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n vi ron m en t T OBAGO (ET) is a nongovernment, non-profit, volunteer organisation , not subsidized by any one group, corporation or government body. Founded in 1995, ET is a proactive advocacy group that campaigns against negative en viron men tal activit ies throughout Tobago. We achieve this through a variety of community and environmental outreach programmes. Environment TOBAGO is funded mainly through grants and membership fees. These funds go back into implementing our projects. We are grateful to all our sponsors over the years and thank them for their continued support
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hat’s inside
ET’s News
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Ecology Notes
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Book Review
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Notes to contributors
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Environment TOBAGO
December 2012
Wetland Conservation
Education Coordinator (ET) This year Environment TOBAGO intends to raise awareness and get children throughout Tobago to begin to develop a healthy relationship with wetlands. The project Wetlands – wetlands take care of water -involves delivering a series of lectures throughout schools in Tobago (or providing information on same in whatever form is needed), as well as, encouraging participating schools to create posters on the theme “Wetlands and Water Management” to further promote awareness, knowledge and understanding about wetlands and its value to communities in Tobago. This project will, in part, be funded by BHP Billiton. We will also produce and publish a photo book of wetlands and its biodiversity found in Tobago and we aim to print 200 copies and distribute to all 50 schools and libraries in Tobago. Environment TOBAGO has been a pioneer in wetland conservation, research and education and recently concluded the ‘Pilot Project, Belle GarSpeyside Wetlands den Wetland, Tobago, and Sustainable Community Based Wetland Assessment for Improvement of Conservational and Educational Efforts’. This project, funded by the United Nations Development Program and executed by Environment Tobago in partnership with residents of Belle Garden, over a period nine months saw members of the Belle Garden Community and nearby villages trained to conduct field assessments, monitor and raise community awareness with respect to wetlands and how wetlands can be used sustainably. Tobago’s wetlands are seriously threatened by abuse and the critical importance of them to biodiversity and human wellbeing is consistently ignored. Most wetland areas of Tobago have been destroyed or their capacity severely reduced. Now less than one percent (1%) of our land area is covered by wetlands. Such areas are often erroneously viewed as dangerous to human health, and of no value to humankind. This misAnother view of the Speyside Wetlands conception, and general lack of appreciation for wetlands, has led to them being used as garbage dumps, filled in and cleared for agricultural, residential, commercial and industrial developments. Environment Tobago has recognized the need for greater awareness and education about wetlands - its func-
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December 2012 Editor: Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Assistant Editor: Christopher K. Starr Design & Layout: Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Technical Support: Jerome Ramsoondar Enid Nobbee Contributors: Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Christopher K. Starr Bertrand Bhikkary Erik Blair Ian Lambie Environment TOBAGO Photographs: Environment TOBAGO
Board of Directors 2012-2014 President:: Patricia Turpin Vice-President: Bertrand Bhikkary Secretary: Wendy Austin Treasurer: Shirley McKenna Other Directors: William Trim Kai Trim Rupert McKenna Fitz Phillips Renee Gift Geoffrey Lewis Sean Clarke Darren Daly Allan Sandy
Environment TOBAGO newsletter
tions and services to mankind. Wetlands are precious, they build up the land, shelter growing fish and shrimp, provide wood for fuel, timber for building. Mangroves protect the land from storm surges, provide a living for crab catchers. They also provide water storage, purification, flood control, shoreline stabilization and prevention of coastal erosion. In short they are a valuable natural resource but instead, wetlands are thought of as wastelands which would be more useful if they were filled in and used for building. Changing that image is a difficult task, we at Environment TOBAGO recognize wetlands as vital ecosystems providing real services that contribute to human well-being – they are considered to be the kidneys of Mother Earth. In short, the need to protect and preserve Tobago’s wetlands are vital to not only the wildlife that live and breed there – the many species of fish, birds, reptiles – but also to us; the people of Tobago as we are as dependent on wetlands for our existence and survival. Through this project, we at Environment Tobago, intend to do just that – raise awareness and foster understanding of one of our most precious resources – our wetlands. What we hope to achieve in the short term is an increased awareness, knowledge and understanding of wetlands in Tobago and its biodiversity and, in the long term, we would like to see conservation and restoration projects implemented by schools across Tobago. For this to happen there must be greater teacher participation through mentoring, direct involvement and encouragement of students’ conservation and restoration activities; such as clean-up campaigns and recycling initiatives as well as support of Environment TOBAGO’s projects/programmes.
Clean, Green School Programme 2012 Education Coordinator (ET) Established in 1996, Environment TOBAGO is committed to the protection and restoration of Tobago’s fragile environment. We are a pro-active advocacy group that campaigns against negative environmental activities. “Environment TOBAGO conserves Tobago’s natural and living resources and advances the knowledge and understanding of such resources, their wise and sustainable use, and their essential relationship to human health and the quality of life.” We achieve this through environmental education, community outreach and research programmes, and advocacy of local government for greater protection and sustainable use of our natural resources. The Clean, Green School Programme was initially launched in 2000 and continues to be an important aspect of our work at Environment TOBAGO. We are committed to partnering with schools as we continue to re-shape the attitudes toward the environment in Tobago. This initiative saw 50 schools registering and 29 actively participating with a focus on areas such as Cleanliness/tidiness of the gen school surroundings, the management of solid waste, beautification activities, student involvement and a reduction in solid waste through the principles of reduce, reuse, recycle and re-think waste disposal within the school and communities in which they are located. This year a total of 20 project reports were handed in and participating schools demonstrated their enthusiasm for the project, not only in their execution of same, but in feedback forms that were given to teachers. When asked about the effectiveness of the programme, teachers responded: “Most definitely! Students have learnt the sig
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roles they can play in the proper disposal and recycling of items.” John Roberts, Memorial SDA School and “At this school, both teachers and students have benefitted with the information given and fully understand the need to reduce solid waste not only in our school but in Tobago” Pembroke Anglican School. The Golden Lane Government Primary school demonstrated a deep understand of the initiatives’ objectives when they commented “The school as an agent of change will foster that greater awareness at home, community level and Tobago at large” as this philosophy is at the core of the Clean, Green School Programme. As we close another successful project, ‘The Keep a Clean, Green School Programme 2012’ an annual initiative intended to address the issues of improper waste disposal and to change attitudes about negative environmental practices, we look forward to our continued, mutually beneficial relationship with schools across Tobago, (and our partners in this project – BHP Billiton and the Dept of Tourism & Transportation, THA as well as the Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisors) in the hope that together we can conserve and protect our vital natural resources.
Clean School Programme garden and composting
Guitar
Penguins made from recycled plastic bottles
Clean School prize giving
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ET Newsletter editor and columnist gets NIHERST Award Jo-Anne Sewlal is the editor of the ET quarterly newsletter and writer of a weekly column for ET on the environment and nature published in the Tobago News newspaper. On 29th September she became the first recipient of the Frank Rampersad Award for Junior Scientist from NIHERST. This award is given to young scientists under the age of 35 for their exceptional achievements in the field of science. It is named after economist Frank Rampersad who was also the first president of NIHERST who provided young scientists with opportunities to develop and allow their skills to be recognised. Sewlal is currently a PhD student at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad where she is pursuing her degree in Zoology focusing on ecology and biodiversity specialising in spiders. She is the author of 35 scientific publications and over 360 articles published in various newsletters, magazines and newspapers regionally and internationally. One of her main areas of interest includes environmental education and in addition to writing she has also appeared in local and international nature documentaries. Sewlal’s accolades include being the first recipient of the Darwin Scholarship, the youngest and the first female recipient of the CAS-TWAS Young Scientist Award and the first in the American Arachnological Society’s history to receive the Vincent Roth Award three times consecutively.
Jo-Anne Sewlal receives her NIHERST award
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ECOLOGY NOTES Some new ways of combating climate change Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies Traditionally, the use of carbon dioxide sinks and preventing deforestation have been advocated as the main ways to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and to reduce the effects of climate change. But more and more research in this area has yielded some alternative methods some of which are a bit unconventional. The first is a somewhat controversial method is “ocean fertilization” where nutrients or minerals that are necessary to algal growth are dumped into the ocean. This “fertilization” causes the algae to bloom and absorb more carbon dioxide for energy production via photosynthesis. More research is needed to prove the value of this technique in reversing climate change and to reduce its undesirable effects such as, creating anoxic patches as the algae decay using up the oxygen in the surrounding water in the decaying process. Another new method that has been proposed is an alternative form of forestation – “green roofs”, so the roof is basically a big planter box. Of course the plants grown here are not restricted to just a lawn grasses but one can grow other plants as well. It is estimated that implementing “green roofs” in an area housing one million people is equivalent to the removal of 55,000 tonnes of carbon per year. Also, if space limited green roofs may be a good alternative to a backyard. More attention is also being placed on using solar energy for lighting and cooking which would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into our atmosphere as less fossil fuel and wood will be burnt as fuel. This is certainly feasible for Trinidad and Tobago as more and more companies that sell solar panels in this country. However, research has found more harmful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that contributes to climate change for example, nitrous oxide which in addition to causing ozone layer depletion is 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Similarly to carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide is generated from human activities like sewerage treatment, combustion, and from the use of fertilizers which contain nitrates. Scientists have recently discovered that this gas can be converted into harmless nitrogen gas by the enzymes found in many microorganisms that are contained in the soil. The climate changes experienced within the last 100 years is primarily due to human activities, but hopefully further research will provide us with some more techniques and solutions to clean up the environmental mess we have gotten ourselves into.
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ARTICLES Risking the marine wilderness Bertrand Bhikarry Environment Tobago In August of this year while attending the Tobago leg of a trans-national panel discussion “Fires of Hope – 50 years of Independence in Trinidad and Tobago ” I listened to once-prominent Black Power activist/turned island elder Dean “Sarge” Fraser admonish the youth of this island. [sic]“… you have an island to run”. His discourse followed a singular bent. Using strong rhetoric he attempted to draw the focus of Tobago’s younger generation to the chances of a more developed lifestyle, made possible through the largesse of offshore gas, and maybe oil. Sarge Fraser is not alone in the view that Tobago’s natural assets require utilisation – meaning of course, monetisation. The central government under the Peoples Partnership coalition have shown remarkable alacrity in mobilising buyers for the various offshore blocks. And should exploration there prove fruitful, they’ve already aligned T&T skill sets with Grenada to extract fossil fuels from her territory. However neither the government, nor the Sarge for that matter, speaks little, if at all, about maintaining the natural environment, about keeping space for wildlife, for marine or terrestrial creatures and for plants. To them, it would seem when measured against the needs of the people, the relevance or importance of nature’s services must be measured against the going commercial value, against a dollar. Now, I’m not wanting to flog the eco thing, but we may be overlooking what ought to be truly obvious. We the people are but part of the fabric put together by Mother Nature – we do not define it. We are less than a thread, but our very survival depends on other threads or linkages. Those links incidentally are generally based in natural habitat, spaces wildlife occupies, anzd marine territory is also a part of that tapestry. So we might want to tread carefully as we rabidly despoil the sea floor around us in the search to find fuel for the economy. Since caution in development is advisable, we need to backtrack a bit and see what could wrong. For that we do not have to go far; the BP Gulf incident will do. Now here’s a textbook case of greedy people (okay, ordinary working persons) doing what their various industry captains desire – which is to make money by the hour extracting a resource. In the run-up to the disaster each company had refined their rhetoric. Each company maintained the best practice. But, at the end of the day marine toxicologist Dr. Susan Shaw, director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, said tellingly about BP’s use of chemical dispersants: “They’ve been used at such a high volume that it’s unprecedented. The worst of these – Corexit 9527 – is the one they’ve been using most. That ruptures red blood cells and causes fish to bleed. With 800,000 gallons of this, we can only imagine the death that will be caused.” So for Trinidad and Tobago to rush to sell the offshore blocks might make for good business. Conversely given the tiny Republic’s unique location in the fields, and with the prevailing water/wind currents and all, the move could spell disaster one day. Granted the future will be a hard one if we decided to NOT SELL blocks. But then again, we will never decide against making easy money, so the soft option stays. But surely we can, must, ensure the oil and gas companies leave a little more than they traditionally do upon demob. Actually in T&T’s case it would be nice if that parting gift also included an intact habitat for fish, birds, and those other wild creatures too numerous to mention.
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Supporting the environment of Tobago through service learning Erik Blair Instructional Development Unit, The University of the West Indies Awareness of the role and importance of the environment can broadly occur in one of two ways: indirectly or directly. In the indirect method we find examples of people who simply ‘care’ about the environment and wish to understand, enhance and preserve its natural wonder and beauty. These people are drawn by an inner desire to address environmental problems and become good stewards of the land. The second way to become involved in environmental matters is for people to be directly driven into action through a specific local cause such as deforestation, flood or the impact of some invasive species. These people may have previously been complacent about environmental concerns but suddenly find themselves facing a particular situation where they feel they now have to do something. Neither of these two instances is the ‘best’ way to become environmentally active and, for the sake of our environment, it is more important that people take action (for whatever reason). But, when we consider how to get more people engaged with their environment, we might look at the role of direct action and ask the question: how do we get people to care for the environment if they do not have a direct cause to rally around? Perhaps one of the tools that can be used to inspire such direct engagement with the environment is something called service learning. Service learning is a direct learning technique that hopes to encourage students to be socially responsible individuals. Instead of waiting for students to act to protect their environment, service learning gives students specific projects that they can work on. Projects that hope to stir their passion for the environment whilst enhancing their educational achievement. Service learning combines classroom teaching and learning with service to the wider community. Through hands-on experiences classroom learning is enriched as students make links between what they learn in school and its relationship with the ‘real world’. The students of Tobago live in a rich and varied environment and service learning allows them to understand and enhance this environment in an educational manner. Service learning gives students the chance to get involved in civic projects then reflect upon their experiences so that they can understand their own responsibilities in relation to their community and environment. According to the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, online) service learning has five key components: It is a method of encouraging student learning and development through active participation in thoughtfully organised service that is conducted in, and meets the needs of, the community. It involves an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher learning, or community service program, along with the community. It helps foster civic responsibility. It is integrated into, and enhances, the academic curriculum or the educational components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled. It provides structured time for students or participants to reflect on the service experience. (EPA, online)
“Service learning combines classroom teaching and learning with service to the wider community. “
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A good example of how service learning can benefit students and the environment comes from Mainland High School, Daytona Beach in Florida. Over 800 Students at Mainland High School were involved in a service learning project at Rose Bay County Park. This project involved them mapping and studying the flora and fauna; producing brochures; building viewing platforms; designing a website; composing songs, and learning how to cook with the native plants. Not only were the teachers able to link this project to the students learning in English, maths, technology, art, music and science but both the country park and the students benefited from the experience. This is quite a big example and Mainland High School has many students and staff that allow for this scale of project but there is no reason why similar activities cannot occur in Tobago. With the right planning, enthusiastic teachers and community leaders could help develop meaningful service learning projects that would be educational, purposeful and environmentally sound. There are a few pointers that organisers should consider before they start a project and projects that are well thought out to begin with tend to be more successful. It is important that there should be a link between the project and the curriculum. This will involve arranging meetings with teachers to work out how to make sure the service learning project supports school learning. Since, service learning puts students at the centre and encourages them to be responsible, students should be involved in the planning stages and should be encouraged to think about what type of projects they would like to do and how they would help manage these projects. Successful projects need the support of the local community which means that parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, shopkeepers and residents should be kept informed about what the project is and how they can help out. Next, the service learning project needs to be kept under constant scrutiny. This involves the students reflecting on their progress – often through written logs or diaries. Writing these logs helps the students analyse how well the project is going and also helps their writing and analytical skills. Finally, hard work and achievement need to be celebrated. When students complete a successful service learning project they need to take time out and be encouraged to celebrate their endeavours and learning. If students feel that they have made a difference then they are more likely to get involved with future projects. Students leave school with grades and qualifications but they have few ‘experiences’ that they can add to their résumés. By getting involved in a service learning project students add skills such as planning, problem-solving, goal setting and decision-making to their résumés and show future employers that they are hard-working, thoughtful and can see a project through to the end. Service learning is a great win-win -win activity. It brings communities together; it supports students’ academic study, and it helps the environment. Service learning helps students connect with their environment in a direct way and show the constructive impact that humans can have on their environment. There are a number of service learning projects that could be really exciting learning experiences – building green habitats; cleaning and restoring wetland areas; developing and promoting farmers’ markets, and designing waste collection and recycling schemes. All these offer the opportunity for students to become academically stronger, to grow as individuals and to make a positive difference to the environment of Tobago. Reference United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (online) ServiceLearning. Learning by doing: students taking greening to the community, edition 3. Available from http://www.epa.gov/wastes/education/pdfs/svclearn.pdf
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Modern Values versus Habitat Loss Bertrand Bhikarry Environment Tobago While some people go blue in the face about the destruction of natural habitat in T&T, the damage goes on. In Tobago the wetlands are being bulldozed for; let’s see – there’s a community centre in Bloody Bay, there’s a rum shop in Granby Point, and they’ve started to build swimming pools and car parks in the Courland area just above the Black Rock Ponds. And let’s not get too upset about the Kilgwyn Marsh where daily, the forestry department (of all people) are ‘supervising’ the opening up of the area, building huts for relaxation. Now Tobago may be small, but within what little land space it occupies, the terrestrial ecosystem has developed a pretty tight relationship with the coastal zone. Thus, Pigeon Point and Buccoo are prime examples of natural habitats for birds, amphibians, fishes, marine growth. So much so that the folk at RAMSAR, understanding the importance of the peninsula and marsh as providers of natures services, gave the go-ahead to create an Environmentally Sensitive Area down there. This blog is too limited a forum to say why the proposed ESA does not yet exist even after a decade. Suffice to say though, instead of a reserved area for wildlife, mangrove, fish, and assorted marine organism, there’s going to be a dock in the buffer zone afforded by Rhizophora mangle. Ah c’mon guys, It’s not like that area isn’t already under severe stress caused by the proliferation of nutrient rich wastewater from Bon Accord and environs. However if the list of travesties against the Tobago wildlife habitat is long, consider the situation next door. Trinidad – land of the Hummingbird, where the landmass is bigger, and the appetite of the population for taking the natural resource is a lesson in rank avarice. The major wetlands in Trinidad, the Nariva Swamp and the Oropouche Lagoon are all that’s left of what nature intended. Minor wetland and marsh are all under cover of ubiquitous concrete, operating as shopping malls, housing, or dumpsites. Nariva (Swamp) was lucky enough, having barely escaped the depradations of developers and rice farmers going on to become an ESA. Oropouche Lagoon however may simply go down in history as the multi-billion dollar lagoon highway that sank. The forested areas of Trinidad are diminishing quicker than was thought possible, as State goes on a building binge ostensibly designed to catalyze a faltering construction industry. Not for the TT government to tighten belts, and develop added value industries – like education for export, high level skills and classy entertainment (what? Soca and Chutney?). Rather the governors of Iere have entered a sliding slippery slope of selling out the natural assets: Resources given us by fate, and of a type which are key to take the country out of the third world. If, and it’s a big if, the oil, gas, pitch, and the fisheries were left for local use, the general population would not have to contemplate emigration – in order to earn a living. Rather they could go away as professionals in demand. These are desirable options that T&T has the wherewithal to explore, but perversely it seems the always reactive state machine will only cut down good land for social development housing schemes. Argghhh!
“The forested areas of Trinidad are diminishing quicker than was thought possible. “
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Keeping out of Tobago People Business Ian Lambie Recently, there was a letter published in the various newspapers from a group of concerned visiting Birdwatchers who witnessed the shooting of pelicans at Grange Bay at Mt. Irvine in Tobago. I received several telephone calls and e-mails from my Bird watching colleagues resident in Trinidad and in the USA enquiring from me what I intended to do about this report. My response was that any intervention on my part will be viewed by my Tobagonian neighbours and friends as "meddling in their business". Hunting in Tobago, in and out of the Hunting Season, was traditional in Tobago. Wildmeat, including nestling Sea- birds taken off their nests on St. Giles Islands and pelican or "Sea Duck", is served at many of the monthly Harvest Festivals, whether in the open or closed Season is well known by the Police, the officers of the Wildlife Section of the THA, members of Environment Tobago and the tour guides and bird watching guides who earn a livelihood by conducting natural history and bird watching tours. It is for them to ensure the observance of the existing conservation of wildlife laws, and not for me a resident, "an outsider" for only fifteen years to become involved in “Tobago business". These persons have been silent on these matters. Tobagonians are of the opinion that Tobago belongs to Tobagonians and not to the Citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. The land, the Wildlife and the reefs "is all we own, and you can’t come here and tell we what to do with it ". Up to mid-December of 2012, in my opinion, the contest in the THA Elections was a close one but after the arrival of the "heavy People’s Partnership (PP) artillery" from Trinidad and the taking-over of the reins from Ashworth Jack by the Prime Minister as the leader of the Peoples' Partnership assisted by the "high-profile" Jack Warner, the demise of the support for Ashworth Jack and the TOP began to wane. Ashworth Jack should have been seen to be leading the charge even if he was supported, in the background, by the PP's heavy artillery and their apparent limitless finances. Had this been done it is quite likely that Ashworth Jack would have retained his seat and the TOP winning 4 or 5 Seats. Let this loss by the TOP and the Peoples Partnership is a lesson to all Trinidad-based politicians, “Keep out of Tobago People Business". Similarly to birdwatchers and conservationists in Trinidad, let the people of Tobago decide the fate of their wildlife whether it is to be consigned to the pot or to be managed in a sustainable manner for posterity. All the deer both the indigenous Red Brocket Deer and the introduced White-tailed or Tobago Deer have long been extirpated by over-hunting and so too has the Tobago Picoplat by trapping for sale in the pet Trade. Crabs, lobsters and conch are scarce because of overhunting and in the case of the crabs also due to loss of habitat. And what has happened to our Flying Fish? Where have they gone? They are now two months late for their annual arrival. The strategy required in dealing with "the people of Tobago” must be different from the strategy adopted in dealing with the people of Mayaro, Point Fortin, Rio Claro, Toco or Sangre Grande. The people of Tobago are a proud people who believe that they can solve all of their problems without the advice or the interference of outsiders but especially Trinidadians.
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JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH Henry Walter Bates 1864. The Naturalist of the River Amazons. 2nd ed. London: John Murray 394 pp. Reprinted 1975 by Dover, New York. Also available online from Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/). [Thirtieth in a series on "naturalist-in" books.] Christopher K. Starr Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies ckstarr@gmail.com As a young man Henry Walter Bates (1825-1892) and another working-class English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, had the idea of financing an expedition to the Amazon through the sale of plant and animal specimens. They went in 1848, remained together for about a year and then worked independently. Over 11 years Bates collected almost 15,000 specimens, mostly insects, of which more than half represented undescribed species. Most of that time was spent in the Upper Amazon, isolated from other scientists except through the very slow exchange of letters. The lack of intellectual society was the one thing that he most missed, and Bates never left Britain again after his return (Crawforth 2009). This book is a classic, perhaps the most engaging of Henry Walter Bates Victorian natural history. It first appeared in 1863 in two volumes. The next year Bates condensed it to the onevolume edition reviewed here. The 12 chapters have nine full-page and 30 smaller illustrations. The former include an interior view of primary forest so rich and wild that one could miss its human element: two Indians with their blowguns. The two friends had large ambitions. Enthusiastic about the growing idea that species evolve, they saw the study of tropical life as the best path to understanding this process. Charles Darwin had already formulated his theory of evolution by natural selection, but did not publish it until near the end of Bates's time in Brazil. They landed at the coastal city of Pará (now Belém) in a state of exaltation. Bates remarked that "The impressions received during our first walk, on the evening of the day of our arrival, can never wholly fade from my mind." Belém then had a population of just 15,000 and was well forested on all sides, where the teeming tropical diversity that they sought was very much in evidence. There were, for example, about 700 species of butterflies within an hour's walk of Belém, more than twice as many as in all of Europe. The Amazon river system drains an area of 7 million km2, about 40% of South America. Bates first went up the Amazon in 1849 and traveled widely in the interior after that. He wandered in a world framed by rivers and streams, whose sheer immensity is the central feature of the landscape. Toward its mouth, the Amazon is so wide that one cannot see both shores at once. Some of its tributaries are more than 1000 km long, hundreds of meters wide even far upstream, and navigable for hundreds of kilome-
“Bates tried a vegetarian diet, but with ill effects “
Environment TOBAGO newsletter
ters. Of one waterway far up the Amazon, Bates remarks that this "stream is not more than forty or fifty yards broad." Note that this insignificant "stream" is wider than any of the "rivers" of Trinidad. The Rio Negro and its tributaries flow south from the Guiana Highlands, whose soils tend to be dark and nutrient-poor. At Manaus, 1600 km from Belém, it joins the Amazon, whose headwaters are in the Andes. Above this confluence the Amazon is commonly called the Solimões in Brazil. The dark waters of the Rio Negro and the light waters of the Solimões run side by side for several kilometers before mixing. Bates remarked that "In crossing we passed the line a little more than half way over, where the waters of the two rivers meet and are sharply demarcated from each other." Unlike Wallace, Bates made no substantial exploration of the Rio Negro system. Amazon travel was then a laborious business. The tides reach far upriver, the river's rise and fall are a major seasonal factor. There was danger of wind and squalls on large rivers, of getting grounded on the small ones. An 1851 descent of about 2200 km from Ega (now Tefé) to Belém took 29 days, even with a strong current. In the Upper Amazon, boatmen to manage the boat and mass of cargo were often hard to obtain. Then there were the biotic difficulties, such as ticks, which attacked in large numbers and could leave a festering wound. In some places Bates was much tormented by mosquitoes in the night and other biting flies in the daytime. Sporadic epidemics could descend on an area. In 1850 yellow fever affected about 3/4 and killed about 5% of Belém. Later a smallpox outbreak took away a further 5%. Bates names some personal friends who perished in this way. And food could be hard to find, as the local people did not produce a surplus. Bates tried a vegetarian diet, but with ill effects, so that the search for meat was a frequent concern. At Tefé, where he stayed two years, the standard article of food was a large freshwater turtle. "I became so sick of turtle ... that I could not bear the smell of it, although at the time nothing else was to be had, and I was suffering from actual hunger." The turtles' eggs at the nesting beaches were collected for their valuable oil. Bates estimated that 48 million eggs were harvested annually in the Upper Amazon. This does not sound sustainable, and the local people told him that the turtles were not nearly as abundant as in years past. Amid all this, Bates happily collected and observed. During his sojourn in some localities, he "led a quiet, uneventful life ..., following my pursuit in the same peaceful, regular way as a Naturalist might do in a European village. For many weeks in succession my journal records little more than the notes made on my daily captures." The first two hours of the day were devoted to collecting birds, the middle part to collecting insects before the mid-afternoon rain. The late afternoon was for processing specimens and notes. Toward the Indians who were his main contacts upriver, Bates's attitude was liberal and sympathetic, but with little admiration. He appreciated their openness and hospitality, but regarded them as unemotional, incurious and largely uninteresting. Even less did he admire the working-class Portuguese immigrants, sarcastically termed "these shining examples of European enlightenment". He partly attributed to the tropical environment their indolence, "a moral condition not to be wondered at in a country where perpetual summer reigns, and where the necessaries of life are so easily obtained." Bates makes virtually no comment on the African slavery that had so incensed Darwin in Brazil 20 years earlier, perhaps because he spent almost no time in plantation areas. Enslavement of Indians as domestic servants was illegal, but tolerated by the authorities. It bears mention that a form of the Tupí language known as lingoa geral was a lingua franca throughout much of Brazil at this time. It has since almost disappeared, and I have
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had no success in hearing it spoken in the Lower Amazon. Bates earned his living from collecting and shipping dead specimens, yet he had a keen sense of the living organism. This is seen, for example, in descriptions of the nesting behaviour of solitary wasps. Watching sand wasps, he described and interpreted the orientation flights on leaving the nest, perhaps the first to do so. Ants were everywhere, including leafcutters (Atta spp.). Bates pondered the division of labour among differentsized workers. The largest could not be soldiers or supervisors, as they did not sting or seem to give directions, yet nature would have eliminated them if they were truly useless. He suggested that they served in passive defense of colony from vertebrate predators, just by being so spiny and un-succulent. Around Tefé he collected about 550 species of butterflies. Their wings provided a wealth of heritable characters, and he "paid special attention to them, having found that this tribe was better adapted than almost any other group of animals or plants to furnish facts in illustration of the modifications which all species undergo in nature .... It may be said, therefore, that on the expanded membranes nature writes as on a tablet the story of the modification of species, so truly do all changes in the organisation register themselves thereon." Bates's main contribution to science was his theory of mimicry (Bates 1862). Heliconius butterflies were common and slow-moving, yet all but ignored by lizards and other predators. He further noted that species from different genera or even different families might bear a strikingly exact resemblance to a given Heliconius. While Heliconius tend to be markedly distasteful, a look-alike species might be palatable, and Bates and reasoned that the palatable mimic gained protection from predators through an evolved deceptive resemblance to the unpalatable model. This was one of the earliest and most striking triumphs of the new theory of evolution. Bates was at São Paulo de Olivença, more than 3000 km upriver and planning to ascend another 1000 km into the Peruvian Amazon, when he was laid low by fever, the culmination of a gradual deterioration over years. "Heat, mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, hard work and anxiety had brought me to a very low state of health." It was time to go home. In Belém he was welcomed by old friends for whom the Brazilian interior where he had spent seven and a half years was still the unknown sertão (backlands). Even in his wasted state, Bates knew that he was leaving behind the best years of his life, remarking that "To live again amidst the dull scenes [of England] I was quitting a country of perpetual summer, where my life had been spent ... on the endless streams or in the boundless forests." Even so, I doubt that he had ever seriously thought to settle in Brazil. During those years, Bates was ever an expatriate, never an immigrant. References Bates, H.W. 1862. Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon. Lepidoptera: Heliconidae. Transactions of the Linnaean Society 23:495-566. Bates, H.W. 1863. The Naturalist on the River Amazons. Vol. 1-2. London: John Murray 351+417 pp. Available online at wwww.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/guide/ra041001.html Crawforth, A. 2009. The Butterfly Hunter: The Life of Henry Walter Bates. Buckingham: Christopher K. Starr is also the host of the new weekly radio show "EcoTones", a half-hour programme devoted to a broad range of environmental questions. Among these are environmental law and policy, ecotourism, the state of the environment, and some of the exceptionally alluring wild plants and animals found in the Eastern Caribbean. EcoTones airs every Wednesday evening just after the 6 o'clock news (starting at about 22:10 GMT) on FM 101.7 (Heritage Radio).
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Environment TOBAGO newsletter
WHAT’S HAPPENING @ ET Environment TOBAGO Environmental and Services Map of Tobago
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Environment TOBAGO newsletter
READERS’ FORUM Dear ET Newsletter Readers, Office:
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