Wild Tobago

Dr Anjani Ganase advocates diving education for everyone who lives by the sea or wants to be in the sea. The sea makes islands liveable. She dives the Tobago coral reefs at Speyside with San Fernando's ASJA Boys.   We arrived at Speyside around 9 am, the sun was out, and the conditions were perfect for diving. Aquamarine water wrapped around Goat Island and Little Tobago. There was a bustling excitement at the Dive Shop. Dive suits were being fitted, forms were being signed and eager parents were on the sidelines watching on. This weekend, I was going out diving for the first time with the ASJA Boys Scuba Diving and Reef Conservation Club. As a coral reef scientist in Trinidad and Tobago, I’m always keen to show students what I do and excited to foster interest in the fields of marine science. Life on islands requires us to see the ocean as part of our territory, our responsibility and culture.   We only had a couple days to prepare, two lectures in ...

First published in Newsday TT on April 21, 2022. Here is the text with a few more photos. Pat Ganase revisits Little Tobago after 32 years for a stroll into the past. Photos by Pat Ganase.   1990: looking down the cliffs towards the wild sea   1990: living dangerously with Jet, 8 week old pup 1990: Wordsworth Frank leads the tour In 1909, Sir William Ingram, a British peer and politician and managing director of the Illustrated London News, bought the small star-shaped island off the north-east coast of Tobago. He would turn it into a bird sanctuary to accommodate a small colony of the Greater Bird of Paradise (Paradisaea apoda) which was over-hunted in its native New Guinea for feathers for ladies hats. Two dozen nesting pairs were introduced - and the island which had in the late 18 th century produced a very high yield of cotton per acre - became known as Bird of Paradise island. In 1924, after Sir William died, the island was deeded to the Governm...

It’s not too early to begin preparing for summer sargassum.   Dr Anjani Ganase reviews the latest Sargassum White Paper generated by the United Nations Environmental Programme. The big picture requires trans-Atlantic cooperation - West Africa and Brazil   to fully understand the annual sargassum influx .   Since 2011 and persisting to today, sargassum has been washing up on beaches and coasts of the Caribbean and South and Central America as regular summer events. The highest amounts to date were 27 million tonnes (estimated) of sargassum washed up in 2018; with 20 million tonnes in 2019.   Amazon and Sahara While the two species of sargassum ( S. natans and S. fluitans ) that wash up on our shores naturally occur and grow in oceanic gyres (in the mid-Atlantic), the excessive amount of algal blooms transported is new. Scientists are now certain that these blooms are the result of increased nutrient outflow from the Amazonian basin, mixed...

Many dive operators are hunters, capturing trophy or food fish.  After more than 25 years diving, Ron Tiah, operating Dive TnT, has turned himself into an ocean protector. Today, he shoots lionfish to save the coral reefs. And he shoots with his camera so that we can see what’s alive in the ocean, the good and the bad. This feature was first published in the Tobago Newsday on June 8, World Oceans Day. All photos courtesy Ron Tiah Another world, underwater at Brothers rock, Caribbean Sea, off Tobago Who is Ron Tiah? I grew up in Pointe-a- Pierre; my dad Robert Tiah was Rexformer Superintendent at the Texaco Refinery. I would say he was my mentor and hero. I inherited my love for the sea, the land and conservation from him. He cultivated one of the most successful citrus plantations in Trinidad, still operating today. He was also an academic, who insisted on further studies for me at Albert College and York University in Canada. I also wanted to learn to scuba dive. ...

On June 5, everyone on the planet – each of the seven billion of us – is invited to remember our place in nature. Human beings are not apart from nature, we are a part of nature. The theme for World Environment Day 2017 is “connecting people to nature – in the city and on the land, from the poles to the equator.” Here in Tobago, we are fortunate to be able to renew this connection in direct ways. No one has to go far to be in nature. Schools and families are encouraged to select an activity that awakens these connections. This feature was first published in the Tobago Newsday on June1, 2017 In Tobago, we are the best hosts. We can recommend all the places that delight visitors: the beaches, the waterfalls, the forest walks. How many of these places do we – apart from those who work as guides or tour operators – actually know intimately? This World Environment Day, we suggest that you renew your acquaintance with what brings visitors here. Sometimes we need t...

Anjani Ganase, Trinbagonian marine biologist, continues her weekly exploration of marine Tobago. This week, she takes us to Charlotteville where local and international participants join forces for the conservation of north-east Tobago. This feature was first published in the Tobago Newsday on September 15, 2016 Follow Anjani Ganase on twitter: @AnjGanase My experience of research stations include Carmabi in Curaçao and Heron Island research station in the Great Barrier Reef, as well as those I’ve visited in Belize, Bermuda and Hawaii. These stations are usually set up in remote tropical locations, focused on facilitating and supporting academics doing research on an ecosystem or organism in a natural environment; away from people. In many cases, any discoveries made by the scientists are often taken with them when they leave; local communities may not know that the study took place. Today, more tropical research stations have begun to include community engagement and ...