This talk is the 3rd in a series of 9 talks at the Saint Lucia Knowledge Fair. This event is organized by The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP) implemented by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
So what’s the answer? Listen to the talk and find out from Nadia herself! 😉
The title of the catchy calypso song from a few years ago, St Lucia, We Love, really captured the essence of this trip to our Caribbean home base. While the traffic was horrendous, the place and people were simply wonderful. I learned about regattas by being a helper for the Yacht Club’s Mango Bowl Regatta, thanks to Lily! Two experiences made the trip exceptional. One was all about our young people who have grown up into smart, caring young adults who are doing great things in their communities. It made my year to talk to and watch Neige, Kimberly, Keiwa, Kievan, and Pernill in action making their country a better place! The other is working with the
kids of today who are participating in community or school environmental clubs and who have such great enthusiasm and joy in being together under the watchful eyes of a caring teacher like Valerie or our fabulous colleagues in the Peace Corps, Sean and Sarah, or our very own Nadia! Our reusable grocery bags were a big hit! The Marigot kids earned money for their projects by selling them all so very fast! Now we are working with a small grocer to also sell them for us. The grocery stores in St. Lucia no longer give out plastic bags, so this is great timing!
If we all just loved St. Lucia (or our own country) just a little bit more, then maybe our waters would be clean again and the plastic bags and straws and bottles wouldn’t be covering our ocean gyres. Love St. Lucia!
Water. We all require it for life. We all need CLEAN water and LOTS of it! Caribbean SEA and TenneSEA work at the grassroots level to empower kids and their communities to get clean water. The Flint, Michigan water disaster was a wake up call for many to realize that you cannot take your water for granted. The changing precipitation patterns throughout the Caribbean have led to water scarcity or tremendous flooding events. Atlanta, Georgia faces water shortages not just because of increases in water use, but also because of changing precipitation patterns. We CANNOT take our water for granted.
Today, we salute three water champions : Valerie Constantin-Regis, Naomi Abraham Moon, and Randal Hale. Read more
From their website: “CMS is a dynamic and innovative company, specializing in onshore and inshore piling, construction and marine engineering within the Caribbean Region. We install pilings which we design to suit each environment in which we work. The customization and use of non traditional, state-of-the-art piling systems ensures minimal environmental impact, increased installation speed, minimal material wastage and consequently a lower project cost for our clients
It’s never too late to be a sponsor and help provide clean water and environmental education
Something else fun that we do? How about Mangroves.
What’s a Mangrove? From Wikipedia: Mangroves are various large and extensive types of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics andsubtropics – mainly between latitudes 25° N and 25° S. The remaining mangrove forest areas of the world in 2000 was 53,190 square miles (137,760 km²) spanning 118 countries and territories.
Caribbean SEA Assisted with field studies at Makote Mangrove, the only real protected mangrove in St Lucia which saw such drought this year that the entire mangrove was dry, even the pond. Our camps this summer also went there and our kids are helping with trash clean ups ….it has become quite the repository of trash both from dumping and floating plastic.
 |
 |
|
 |
This work was helped sponsored by this donation .
Snorkeling with kids where trash is the theme.
You donations help make things like this possible.
Ever wonder what we do?
Sorry for the extended absence – things are happening which is why we’ve been a bit slow updating.
As most ecologists know, observing the same location over time tells you a story about what is going on with the health of the ecosystem. We have a small ecosystem in trouble….a favorite little bay in St. Lucia where Katie (and Nina and Sam, Kievan, Karim, and Selena and sometimes even Keiwa) likes to jump off of the high rocks. The reef was so beautiful when I first saw it many years ago. It still has a diverse array of coral species, but at least half of the bay now has mostly dead coral. The fish population was equally diverse, but now very few fish call the bay home. And what happened to all the sea urchins? They are such important grazers of the reef and none were there this week. It is likely that the Christmas Eve storm that devastated St. Lucia dislodged and killed the sea urchins. The sediment from the torrential rains from Hurricane Tomas in 2010 and again on Christmas Eve have seriously damaged the corals. Green algae is growing more abundantly, likely aided by nutrient enrichment. We have been challenged to try to reverse this process. Even as we can see that the corals of the outer bay seem to be healthier than just after Tomas, others are bleached and dying
. Do you think we can do it? I think it will take a concerted effort, particularly from those who live in this watershed or visit the bay, but I DO think it’s possible. Who wants to help?
