If there is one aspect of my country for which I would recommend a national award, it would be the environment. For ages, we’ve been abusing it and trying our damnedest to destroy it. Yet, it continues faithfully to sustain us. But for how much longer?
The Prime Minister has observed that the planet has started to talk back. But are we listening?
We will eventually succeed in irreparably injuring our environment, and the cockroach and the termite will inherit this island; but not before our grandchildren curse us in our graves for leaving them to clean up the mess.
In his path-breaking novel In The Castle Of My Skin, George Lamming mentions “. . . everywhere limestone constructions like roofless ovens for the disposal of garbage”. It was the author’s euphemistic way of describing stuff bins – familiarly known back then as stuff bims.
Judging from the piles of garbage across this island, I wish to suggest a return to the stuff bim.
At the entrance to almost every gap, every avenue, ugly piles of assorted litter and garbage assail the eye. The situation gets worse at the weekend, offering a food court to dogs, rats and poultry. This bad habit has been with us for ages.
Researcher Joan Brathwaite, who grew up at Browne’s Beach, in her book The Changing Landscape Of Bay Street And Its Environs, reminds readers of a 1930 report in which someone observed: “The beach was littered with green and brown moss, covering the bloated bodies of dead dogs, cats, cows, mules and sometimes a horse thrown in for good measure.”
She went on: “Dead fowls and dead pigeons were an everyday occurrence, not to mention the numerous little mounds of crusted human faeces which caused beach people to hop, skip and jump to avoid disturbing them.”
Intermingled with the moss were rusty sardine, corned beef tins and salmon tots. Fast-forward to 2011 and that beach is a lot cleaner these days.
Many years ago the beach at Bay Street comprised “Shot Hall” – later called Pebble Beach, no doubt because of the proximity of a restaurant by that name; Browne’s Beach, predominantly a fish market and boat-building facility; Burke’s Beach, and two others associated with the Aquatic and Yacht clubs.
There was not the continuous stretch of beautiful sand we have today, from Grand Barbados Hotel all the way north to the Pierhead and the dry dock.
A serious situation exists at this Bay Street beach with implications for the health of thousands of Barbadians. Maybe the threat has always been there. It’s now both a health and an environmental imperative.
When the sand allows, six canals empty putrid effluent directly into the water where bathers swim, exercise and sometimes hold impromptu evangelical worship and baptisms. In this 21st century this is a most inappropriate engineering solution and needs to be addressed urgently. You can’t just push toxic water into the sea where people bathe.
For no three successive days is the shoreline precisely the same. The constant ebb and flow of the waves alters the beach from week to week.
The arrival of a beautiful beach in one area sometimes results in the loss of another someplace else.
Barbadians who pay attention to the environment can cite several examples such as the Crane Beach and the Enterprise Beach, unfortunately referred to by some as Miami Beach.
A few weeks ago, earth-moving equipment arrived and cut paths through the sand to allow that stagnant water from those six canals to flow directly into Carlisle Bay . . . and Barbadians went merrily along bathing in their usual favourite places, completely oblivious or unconcerned about the threat to their health.
In less than a week the waves had reshaped the beach and sand blocked the canals once again. Mosquitoes returned in their thousands.
This is a clear and present danger to the health of many citizens and visitors alike.