Wild Tobago

  The Tobago Icon Museum (Luise Kimme) in Bethel is an inspiration for young Tobagonian artists, and a unique attraction for local and international visitors. It is the home and workshop of the German-born Luise Kimme, and features artwork from her 30-year love affair with Tobago. Pat Ganase recommends a visit. Luise Kimme came from Germany to the Caribbean in the late 1970s. She had fallen in love with the distinctive sensuous Tobagonian features, and followed her heart to Tobago. It was a turning point in her life. She had grown tired of the contemporary abstract art of Europe, the environment in which she was expected to work after her studies in prestigious art colleges in Germany and London; she was at that time a Professor at Dusseldorf Academy (a post which she occupied until 2002). Tobago revitalized her and she turned her back on the trends of the modern art world to follow a completely new track in sculpting in wood, larger than life figures of ordinary folk. Thr

Faraaz Abdool, birding enthusiast and photographer, shares his fascination for hummingbirds. All photos by Faraaz Abdool They are nature’s bio-mechanical marvels, with heartbeats that sound more like two stroke engines on the highway than things made of sinew. Like every other bird, they are feathered, yet unlike every other bird, their tiny feathers seem to emit their own light, glittering like jewels on a gala night. Their wings do not flap up and down like every other flying bird, but in a mysterious figure-eight pattern. They are hummingbirds, of which there are almost three hundred and sixty species – all of which are found only in the Americas.  A Rufous-breasted Hermit hovers briefly in the open, before darting off to the undergrowth. Photo courtesy Faraaz Abdool It is impossible to maintain one of these birds in a cage, not because of their size as they are the smallest birds in the world, but due to the extreme nature of their daily lives.

The Indigo Project exhibition opens at the Scarborough Library on Monday July 15. It starts as a fascinating modern expedition, in search of the seventeenth and eighteenth century indigo production sites and plantations around Tobago, delves into the island’s history as it passed from British to French to Courlanders, and leads back to the wild diversity and the botanicals in the rainforest. Go to the Scarborough Library July 15-27; and visit the Tobago Library Services on their Facebook page. The blue dye for blue jeans came originally from indigo, the extract of a particular family of plants, the indigofera. The name comes from the place where the dye was first recorded in use, India. The Greek word for the dye, indikón - means Indian. The Romans called it indicum. It eventually came into English as the word “indigo.” (It is worth noting that the identical dye was developed in Britain – woad is the colour that early wild Britons used to colour their skin - f

The tide is turning from fossil fuels to renewables. Will we catch the wave at the crest, or be caught in the undertow. Dr Anjani Ganase makes the case for Trinidad and Tobago to be in the forefront of renewables. Trinidad and Tobago, like many countries around the world, is largely dependent on fossil fuels as its source of energy; but unlike many countries, we also rely on fossil fuels to drive our economy. For two generations, about 50 years, oil and gas supported our economy and this source of energy also seeded employment and innovation in the fossil fuel technology that has resulted in the successful liquid natural gas (LNG) driven economy over the recent 20 years. Today, LNG is still the biggest earner for Trinidad and Tobago. T&T is, therefore, in an especially vulnerable position, as the world is forced to consider a future of alternative energy sources to save our planet and us from the devastation of climate change. The true cost of burning gr