Country

Barbados: one ecoregion. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

A single ecoregion covers Barbados: the Caribbean shrublands, classed within the deserts and xeric shrublands biome despite its tropical setting. That classification is the honest key to the island's character - a low coral island without high mountains to wring rain from the trade winds, so its natural vegetation runs to drought-tolerant scrub and hardy coastal woodland rather than lush rainforest. The ecoregion is assessed as able to recover. For gardeners the message is practical: constant warmth, salt-laden wind, and seasonal dryness reward tough, xeric-leaning tropical plants - succulents, coastal shrubs, and drought-adapted trees - over moisture-hungry rainforest species, which need irrigation and shelter to look the part here.