Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands

Dominica workshop papers

Furthering Coastal Stewardship in Small Islands from a Seven-Square-Mile Perspective: Bequia 

Herman Belmar 

The very name ‘Bequia’ sets one thinking and searching.  Even from a Caribbean point of view, we are often unheard of, and very difficult to find on a map. ‘Island of the Clouds’ was what the Carib inhabitants named us, but ironically today we are a cloudless mystery, since we often pray for the clouds to stay long enough to bring the much-desired rain. 

Visitors to our shores soon discover that we occupy a seven square mile dot of God’s perfect creation, where sun, sea and sand abound. Our population of 6,000 shares these luxuries with many of the world’s tourists, including the rich and famous, making tourism, fishing and sailing our heartbeat and lifeblood. 

Bequia sits at the tail of St. Vincent, at the head of the Grenadine archipelago, and forms the perfect staging post for sailing through the shallow, turquoise waters of the Grenadines, which stretch all the way to Grenada. 

Bequia, like most Caribbean territories, has problems with coastal management.  It seems we have inherited our colonial masters’ mentality where our beaches are concerned - strip them bare, take their wealth, absorb their productivity then leave them empty and useless.   While we play on our golden sands and share our island’s beauty with the tourists we welcome; while we play cricket and soccer in the surf and watch our picnic fires burn, we do not see the changing contours of the beach line. We do not note the slow march inland.  We hop over the piles of litter and flotsam.  We take little notice of the vanishing species from the reefs, or the dying coral, until they are long gone. 

This may be so because priorities in the minds of the government and people of small-island developing states, are economic advancement and technological development.  While we would all agree that these are of paramount importance, we should also agree that along with these developments should be placed measures to preserve our precious few resources.  We are virtually coastal inhabitants from one end of our seven square miles to the other; therefore, protection and preservation of this environment should be a privilege. Our people, our land, our waters and our marine environment should be next to our heart. 

As a secondary school teacher involved in the UNESCO Associated Schools Project (ASP) Caribbean Sea Project from its inception, I discovered quite early that my students love to take time off to visit the beaches, as do most Caribbean children.  With little effort I was able to convert this natural love into learning experiences. A beach clean up and analysis of our finds often preceded swimming.  These projects soon became a game with interesting rewards. We became stewards of the beaches, making garbage disposal a pleasurable task. We took personal responsibility for the beaches. 

Our observations of large amounts of broken glass on one beach, and hundreds of bottles in drains that wash down to the sea, led to a ‘Broken Glass Project’, which won the UNESCO Regional Science and Technology Award in 1997, and later, in 1998, the Commonwealth Youth Award.  This project not only brought home the productive use of broken glass, but also opened the eyes of beach lovers to the volume of glass that was being carelessly strewn on beaches and in drains. 

My students developed a bond with the keeper of the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary, and would often trek the six-mile return trip to help feed or just stare at the fascinating turtles.  They were learning too, and soon questioned the logic of releasing turtles on an eroding beach, to which they would eventually return to try and lay their eggs. With that came an investigative study into:

It was no easy task, but the students have done something, which seems to be working. To stop sedimentation in the bay and the death of the coral reef, they have erected barriers of stones along the contours on the bare hillside, and planted cactus in front of the stone barriers to stop and filter the runoff.  (Cactus was the only plant that would resist the sea blast on the east coast, and that the marauding goats would not eat.  Even Aloe Vera and Razor Grass were eaten). Whelk, conch and crabs were brought from neighbouring islets and re-introduced to the reef to reduce the algal growth.  Creeping vines and grass were planted on the remaining strip of sand to encourage dune build up and reduce wind erosion.  The permission of the Fisheries Division was obtained to post signs discouraging fishing and encouraging preservation. 

I am pleased to report that the soil conservation measures are working. Grass is beginning to grow where a few months ago there was only rock.  There is less silt in the water.  The fishing and hunting of whelks has been reduced. The levels of algae appear to be falling.  Sand mining has stopped. 

In the classroom, the students were involved in art and poetry competitions, and were winners of the Marine Education and Resource Center poster competitions that dealt with the preservation of turtles and whales.  They also used the school’s woodwork centre to construct a community notice board on which they often mount conservation and preservation notices in collaboration with the Fisheries Division, thus involving themselves in public education. 

With the Sandwatch Project coming on stream, there emerged a new batch of students; a group unafraid of using scientific methods and technology to their advantage, and prepared, with the possessive nature of children, to adopt and lay claim to individual beaches and to stand in their defence. 

They have set out monitoring stations on six major beaches on Bequia, and have expanded into the Tobago Cays in the southern Grenadines. With an average of three sites on each beach, they are kept quite busy collecting data almost every three months, which they enter into a computer database, which reflects a range of useful information regarding the physical changes on those beaches.  They were also involved in a workshop on ‘Wise Practices for Beach Management in Bequia’ in November 2000 (Cambers, 2001) together with beachfront hoteliers and restaurant operators.  They have had discussions with the Chairman of the Bequia Tourism Association and were able to gain the assistance of the business community and the Tourism Association in cleaning some of the main drains that lead through town to the beaches. They are comfortable that these two sectors are on board with them. 

These students have also taught visiting college students from the United States of America how to use the equipment to collect and analyse the beach data.  They are using compass bearings and experimenting with geographical positioning systems to locate the monitoring sites on the beaches. They have published their work in the Caribbean Compass, as well as local papers. They are working on a teaching video, which may reach regional schools in the final analysis. 

The expansion into the Tobago Cays Marine Park is anticipated to be a crucial part of their public education efforts, as it is hoped it will provide critical data for the park’s management. 

I am of the opinion that costal stewardship can become a natural part of our students’ education and well being.  This, however, should be done, not as another examination topic or classroom-based aspect of our school’s syllabus, but as a fun activity. 

Students should be involved at the experimental education level.  They should be encouraged to enjoy their environment while learning about it. They can use the long afternoon hours of summertime to get involved in meaningful activity, and to have fun while learning during vacation or public holidays. 

Win the confidence of the students, their parents and the public.  Inform the public of your work.  Involve all wherever possible.  Let us preserve and further this task from a costal Caribbean perspective. 

References 

Cambers, G.  2001.  Monitoring beach changes as an integral component of beach management. Final report of the project on ‘Institutional strengthening of beach management capabilities in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the Turks and Caicos Islands’. 

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