Wild Tobago

Anjani Ganase, PhD candidate studying coral reef ecosystems at the University of Queensland in Australia, presents her colleague’s study of differences between coral reefs in shallow and deeper water. The findings in Dr Pim Bongaerts’ research may have implications for coral reefs around the islands off the north of Tobago. Latest scientific findings reveal that shallow water coral reefs that are more prone to disturbances such as wave action, storm damage and bleaching events, are unlikely to be reseeded by corals living in deeper, more protected waters.  Even though coral species may occur across a large depth range, they can evolve into different strains or  “breeds” adapted to either the shallow or deep water environments, limiting the connectivity between these sections of the reef. These were the finding of Dr. Pim Bongaerts, a coral reef scientist at the University of Queensland in Australia. The story of corals and coral reefs gets even more complicated. P...

Over the period March 28 to 30, Environment Tobago’s former president and current vice president Patricia Turpin is attending the GEF-7 Replenishment Meeting in Paris. This meeting is the start of several sessions in which the Global Environmental Facility (a fund established in 1991 to tackle the biggest environmental problems on the planet), will consider what funding is needed to address, halt and reverse environmental degradation. This feature first appeared in Tobago Newsday, March 30, 2017. Charlotteville Tobago may be a long way from Paris France. For Patricia Turpin, Charlotteville is home, and Paris is one of many cities where Turpin attends to the business of securing the environmental health and wellbeing of home, the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and the wider Caribbean. Charlotteville, she believes, may yet teach the nation a thing or two about conservation. Though she was born in San Fernando, Turpin has grown conservationist roots in Tobago where she manag...