Green Sea Turtles are contributing as much as US $1.7 million each, annually to the Barbados economy and the country is being urged to protect this form of marine life from plastics.
The appeal has come from Andre Miller, Chair of the Environmental Committee of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA). He was speaking earlier this month at the Association’s final quarterly meeting for the year, as he gave details of an Environmental Charter launched by the tourism body, which is aimed at reducing the amount of plastic being used in the tourism sector and by extension the country. Miller said most of the plastic is eventually finding its ways into the marine environment, breaking into small particles and is being ingested by the sea turtles and killing them.
He is therefore warning that if steps are not taken to reduce the use of plastics in this country, that revenue injection into the economy can be jeopardised. He made the point while contending that plastics were also playing a role in flooding, and the spread of vector borne diseases in Barbados.
“Ladies and gentlemen we have to do better. ... From the time with the Coastal Zone Management Unit, from 1996, I have been doing beach and underwater cleanups, back then we did one a year and maybe we got a hundred pounds. Now we do several a year and we get thousands of pounds of garbage, mostly plastics, Styrofoam, straws, non-biodegradable materials,” he said.
Miller further lamented, “We have removed tonnes of plastics from our reefs, from our marine environment. Most of you will not see it, most of you are not going out there, but I am telling you it is one of the strangest things to go diving and there is no dive site, there is no beach in Barbados that I can go to and put on a mask for more than five minutes and not come out with a bunch of these [plastic bags].”
Miller explained that without fish, there will be no corals; without coral reefs there are no beaches; and without beaches the island’s tourism industry is doomed. He used the opportunity then to appeal to the members present to do their part to protect the marine life in general and sign onto the Charter. His comments came as he lamented that too much garbage was being dumped across the island and he is adamant that this behaviour among the public must change.
“In 2008 we did a survey on this island; we were importing 100 million plastics bags. Every month ten 40-foot containers come into this island with Styrofoam and plastic, so let me put that into context Barbadians… that’s means I could go to South Point Lighthouse, put this [plastic bag] on the ground, put another on the ground, put another on the ground, go up Wilcox Hill, go up the ABC Highway and go all the way up to the cement plant, go up to the North Point Lighthouse and line plastic bags and then go back down to the South Coast; I can do that 937 times,” he lamented.
He said while the official aim is to get 50 signatures for the Charter, his desire is to get 100. (JRT)
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