The Green Page - December 19, 2001

Publication: Daily Nation
Paper Page: 21A
Paper Date: Wed, Dec 19, 2001
Byline: Compiled by Terry Ally

Page sponsored by Texaco Caribbean Limited

 

• Scotland District tops the list
• Condolences to Angela Cropper

Scotland District tops the list

The search is on for four to seven sites in the Caribbean which could be developed as examples of how the natural environment in the region could be sustainably managed.

The first of 13 meetings focused on Barbados recently and the Scotland District came out as the preferred site by both the government
and non-governmental organisation delegates.

"It is a competitive choice at the regional level," said technical officer of the Barbados-based Caribbean Regional Environmental Programme (CREP) Yuri Chakalall. "It allows the best case for Barbados in terms of uniqueness and in terms of opportunity to work with the community on a diverse range of natural resource management issues such as  biodiversity, reforestation, and slope stability issues."

The chosen sites will each benefit from a $1.2 million programme to convert them into demonstration sites. Each of the 13-member states of CREP is being asked to nominate candidate sites in one or all of the following four categories:

• The coastal zone;
• The marine environment;
• The terrestrial environment; and,
• Cultural and historical heritage.

In Barbados the government delegation proposed the Scotland District, followed by the Graeme Hall Swamp, and Carlisle Bay while the NGOs proposed the Scotland District, the area from Garrison to Oistins, and Speightstown for its historic and cultural heritage. The next step is for consultants to do a short study to evaluate their suitability and then from the pool of sites proposed by the 16 countries, four to seven will be selected.

There are six broad areas of activity  that can be conducted in the demonstration site. They are:

• Good governance:  This would include the development of policy and legislation; "CO-management which is a method where the communities are empowered by the authorities  to manage resources; "adaptive management" which simply means "learning by doing"; and helping to create or strengthen organisations to manage the area;
• Education and awareness building: This includes advocacy, the exchange of information, and the creation of networks of information;
• Sustainable livelihoods: This is how the people in the area can earn a living through such activities as eco-tourism and from conservation of the heritage and cultural resources in the area. The thrust is also to improve the quality of life for residents in the area;
• Biodiversity conservation: Biodiversity is the collection of all life (plants, animals, organisms) in nature. Their functions are all interrelated
  and provide the life support system for the planet. The aim here is to improve environmental quality such as sanitation, remedial waste treatment, landscape restoration, and shoreline improvement. Work will also include implementing methods to guard against damage from natural hazards and also systems to protect the biodiversity of the area, particularly any endangered species;
• Economic development: Going hand in hand with sustainable livelihoods, this activity will involve the use of resources in the area to earn income such as agro-forestry, eco-tourism, cottage industries, and forestry;
• Fund raising: This will involve the development methods to make the project economically sustainable and would include such things as trust funds, establishment of co-operatives, charging of user fees and fiscal incentives.

For example, said Chakalall, an ideal site could include one or more of these activities.

"One could perhaps see the development of trails and helping communities to develop and manage them so there is sustainable livelihood and some benefit from the environment. Those trails can serve educational aware purposes. In terms of agroforestry, the community can  be involved in the replanting of slopes with tree varieties that would yield fruit that can be used in cottage industries. So there would be a dual function of community involvement and sustainable livelihoods while protecting the environment by improving degraded slopes and arresting soil erosion," he said.

Those sites which are not chosen for the regional project can still benefit from other projects because the evaluation work done by the consultants will be available for others to implement suitable projects. Should CREP (initially a four-year programme) continue, these other sites would form a bank from which they can implement projects in the future.

Condolences to Angela Cropper

TODAY, The Green Page sends its condolences to  Angela Cropper, one of the Caribbean's best known conservationists, who lost three family members  in Trinidad last week.

The bodies of her husband John;  sister Lynette Persad-Litgow,  a former BBC producer; and her mother Maggie Lee, were discovered at their Trinidad home on  Thursday where they  were believed to have been murdered. The bad news came as Cropper was still coming to grips with the death of her son, Devanand, 21, who died in London, in 1998, where he was attending the London School of Economics, friends close to the family said.

Cropper was director of functional co-operation at the Guyana-based headquarters of CARICOM from 1986 to 1990. She and her husband, John, 59, co-founded the Cropper Foundation, which sponsors workshops for young creative writers in Trinidad, and he was the editor of the Farm News journal.