Nigel Jones, dendrologist and Director of the National Botanical Gardens.
A local tree scientist is of the view that Barbadians have forgotten the importance of the environment.
In a recent interview with The Barbados Advocate, Nigel Jones, dendrologist and Director of the National Botanical Gardens (NBG), expressed that he believed Barbadians needed to be reminded of the important role that the environment played in our day-to-day lives.
He revealed that the NBG recently held a training workshop where participants were reminded of the basics behind growing plants. He noted that he realised that some persons did not recognise that plants and people were exactly alike when it came to taking care of them.
“When you reach your 50s or 60s and have various diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes and so on, the care that you will give at that level will not be the same care that you apply when the child is at the age of 11 or 12. So there are different care strategies that you will use in the plant’s life cycle,” he said.
He expressed that hosting the training workshop was his way of reminding participants of the importance of the environment as well as giving them the knowledge they needed to develop it.
“Bear in mind that we fundamentally survive on plants. Seventy per cent of the fruit and vegetables that we use on a daily basis comes from plants. Also, plants provide secondary food for animals that we feed on such as cows, sheep and pigs,” he said.
Therefore, Jones expressed that plants were the cornerstone of our survival, as they are what sustain us on a daily basis.
Additionally, Jones explained, that the way in which we treat our environment directly affects the environment’s ability to retain water in the soil, as well as helping to reduce the amount of flooding that takes place in the event that there is heavy rainfall. He believed that this information alone should drive Barbadians towards being more mindful of the way they treat their environment and grow more plants and trees.