Pao­lo Ker­na­han

More than a decade ago I found my­self caught in the yuh-wan­na-go-on-the-reef-boat trap while head­ing to Store Bay in To­ba­go. I'd nev­er been to Buc­coo Reef so I fig­ured why not.On that lazy cruise in a crowd­ed boat pro­pelled by a mo­tor so small it couldn't whisk two eggs, a friend and I stared in­to the azure, cloud­less sky as the sun blis­tered our salt-sprayed lips.

When we got there, one of the dread­locked boat touts hand­ed out lam­i­nat­ed cards with il­lus­tra­tions of reef fish. The cards iden­ti­fied the species by name, so you'd know what you were look­ing at through the glass floor of the boat, or al­ter­na­tive­ly while you were snork­walk­ling, that is, when you put on a pair of jel­lies and walk on the corals with just your face peer­ing through a dive mask on the sur­face. The fish chart was par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful be­cause the ma­jor­i­ty of the species on it didn't put in an ap­pear­ance that day.

I was re­mind­ed of this ex­pe­ri­ence as I sat in the IMAX movie the­atre this week with my heart rac­ing through a mind-blow­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. On the in­vi­ta­tion of At­lantic LNG, I joined their At­lantic Ul­ti­mate Field Trip, an out­reach pro­gramme where the com­pa­ny, through the IMAX the­atre, ex­pos­es school chil­dren to fas­ci­nat­ing wildlife films.

This fea­ture was called The Last Reef and I didn't know what I was in for when I put on my dorky 3D glass­es. This film was made for IMAX tech­nol­o­gy! There was one scene in the film of a la­goon filled with jel­ly fish. It ap­peared as though the en­tire the­atre was filled with the grace­ful, di­aphanous crea­tures. The chil­dren screamed like they were in a school bus falling off a cliff; the ex­cite­ment was in­cred­i­ble!

The un­der­ly­ing mes­sage of the film is that reefs all around the world are im­per­illed by cli­mate change and pol­lu­tion.

That has par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance for the Caribbean and the cause of reef con­ser­va­tion is be­ing cham­pi­oned by a non-na­tive. British bil­lion­aire Richard Bran­son, CEO of the Vir­gin group of com­pa­nies, is the chief pro­po­nent of Caribbean Chal­lenge. It is an am­bi­tious ini­tia­tive meant to en­cour­age Caribbean na­tions to ag­gres­sive­ly pro­tect their ma­rine, coastal and man­grove habi­tats. He has a pro­found ap­pre­ci­a­tion for these nat­ur­al as­sets. Makes sense be­cause he owns an is­land, nat­u­ral­ly in the British Vir­gin Is­lands.

The Caribbean Chal­lenge calls for spe­cial pro­tect­ed zones along at least 20 per cent of the re­gion's coasts by 2020. The Ba­hamas, Ja­maica, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Puer­to Ri­co and St Lu­cia are just some of the is­lands al­ready hum­ming Bran­son's tune. Ja­maica, con­sid­ered to be heav­i­ly over­fished, has es­tab­lished sanc­tu­ar­ies where fish­ing is pro­hib­it­ed. The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic is said to have cre­at­ed 30 new pro­tect­ed ar­eas in just a few years.

A bur­geon­ing move­ment in the re­gion, it seems, has co­a­lesced around Bran­son's vi­sion, one which grasps the im­por­tance of reef and coastal man­age­ment to the fick­le tourism mar­ket. Rough es­ti­mates put the re­gion's an­nu­al tourism take at US$20 bil­lion sup­port­ing two mil­lion jobs.

On his own is­land, Bran­son has cre­at­ed a mi­ni eco-re­sort, rein­tro­duc­ing flamin­gos and im­port­ing lemurs (the lemurs I don't get.) He clear­ly sees the im­por­tance of the preser­va­tion of all wildlife habi­tats, and it is not sim­ply through rose-tint­ed glass­es–more Pra­da shades. Ul­ti­mate­ly this rep­re­sents mon­ey for debt-stran­gled Caribbean coun­tries. In none of the re­search I've read about this ini­tia­tive is Trinidad and To­ba­go men­tioned.

The on­ly area de­clared a ma­rine park in T&T is Buc­coo Reef. We are sig­na­to­ries to in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tions meant to of­fer wider ma­rine pro­tec­tion but with­out en­force­ment those sig­na­tures are just wast­ed ink. At Buc­coo there is sig­nage in­di­cat­ing park bound­aries as well as moor­ing buoys so reef boat op­er­a­tors don't plunge their an­chors in­to the corals.

As al­ways, we slap a des­ig­na­tion on­to some­thing and ex­pect that ti­tle alone be­comes an im­pen­e­tra­ble shield. Reef walk­ing, il­le­gal fish­ing and oth­er de­struc­tive ac­tiv­i­ties per­sist. Cou­pled with the ef­fects of pol­lut­ed out­flows from rivers and coral bleach­ing caused by in­creas­es in sea tem­per­a­tures, Buc­coo Reef is in abysmal shape.

Some ex­perts with whom I've spo­ken be­lieve this icon­ic ma­rine habi­tat is too far gone to be worth the both­er. That is a de­featist po­si­tion not to be en­ter­tained. Reefs com­pre­hen­sive­ly killed off in oth­er parts of the world have re­bound­ed.

We need the po­lit­i­cal will to swift­ly make the changes nec­es­sary to pre­serve the ma­rine re­sources which are of im­mense im­por­tance to the econ­o­my of To­ba­go. The reef tour in­dus­try must be more rigid­ly po­liced. If Buc­coo Reef dies, so do the tours un­less they de­vel­op mag­ni­fy­ing-glass-bot­tom boats to take tourists to Fly­ing Reef which is in much deep­er wa­ter.

Oth­er Caribbean na­tions are forg­ing ahead, spurred on in part by the Caribbean Chal­lenge. In this coun­try, Buc­coo reef is where the fight back must be­gin to pre­serve all of our reefs; it is a fight which must be sus­tained down to the very last reef.