Wild Tobago

Derek Chung, owner-operator of Undersea Tobago, chats with Pat Ganase about tourism and the marine environment of Tobago. Photos courtesy Derek Chung   Over 37 years diving in Tobago, Derek Chung has explored the island’s offshore domain in more than 14,000 dives. His recent projects include locating and identifying shipwrecks off the coast. He has made a life bringing visitors to the underwater world. Today he is concerned about how fast the reefs are deteriorating due to global warming, water pollution, indiscriminate spearfishing and poorly planned coastal development, which threaten his livelihood, food security for Tobagonians and Tobago’s tourism.   “I was a loans officer at a commercial bank in Trinidad when I learned to scuba dive, loved it and became certified as an instructor in 1987, the same year I came to Tobago to open a diving center. Following (then Prime Minister) ANR Robinson who was pushing tourism, I came to pursue a passion, a yo...

Faraaz Abdool asks us to look out for the birds using Tobago as a rest stop on their annual migrations. All photos courtesy Faraaz Abdool   Animal migration has been billed as one of Earth’s most impressive spectacles. This is not the measured expansion of creatures slowly meandering beyond established boundaries; migration knows no borders whatsoever. As humans, we demarcated a world with strict imaginary lines. Walls and fences and borders separate populations into nations, states, counties, and towns. Falling into this system helps us to forget that we are one planet, a fact that underpins the existence of countless creatures that depend on movement for survival.   Beyond mere wandering in search of food or habitat, migration is a whole scale rhythmic phenomenon. The dance of the rains over the East African savannas ensures that the thundering hooves of wildebeest and zebra continue to follow the fresh growth of greener grasses, timing their reprod...

  Dr Anjani Ganase, coral reef ecologist, writes about the devastating bleaching taking place on all reefs around Tobago  As the boat cruised along the coast, the water is clear enough to see the white glow from the reef below. Reef after reef, from the Buccoo Marine Park to Speyside, the white patches are expansive and jarring, some large enough to surround the boat. Rolling back into water way too warm for Christmas season, I saw that what I was dreading become reality. Reefs that were once vibrant with colour looked like snow-capped mountains. Most were bone white, exposing the skeletons, while a few were sickly and pale.   Throughout my career, I have seen many thriving and healthy reefs. I have also seen many dead coral reefs, barren and devoid of life, in the aftermath of cyclones, dynamite fishing and other mass mortality events. To see corals dying on the reefs around our home islands is beyond tragic. I wonder if all of the Northern Range burned in a single y...

  As conflicts within and between countries increase, Helen Czerski’s book invites us to look deep into the singular system that shapes our planet. (Pat Ganase introduces Blue Machine How the Ocean Shapes Our World, Penguin paperback 2024)     However far from the sea you live, however near, you can be sure that the ocean has influenced your existence, and guides your being where you are. The ocean is vast and deep and still to be known. It gives weather energy and force. Helen Czerski gives us a snapshot of the complex inner workings of the ocean which she calls the blue machine. Intricacies may include the life cycle of an eel, guano or poo, and in Czerski’s telling become important to know. I retell a couple of her stories here in the hope they give an idea of the range and grand design she presents.   “My route into ocean physics wasn’t planned or expected. I grew up in Manchester in the north of England, where ‘ocean’ was considered a very exotic conce...