Submitted by Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary
[Bridgetown, BARBADOS, May 6, 2010] A new environmental study sharply critical of the Government of Barbados shows the key Graeme Hall mangrove wetland is disappearing due to outside pollution and poor water quality.
The Graeme Hall wetland is the last remaining mangrove in Barbados – a red mangrove forest that has existed for no less than 1,300 years. It is the only wetland in Barbados recognized internationally under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar). It acts as a Caribbean flyway stop for migratory birds between North and South America.
The extensive 800 page study prepared for the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary by Environmental Engineering Consultants of Tampa, Florida shows the Sanctuary has suffered a 77 per cent reduction in salinity in the past ten years due to an inoperative government-run sluice gate. The huge reduction signals “an inevitable failure of the mangrove ecosystem” as freshwater flora and fauna take over.
The study also cites damaging factors including: dumping of raw sewage into the wetland instead of the sea by the South Coast Sewage Treatment Plant; contaminated storm water runoff originating from 1,150 acres of government-managed drainage systems; and, commercial and residential pollutants from adjoining properties.
“The government owned and operated sluice gate failure confirms our worst fears,” said Stuart Heaslet, an official with Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary. “It means that as the mangrove forest dies, it will not grow back because freshwater plants are taking over.”
The original environmental investment in the Sanctuary was based on the area being protected as a brackish mangrove ecosystem.
“The study confirms that Government-controlled pollution is being dumped into the wetland. Despite our formal offers of technical and financial assistance to government, there has been no response. We can’t defend ourselves against pollution and environmental mismanagement outside our boundaries. Bird counts are down, crabs are disappearing, and we are seeing environmental degradation everywhere.”
Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary occupies 42 per cent of the Ramsar wetland at Graeme Hall, and is owned by Peter Allard, a Canadian investor and philanthropist who has put more than US $35 million into the 35-acre eco-tourism site to preserve the last significant mangrove woodland and wetland on the island.
“The investment in the Sanctuary was supposed to be part of a sustainable environmental initiative, dependent on government leadership,” said Allard. “As the largest private environmental stakeholder in Barbados, we continue to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to maintain the Sanctuary, but we all have to face the fact that it’s Government who is killing the wetland. The study shows that our environmental commitment and investment cannot withstand this assault.”
The Sanctuary in fact closed its doors to the general public in late 2008 when problems of pollution and water quality became overwhelming.
“This isn’t just a problem for the Ramsar environmental wetland and our investment, it’s also a health and human welfare problem for the people of Barbados,” said Allard.
Despite a 6,000 signature petition by citizens of Barbados to create a 240-acre national park at Graeme Hall, a new government zoning policy calls for commercial and residential development for the majority of the area.
As the Canadian owner of the Sanctuary, Allard has filed several complaints alleging that the Government of Barbados has violated its international obligations by refusing to enforce its environmental laws, thereby allowing increased pollution and land development to damage the Sanctuary.
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97 responses to “Is The Last Remaining Mangrove Wetland In Barbados Disappearing?”
The original title of the submission was changed by BU. A big part of the problem with this issue has always been the tone used by GHNS. You can’t hit someone over the head and expect them to respond kindly. Given what we know the government officials don’t give too hoots about being pressured and regard this as a sovereign matter.
Cud Dear! This is like a bad divorce and the only ones to suffer are the children In this case the plant, and animal life and in the end the country because the wetlands are a major important part of our ecology. It is time to stop playing politics.
Yaaawnnn…,, uh tired. I gine sleep.
It’s Owen Arthur’s fault that the swamp is disappearing…isn’t it?
@Anonymous
This bullshite started under the Arthur government.
Until people understand the relevancy of the enviroment and the very significant roles it plays fromthe smallest microscopic organism to human beings, they would never be a appreciation for it .The fact that people continue to take it for granted is a lack of education on their part . The pollution that is going into the wetlands is going to find its way into our water if it hasn”t done so by now. How can a government be so callous in underminding the very source of our survival that is water. The wetlands also play a very important role in helping to cool the earth.
Yet as now everyone keeps complaining about how hot it is . When nature cannot do it’s job because of our selfishness everybody suffers
So, according to ac, Graeme Hall in little Barbados is the source whence springs all life in the World. Why are we worrying about our economy then? We should be charging the World for its very existence and the owners of Graeme Hall should be what Hitler and Napoleon and many others of them aspired to be and failed. Barbados, given the position of ac, should not have to make a call as to whether to open a new school or to bail out a failed commercial project (Graeme Hall) and haul its Canadian owner’s coals out of the fire of his own making. And the organisms and microorganisms so beloved of ac and crew should be playing joyfully in the swamp (along with the dengue mosquitos) instead of having to relinquish their place in government spending priorities to the well being of a Bajan child or to one of our senior citizens.
David is right. Government (as in all governments) look on this as a sovereign matter and they are not going to bow to pressure, law suits, threats OR the moaning and tactics of the man who lives mostly in the dunes of Longbeach. Those tactics, by the way, are about to become the subject of major international news stories, it is understood. I believe that this subject, raised at this time on VOB and across the way on the seldom read other blog, are designed solely to put a spin on things. Boooooooooorrrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnngggggg.
@Amused
By your logic I guess the USA should not be invovled in helping BP clean up the oil spill but should used the money elsewhere to benefit its people. Listen carefully
when the enviroment is destroy so goes all that dwell therein. Fixing of the gate does not cost as much as constructing a building. Your overview of the situation is all political .My overview is to do what is right and what would benefit the country as a whole.Everything on this planet is interconnected and it is selfish if human only think that it is all about themselves. Whatever problems the government has with Allard the courts would decide. I guess this problem would be resolved when there is an oubreak of mosquitoe borne disease on the island.
I love to read BU for my entertainment. My familiarity with Grahme Hall Swamp goes back to 1959 when we moved into the general area, and as children we took a “short cut” across what was called the banking road from Highway seven next to Maas Clinic inwards on our way to church or to school at St Lawrence or to shop at George Wards store.
The general area of the “swamp” today is perhaps half to a quarter of what it was then. Especially the section near Brewsters Rd. A lot of it was filled in during the sixties and onwards.
But guess what? There were no outbreaks of mosquito borne disease on the island— and definitely no dengue (which is of course a scam too, and a disease designed by the Illuminati to kill off black people!) LOL.
In the early 90’s during National Trust Stop and Stare Walks, I was amazed to see the state of my beloved swamp, and rejoiced to see what was being done with the relatively section that was being then developed towards the end of that decade when leading some tourists through it for my buddy the late founder of the Future Center Trust.
In my youth I would often met Captain MB Hutt, former late History teacher at HC walking in the swamp and enjoying the scenery and the birds. There was a gun club there in those days. I doubt very many Bajans new about the swamp until it was developed, as it was well hidden except from those who lived at its borders and used it for what ever purposes.
Now it is a political football. The swamp has long been dissapearing since the early sixties, when much of it was filled up with soil. I never heard a murmur then. Nobody was lamenting that it was such a crucial part of our ecology then.
Also in those days except for the “banking road” which was a marl filled road, the swamp was far from children friendly as it was when the small part that has been developed, was developed in the late 90’s.
The truth is that most Bajans didnt know or care about the swamp then, and relatively care about it now. The man that bought it was in my opinion brave or silly to do so. He really think these jokers know or care bout ecology. Why didnt some one tell him that he needed to grease the fellas hands by passing a little mopney under the table?
Oh by the way does the stream still exist near the Old Pepperpot on the other side of the Road where the Wood’s and Burke’s lived next to what was then the 10 cents pole?
@Georgie Porgie
“Why didnt some one tell him that he needed to grease the fellas hands by passing a little mopney under the table.”
That may be at the heart of the problem. The Water Park fellow was told about ow things work and nearly succeeded with his plan until citizens campaigned against it and imminent elections forced the Minister’s hand not to approve the application.
One day mother nature will make “structural adjustments”.
mother nature does not discriminate and when it makes corrections it wouldn’t be pretty. Lots of people suffer. What government would not want to do right on matters of enviromental issues for it’s country?
The worst thing that will happen is that the area will be overgrown with foliage characteristic of land bathed by fresh water – as most of the section towards the old sugar fields has done long ago. The mangrove in the former mangrove area in the other part of Ch Ch (whose name I can not now recollect) has cause no ecological or health problems. It is to be noted that only a relatively small part of the swamp was ever a mangrove area.
Some of us behaving as if lost of the mangrove will cause the natives to lose thier places with the four and twenty elders around the glassy sea, when the facts are that if this man had not bought the swamp, and developed a small part of it, that the majority of Bajans would not even know that there was a swamp..
the lost of the mangrove in was it Chancery Lane
For some people ignorance is bliss!
Maybe, just maybe if Allard backs off the matter which is currently in the Canadian Courts which names the government of Barbados as a party, the Barbados government may just relax its position. Until something gives on that matter its hard to see the politics of the situation not escalating.
Wetlands are important to any society as they provide many different services not ony for plant and wild life but also for people .Such as protecting and improving water quality .Providing fish and wildlife habitat. Storing floodwaters and maintaining surface waterlevels during dry periods .In a country where we experienced dry conditions annually maintaining our wetlands should be important.
An acre of wetland can store 1-1.5million gallons of flood water. So if the government is planning to build houses on the wetlands they had better do the research on the importance of preserving the wetlands. Wetlands function like sponges or tubs in that the process slow the water momentum and erosive potential reduces flood heights and allows for ground water recharge which contributes to base flow to surface systems during dry periods. The government in charge needs to take these facts seriuosly before destroying the wetland.
Wetlands are often refered to as kidneys of the vlandscape for their ability to remove excess nutrients toxic substances and sediments from water that flow through them helping to improve downstream water quality.Wetlands have been effective in removing contaminants such as pesticides , landfill leachate ,dissolved
cholrinated compounds,metals and storm runoff. Well if the government doesn’t think that water filtration is important some one needs to question their sanity!
Whether Barbadians knew about the swamp in the 60s or 2010 is irrelevant. The fact is the wetlands are under threat and the sluice gate needs to be operational.
GP is right when he wrote that many people in Barbados were unaware of Graeme Hall Swamp or “The Swamp” as it was called by the locals who lived in the surrounding areas.
But GP didn’t mention little boys catching fish called “thousands” and storing them in rudimentary aquariums e.g pans or some type of glass container. GP didn’t mention people going “crabbing” in the area at night with “crocus bags” to store any crabs which were caught and because the area was very dark they would carry a “smut lamp” to be able to navigate the locale. I suspect GP was too busy with Latin and Biology homework that’s why GP became a Doctor and I became a ne’er do well (LOL)
There are many jokes about scam artists selling swamp land in Florida to the gullible; however Allard chose to buy swamp land in Barbados and then become a thorn in the Arthur led Gov’t’s hide. The Thompson led Gov’t has now inherited some of that bad blood. I haven’t had the opportunity of visiting the place in a number of years but from the photos that I’ ve seen it has undergone a major face lift and one or two people have commented positively to me about the upgrade.
I don’t know enough about the dispute between the B’dos Gov’t and Allard but it seems to be the stage where both parties are dug into their respective positions and no one is willing to yield so we have a stalemate…… and when that happens no one wins but we all lose. .
@Saregeant
What the people know then in the 60’s is irrelevant. The Question is when is the government going to do its part in maintaining the wetlands a natural source of man’s survival. The government role in this matter is of major importance to it’s people and country. I hold the government responsible . The people did not vote for Peter Allard.
You know, when this “story” broke about a “major environmental study” that “slams” Barbados first on VOB and then on BFP, I looked in vain to find it on BU. No sign of it. VOB and BFP had it for an entire day before it appeared on BU. So I figured that BU had had enough of this topic and decided not to join the Allard yardfowls at BFP.
THEN, BU published, having changed the title. Now, it didn’t take a day to change a title, so I have to axe myself (and David) if BU’s failure to rush to publication had anything to do with the fact that, overestimating his own inflated sense of importance as usual, Mr Allard/GHNS decided to give VOB and BFP the jump on what they perceive to be “the story of the century”.
Might it be that they did not intend to give the story to BU at all, BUT they needed to try to get BU’s international readership?
These people have too much time on their hands. I have noticed that there are 22 comments on BU to BFP’s 9. So let us give the Allard yardfowls/BFP groupies (they are all the same people) something to do. They can now write to each other over on BFP under different multiple monnikers so as to give the impression that the story has, to quote BFP “gone viral”. But I got news for you – the virus won – it dead.
Either we are for or not for keeping or integrity in tack when it comes to enviromental issues or would rather give in those who would prefer to turn Barbados into a concrete jungle with those ungodly condominums.
Sargeant
I remember well that little boys caught fish called “thousands” in the swamp and stored them in rudimentary aquariums e.g pans or some type of glass container.
And although I didn’t mention people going “crabbing” in the area at night with “crocus bags”, my brothers, cousins and myself also had :crabbing days”…especially after periods of great rain fall. There was also an area towards “Alleyne’s house where there was a pond with crayfish.
You forget to mention the passtine of “jumping swamps” referring to jumping from one of those long slender ponds below the lakes or/on the St Lawrence side of the banking Rd. You forget the fear of falling in as folk used to say it was “quick sand? You dindt mention floating on the “bateaux.”
And NO I didnt do Biology at school until 6th form. Unfortunately I did not do a lot of homework in my school days- just enough not to get put in detention. Only realized that I had to study after I failed my A levels the first time.
But yes I have many great memories of the swamp. Running from Jack Cox the watchman or running from the book keeper on his white horse. Running through the back to get to St Lawrence to reach the 10 cent pole to save 5cents on Sunday evenings on the way to Sunday School.
The caretaker of the sluice gate and the gun club lived opposite to me and brought us birds that were shot there.
But all of these things are irrelevant. LOL
Half of the area on the Rendezvous side of the banking Rd was filled in with mould in the early 60’s. It was possible to walk through areas that was previously all water and the typical grass that grew there in the 60’s when I went through there on the National Trust walks in the 90/s. By then only one of the two big lakes was left and it was much smaller than in the 60’s.
As I said before, it is only now that most Bajans have heard about the swamp. So now that folk are keeping noise about the swamp most of the swamp on one side of the now non existent banking Rd is long gone!
It was impossible to walk across the banking Rd in the usual way as far back as 1977 as it was no longer being maintained.
Very few went into the area where the gun club was behind the mangroves on the Rendezvous side, which stretched far inland.
Finally Sargeant the photos that you have seen that has undergone the major face lift is an extremely small area of the section of the swamp on the Rendezvous section of the old banking road behind the houses on highway seven that we knew in our boy days in the fifties and sixties.
The section on the Rendezvous side has been about decimated.
Later
When all is said and done who have the most to lose in saving the remaining wetlands Allard or the people? It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!
The Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary is a marvelous asset for this country. We need places like this where children — and their parents — can go to and learn some respect for nature — the birds, the fish and the plants that share the planet with us.
The post-independent generations in Barbados have no respect for these things. We need to turn that around: it’s not a good thing when people grow up contemptuous of the natural world and are obsessed with the material one.
We need places like Graeme Hall in Barbados:oases in the midst of densely populated urban areas where we can go and refresh the spirit.
Peter Allard has created something of beauty here. Regrettably, he is an asshole who does not understand that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. His parting shot on leaving Barbados was to create a childish and mischevious law suit and to hire a lawyer without a shred of integrity to pursue it. The tables have turned. The Canadian courts have recognized this suit for what it is and have dismissed it. Allard and the lawyer will shortly be on the receiving end. More than likely, the lawyer’s career is finished, and it may pay Mr Allard to let Barbados have GH in return for not ramming a law suit up his expansive ass.
Whatever the outcome, the Government should acquire this property and preserve it for the people of Barbados. Let us not be thin-skinned and vindictive over this: we will lose a wonderful natural asset if we are.
I wont hold my breath.
The Government cant run a rum shot.
Things sort of change when idiots are spending some else’s money oe working for government
I remember the difference in attitude (or was it the protocol) when the Government took over the Progeressive bus company in early 1969. Prior to that when a bus stalled the driver would ask us to get out and push or himself try to do something to get the bus going. And they usually did! After Jan 1969 they said ” Call theyard!”
@Call a Spade
Agree with the last paragraph of your comment.
@Call a spade… // May 9, 2010 at 2:43 PM. Agree with it all!!!! Not just the last paragraph. Right on!!!
@GP. “I wont hold my breath. The Government cant run a rum shot.” Just a typo, I am sure, but it is rum shop. As for running it, I was at Welchman Hall Gully recently and at Andromeda. Both government run and both beautifully run. To run Graeme Hall as a nature reserve is not going to be difficult for government. The area that maybe will not work is the one that floored Allard – the commercial side: weddings and corporate functions and the like. We are a small tropical island, surrounded by the most magnificient beaches and sea. Visitors want to be on those. They do not want to be effectively inland in a swamp admiring a lot of non-indigineous flamingos that are a feature of every nature reserve and every bird sactuary in the countries that they come from, cause the pink. Allard has a strong affection and ties to the Pink.
I understand that there is a search afoot for Allard the asshole. Call a spade mentioned he had left Barbados. Is this correct? It seems that the Ontario lawyers for Barbados are interested in his whereabouts. So let us use this release from Allard to track him down for our country. PLEASE DO NOT POST HIS ADDRESS!!! Unless it is Seaview – which he himself has already posted on the Internet and placed in public domain. Just indicate the country and state or province that you believe he is in.
Question ;Is it Allard responsibility to maintain Barbados wetlands or is it the government? It seems to me that the government has close its eyes to the main issue i.e the “wetland”.
@ac. These wetlands comprise but a miniscule percentage of government’s responsibility. What government does have is an over-riding responsibility to Barbados as a whole and its peoples and its status and standing within the international community AS A WHOLE. It does NOT have an over-riding responsibility to ecologists who seem to think that their pet project is more important that the Second Coming (or the First, for that matter) and who, oblivious to massive and sickening human rights abuses, give a highly publicized award to the President of Guyana, lauded and supported by one Lord and one Professor (both assholes) who should know better if they didn’t have their heads firmly planted up their ecological fundaments. I want to know, ac, why you have not commented on that story carried right here on BU, and banged you drum about the state-sanctioned murder and torture of black people in Guyana. Instead of getting yourself excited over the fate of a swamp? I am missing a basic element in BOTH these ecoloogical-based stories – it is called “humanity”, or do a few pretty pink birds take precedence over that these days?
In any case, Call a Spade, has clearly heard the same drummer that I have about sleazy Allard lawyers about to be disbarred in Ontario over a case where Barbados is defendant. From what I have heard, Allard’s “hedges” against him being implicated himself have all DISAPPEARED!!!!!
I can take it a step further. With these actions in Canada, every time something is coming up for hearing before the court, Allard’s two mouthpieces, BFP and Keltruth, spout – and so it is today. BFP has spouted and linked to an old Keltruth story. One which a blogger from whom we have not heard in some time, has called “The Exhumation of Muriel Deane”, or words to that effect. So by exhuming the late Muriel Deane from she grave (I think it is in St George) once again, Allard is hoping to deflect interest from the story he and his cohorts must be sure (because I am sure too) that BU is just waiting to hit them with.
As for poor Kelturh, well they hoping that no body gone sue them and especially since a little bird has told me that it is now proved that lawyer Mckenzie in consultation with Allard was writing all their defamatory blogs.
This whole lastest Graeme Hall thing is just camoflage and they hope people like you, ac, will follow the red herring and not notice the main event. Well, I am waiting for the main event with great anticipation. I have a feeling it is going to be quite a show. NUFF lawyers going down – and not just in Canada.
@ac
Your argument is sound but the GHNS wetlands issue has become a pawn in big game. Let us hope the game reaches checkmate soon.
Amused // May 10, 2010 at 1:26 AM ………. @GP. “I wont hold my breath. The Government cant run a rum shot.” Just a typo, I am sure, but it is rum shop. As for running it, I was at Welchman Hall Gully recently and at Andromeda. Both government run and both beautifully run. ………………
GP, typo or not, don’t hold your breath.
Amused, I can’t believe that you went to either of these tourist attractions, Welchman Hall Gully or Andromeda and missed the fact that both of them are Barbados National Trust (BNT) owned ….. BNT is an NGO and NGO stands for Non Governmental Organisation ….. even ROK of the BANGO could tell you that.
http://andromeda.cavehill.uwi.edu/
http://www.welchmanhallgullybarbados.com/
@GIGO. Who own them? Last I heard they belonged to the Nation. That means the government. Now, where in your tiny brain have you got the idea that the Government is incapable of handing over Graeme Hall to the National Trust? Hello there – anybody home?
@David. Correct. It was bought as a pawn, maintained as a pawn and continues to be a pawn.
Peace.
GIGO
You are correct in that both Andromeda and Welchman Hall Gully are maintained by the National Trust. Andromeda was of course developed by the late Iris Banochie.
It would be very easy for the National Trust or the Future Center Trust to run and maintain the developed section of the swamp and hold weddings and corporate functions there. However, I dont expect too much of Government. For example Harrisons Cave is not exactly run properly in my view much of the time In contrast many of our tourists attractions that are privately owned are better run and maintained.
There has been a lot of talk about wet lands and their benefits and the sleuce gate not being opened etc. which I find very amusing
First I would like to say that there is, and has never been any connection between the St Lawrence side of the swamp ie to the south of the old banking road and the sleuce gate. The sleuce gate only ever affected water entering the long pond on the Rendezvous side of the banking road- never the St Lawrence side.
It boggles the mind that the sleuce gates opening could have affected the water in both of the large lakes in the old days and extend its influence all the way up to the top of the long pond that run inward almost up to line of Amity Lodge road. Note also that there were massive deaths of fish in some years then, even when the sleuce gate was wekll operated.
As some have said this swampy talk is all a red herring. Very few Bajans even knew that the swamp existedf until relatively recently, and we lived and moved and had our being. Now I am hearing that we can not live with out the swamp? When I was last in Bim there were many areas that apeared to me to be run down and not at all in thier pristine glory as they were once maintained. One of them was the whole stretch through St Lawrence and Worthing and Worthing View.
Amused
You must be mistaken.
Here is the website of the Barbados National Trust http://trust.funbarbados.com/ where you can view the properties operated by the Barbados National Trust.
You must visit some more of them besides the two you found so wonderful.
I am pretty sure Welchman Hall Gully is owned by the Barbados National Trust, in fact, the Welchman Hall Gully site says it has been owned by the Barbados National Trust for close to a half century.
I remember at an AGM of the Trust that it was decided to contract out the day to day running of Andromeda as the Trust was not able to fund the many properties it owned and/or operated.
I know the Government of Barbados provides a stipend to the Barbados National Trust but usually hear the Barbados National Trust described as an NGO ….. once again …. Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) …. for in excess of 15 years.
Andromeda provides not only a wonderful site for tourists to visit, but as the site indicates, a means for serious research.
I note that this research is funded by The Peter Moores Foundation, a source of philanthropic funds.
Here is a link to its website. http://www.pmf.org.uk/pag_home.php.
As can be seen, Barbados figures prominently in its activities. You can read about Peter Moores involvement with Andromeda Gardens on this site.
GIGO
Is the Peter Moores Foundation still involved in the project at Cambridge St Joseph relands for sheep and other livestock husbandry
GIGO you must be patient man. Most folk in Bim dont have a clus what goes on in Bim. Many folk who come here to opine do so without real knowledge or research about what they speak
@Amused
First of all I am a Barbadian and have chosen to concern my self with the enviromental side of this issue. As far as things that go on in other neighbouring island their is enough said in the media daily pertaining to those issues and very littl
pertaining to the enviroment. Just look at the response here nobody really cares. So what if one or two care about a little old swamp which is natures way of helping the enviroment. That isn’t even a drop in the bucket to the overwhelming who speak on other issues. Laws that are meant to protect the enviroment I guess they apply to Barbados as well or maybe only when it is convinient for the government to do so.
I am really not concerned about the matter Allard vs, Barbados. Like I said before that matter is up to the courts.My only concern is about the stability of the wetlands
You guys can fight the court battle if you choose to . Far beit for me to tell you how or what to do.
I find it hilarious that the some of the people who are so quick to quote the scriptures do even seem able to connect the dots between the enviroment and the bible. They need to read the story of Genesis starting with the first chapter.
The late Iris Bannochie left Andromeda to…….The Nation! It is not the property of the National Trust. Check it out. I did.
I still find it amazing the lack of interest displayed in the awarding of this international award to the president of Guyana. It would be like Hitler being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. People are being killed and brutalized in Guyana and yet international focus, until Mr Obama spoke up, has been on Guyana’s president’s ecological contribution.
The reputation of Barbados is being dragged through the mud by Allard in order to further his aspirations to own a very large chunk of our land and to profit therefrom and every time he gets called to book, up pops the Graeme Hall issue as cover and, instead of someone who resorts to gutter tactics, he is upheld as being a “philthropist” by the self-same ecologists. Our government has refused to treat with him. Not one of the ecological lot has bothered to ask WHY.
I don’t like the message that all this sends – a message from the ecology lobby. That message is that you can do what you like, as long as you support ecology. Well, I am a Bajan too and I do not like that message at all. Nor should any Bajan.
So, let us hear from the Bajan ecological lobby on the award to the President of Guyana. Where do you stand on that? Enlighten us.
Read Genesis 1 again.
It is an account of the creation of the world, not a treatise on maintaining the environment or wet lands in Barbados. The wet lands at Graham Hall are quite insignificant. If you like like them good. If others dont, they have a right to opine.
Do you know the area well or at all? You are just making an ass of yourself. As usual GP, seems to know what he is saying about the area. Not once has he said not to have the reserve. All he has done is informed me (at least) about an area that he obviously knows or knew well or had some involvement with, including when he contributed at the FTC in its early days.
@ amused
When people make agreements . They ought to live by them. No one can drag your reputation in the mud unless you give them permission to do so. What Allard knows by the government is only that which the government allowed him to know by making agrrements.People who usually degrade each other have been friends or associates at some time. When all is said and done they would be friends again Money talk bullsh..t walk.
@Susan
Talk to your friends ! You are a misinformed mouthpiece. Your take on religion is just as misinformed as your comment on the wetlands. Stick to your religious diatrabeand leave the other issues for those of which they speak. Do you understand the significance of the wetlands to humans.Adios!
GP
Last time I heard, it was a while ago, the Peter Moores Foundation was involved in the Cambridge project but my gut looking at the land last time I was in the area was that it was either a diminished involvement or the involvement of Bajan small farmers had subsided.
I really do not know.
I am not really that patient a person as the handle I chose to deal with Amused would show!!
I know that besides the philanthropic input of this foundation, the Barbados National Trust receives very significant volunteer support in achieving its mandate in Barbados.
It was disappointing to watch Amused belittle the significant effort of many rank and file Bajans and world citizens by completely ignoring their and the Trust’s effort in Barbados.
It may be as a result of a total lack of knowledge but he/she could really have done better …. or just kept quiet and not demonstrated his/her total lack of knowledge.
The effort to keep these properties running is probably not quantifiable in dollar terms.
The Barbados Government does provide funds to the Trust but my bet is these funds are but a drop in the bucket.
Next time I come across the financial statements I will quantify but I am pretty sure they will be available to the pubic as I suspect the Trust may be a not for profit organisation.
Maybe another Trust member could quantify Government’s subvention to the Trust. There are 1500 plus members from all around the world.
http://trust.funbarbados.com/
Amused // May 10, 2010 at 5:03 PM ……..The late Iris Bannochie left Andromeda to…….The Nation! It is not the property of the National Trust. Check it out. I did…..
Check this link for a history of the gardens.
http://www.bgci.org/education/article/408/
GIGO
I know of what you speak concerning Welchman Hall Gully, the National trust and the Peter Mores Foundation.
Maybe you are new to BU, but striving for accuracy is not the norm here. It is maily about emotional sounding off. Enjoy your stay.
Susan you can take comfort in the knowlege that hundreds of Bible scholars and theologians share your opinion about Genesis 1. I wrote my DMin thesis on the book of Genesis, and had to submit 50 references before I started. The best of the best state that Genesis 1-2 is one of the passges that describe the creation.
None of these passages deal with maintaining the environment or wet lands as a proper exegesis of the text in Hebrew will clearly indicate.
Having given inferior dental, one must often exercise a certain degree of patience..
Genesis 2 Vs. 15.key words Cultivate and Guard! Now go to your dictionary and find the meaning.
GIGO // May 10, 2010 at 5:47 PM Check Mrs Bannochie’s Will.