Offshore Islands Conservation Programme: Saving the World's Rarest Snake

The Environmental Awareness Group (EAG), Antigua and Barbuda's longest-running environmental NGO, runs the Offshore Islands Conservation Programme to protect the endemic flora and fauna of the nation's outlying islands. Its flagship achievement is the recovery of the Antiguan Racer, once the world's rarest snake, from just 50 individuals in the mid-1990s to over 1,200 by 2015 after invasive rats and mongoose were eradicated from 16 offshore islands. The programme also protects the Hawksbill Turtle and West Indian Whistling Duck, and runs an Offshore Islands Floating Classroom that has brought thousands of Antiguan teachers and students out to the islands for hands-on conservation education. In 2025 the EAG marked 30 years of this island restoration work.