the department’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. In addition to the Caribbean Climate Hub, other partners include University of the Virgin Islands Cooperative Extension Service, the University of Puerto Rico and the Climate Science Alliance.  

After her recent trip to Puerto Rico, Winrock’s Krysla Lima said the game is nearly finalized. Obtaining community feedback, such as ensuring land rents are levied upon players – as they are upon farmers in reality – is helping to improve the game’s impact and resulting in modifications. As a result of specific feedback gleaned during the latest round of practice sessions, during each round, players now are required to pay rent and account for inflation as the game goes on.  

“Test players have really enjoyed playing the game, finding that its vision for guiding land use decisions with climate resilience in mind could be beneficial to target audiences,” Lima said. “Player feedback has appreciated the real-life scenarios that apply within the area, including disaster dice, community and agricultural chance cards, and the land rent costs increasing with inflation. Some groups would get competitive and make the game very fun with lots of back and forth between teams. The discussion portion of the game allowed the test players to share their immediate impressions of the game, areas of improvement, and ways in which to incorporate the game into the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands context.”

As all final inputs are being obtained and integrated, the game is currently being translated into Spanish to expand its accessibility.

Other project activities include connecting and training farmers, educators and professionals through the Caribbean Soil Health Learning Network. The network links farmers to mentorship opportunities, field days, webinars and soil health benchmarking to compare what works — and what doesn’t — with direct input from practitioners. This locally-led group from the forestry and agriculture sectors is learning and sharing information about the impacts their natural resource management decisions have on water security, greenhouse gas emissions, yields, livelihoods, and long-term resilience to climate change in the islands.

The network is now expanding with a series of seven webinars, including outreach to Pacific islanders in Hawaii.

“With minor adjustments to the potential threats in the chance cards, the game has the potential to be adapted and used in other regions and at any of the USDA Climate Hubs,” says Gould, the Caribbean Climate Hub director. “This adaptability makes it a versatile tool for teaching and promoting sustainable agricultural practices across diverse climates.” 

Winrock International is a pioneer in the development of Eco Games as interactive knowledge-sharing tools to build awareness of the impacts of decision-making on critical natural resources. In addition to the USDA Caribbean Climate Resilience Game, Winrock developed ECO Game: Northern Ghana under the USAID Ghana Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Program; the ECO Game: Ghana Deforestation-Free Cocoa under USAID’s Supporting Deforestation-Free Cocoa project; and ECO Game: Water Security as part of USAID’s Sustainable Water Partnership, focused on Cambodia’s Stung Chinit Basin.