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 – engineer turned eco-photographer - talks about the growing niche market for Tobago tourism. What is birding and why is it so important to us? (All photos courtesy Faraaz Abdool) To most of us, the word “bird” is a noun, a word ascribed to various feathered animals that form part of the diorama of our daily lives. We see them every day: the Frigatebirds soaring effortlessly hundreds of feet above our heads and the Bananaquits quarreling over who sat on whose flower last. They all tend to fade into the landscape though. Until we observe some khaki-clad humanoid eagerly gesticulating, all attention focused on some inconsequential facet of what we see daily.  Blue-backed Manakin: The unique geography of Tobago allows one to see secretive forest birds like the Blue-backed Manakin and still be within a half hour of a pristine beach. This is birding, where “to bird” is a verb, meaning the pursuit of a particular bird (or birds) for the sole purpose of seeing...