As part of the annual Earth Day celebrations, regional environmentalists will this week turn their focus on the island's endemic birds.

There are some 30 bird species endemic to the island, 25 per cent of which are threatened by global warming and other environmental dispositions.

The celebrations, which are to start on Friday, are to be led by the Jamaica Environment Trust as part of its second annual Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival. This year, the festival will focus on survival of the various species in lieu of the impact of climate change.

Only recently, world scientists delivered an alarming report on the impact greenhouse gases have been having on the Earth's climate.

Increased risks

They warned that billions of people across the world could soon face increased risks of flooding and shortages of food and water as global warming continued.

Andrew Dobson, president of the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds, says the imminent threat of climate change is a new destructive force that compounds the many threats that the region is already experiencing.

"With climate change, our forests, watershed, coastal wetlands and coral reefs and beaches are all expected to take yet another turn for the worse in ways we cannot even fully appreciate," he said.

"The only thing we are certain of is that native species, such as wild birds in the Caribbean, are today faced with a suite of threats greater than they have ever confronted in their history," he said.