URGENT HELP NEEDED from all Tobago visitors

[Manfred]

Sent with the following preamble:

We have visited Tobago for vacation seven times in the last seven years and already have next year’s trip booked. During those trips I have dived in Tobago’s waters 83 times and so we are especially horrified to hear...

Well done Steve and Stuart for bringing this to our attention.

Manfred

[Krista And Mike]

thanks for letting us know and we send 3 emails out too
hope it helps

[Kathy A]

Protest sent from both home and business address. Thanks for alerting us to this heinous crime. Hopefully it can be stopped - and soon.

Kathy

[Simon S]

Email sent.

Look forward to a rapid response from T&T authorities.

Simon

[Steve Pitts]

Couldn't help from commenting on the international support for this action

So far support from -
Tobago
Sweden
USA (California)
Germany
USA (Florida)
Finland
USA (New York)
KERNOW
and UK (sorry if anyone is from Wales or Scotland)

I am also aware that one email has been sent from BELIZE.

Can't help but notice that there's lots of support from folks with a few previous posts - nice to see so many people identifying with this and taking what action they can.

Any news Stu?

[Steve Wooler]

May I just endorse what Steve has said.

Thank you to everyone who has shown their support for Stu's appeal. I am kicking myself for not asking readers to cc: me on their emails to the TDC/THA. It would have been great to have a count of the number of responses. However, over the course of Friday, after sending the circular to forum members, I was receiving an average of one message of support/confirmation of action, every couple of minutes. I must have received and deleted about a hundred on Friday. Arriving in the office on Saturday, my Inbox was so full that I decided to create an automatic Rule to move them to a separate folder on receipt so they didn't clog my work stuff. I've kept all messages received since then and can tell you that I have 164 messages in that mailbox at this moment. I reckon most readers wouldn't have bothered to type a separate email to me, so the 'real' total sent is probably well over 500 by now. I know that several good contacts circulated the appeal to other people who would have concerns about the matter. Without doubt the authorities will have got the message loud and clear.

I am just sad to say that my personal appeal to the Secretary for Tourism, the Hon.Neil E.Wilson, has failed to elicit any response. In fairness, less than two working days has passed since sending the message and things always happen slowly on Tobago, but it will be interesting to see if anything happens. Sadly, I have little faith that the authorities on T&T have any genuine concern about public opinion or public perception of Tobago and therefore really doubt that any of them will bother to look at this forum.

[Steve Pitts]

May I just endorse what Steve has said.


I am just sad to say that my personal appeal to the Secretary for Tourism, the Hon.Neil E.Wilson, has failed to elicit any response. In fairness, less than two working days has passed since sending the message and things always happen slowly on Tobago, but it will be interesting to see if anything happens. Sadly, I have little faith that the authorities on T&T have any genuine concern about public opinion or public perception of Tobago and therefore really doubt that any of them will bother to look at this forum.

Steve

If you have kept the cc's of the emails sent, would it not be posible to send these as a collective letter or petition to Rt Hon Wilson. It could be that out of the estimated 500 emails sent most will not get through to him.

If he received strong opposition to the shark massacre from 500 plus repeat tourists, plus their families, he could hardly ignore the outcry surely.

I've just received my credit card statement for car hire, groceries, restuarant bills and odds and sods and it's pushing TT$10,000 - not including villa rental and departure tax. If that's average (I'm no big spender ) that's TT$5,000,000 of tourism spend he's risking losing if we all get the hump and boycot Tobago.

If he fails to act swiftly and decisively, then the good peoples of Tobago should know about it via their news media.

I'm not happy at the actions of these fishermen, but I will be seriously pi**ed with Neil Wilson for ignoring us and the plight of the sharks.

Cheers
Steve

[Steve Wooler]

Hi Steve

I hear what you say, but the problem is that only a small percentage (5%?) are actual cc:'s of the message sent to TDC/THA. The vast majority of the rest are short "have done" type messages similar to the posts in this thread. The vast majority are replies to my circular, so prove what they are refering to, but sadly I can't assume that I can pass them on to anybody, no matter who. To use those messages, I feel I would be obligated to contact the author for permission. I'm sure it would be granted in 100% of cases, but it would be a gross breach of standards to pass them without taking the right steps.

However, fear not - I WILL be following up with Neil Wilson and the THA and I will draw his attention to this thread and the number of responses I have received and which we can assume the TDC/THA have received.

Next time I'll be better organised. This is the first time I've been involved in anything like this. In fact I'm not really 'involved' as such. I've only had one exchange of email with Stuart over it - I just felt it was a worthwhile cause and reacted by deciding to make all members of the forum aware of the appeal. I don't even know if Stuart knew I had done it. In truth, I'm only getting a couple of hours a day in the office because of serious family health problems so I'm largely reacting without real thinking things though - but figured that was better than doing nothing.

[Steve Pitts]

Hi Steve
Doing something is aways better than doing nothing .

Take care
Steve

[Caribstu]

What i can tell you all is that as i understand it, on good authourity Hon. Sec. Neil Wilson (tourism dept) was very sympathetic to the cause and personally contacted Mr Sandy ( Fisheries Ministry) who in turn have spoken to the fishermen involved. Although technically what they were doing is not illegal, they were diplomatically asked not to fish for sharks in the Speyside reef area.

Their boat has not been seen in Speyside for the last three days and hopefully they will not return.

First of all thank you to everyone who has supported our cause and voiced their protest. Especially to Steve for endorsing the protest and helping me bring it to everyone's attention and to Tobago Dive Experience, World Of Watersports and to Frontier Divers for their help in pushing the powers that be, (Big Dougie president of ATDO), the Thousands of MyTobago enthuesiasts who emailed and of course credit where credit is due Hon. Sec. Neil Wilson for listening and acting in a possitive manner which i believe gives us all hope for the next step.

The next step being that i am now putting together a proposal for the implimentation of three designated protected reef areas, one around Speyside, one in Mt Irvine and one at Kariwak. I have gathered information from similar marine parks, the WWF and other organisations and when the propsal is clear and factual enough i hope to get it endorsed by ADTO and all other Tobago watersport/activity businesses and with the support of the TDC hopefully we can push it through so that we will have protected reef for generations to come and not ever have a situation like this occur again.

In the meantime i invite everyone who has any factual information, or contact, or organisation whom may provide me with relevent information concerning implimentation of, management of and both the short and long term benefits of such schemes ( including how local fishermen benefit) to send me the information please.

I shall endeavour to keep you all informed.

Once again thank you everyone for your support

Stuart

[Tony G]

Positive news Stu. Nice to wake up to on this wet & windy UK summer morning.

[David Watkins]

Well don Stu
In Devon they have amarine nature reserve round Lundy,I'll see what I can find out
David

[David Watkins]

Stu,there is a web site for Lundy Island Nature Reserve http://www.lundy.org.uk/info and English Nature who administer the site http://www.english-nature.org.uk
Hope this helps
David

[Steve Wooler]

Hi Stu

Well done to you and everyone who registered their appeal. Please keep us updated with progress, Stu.

[Steve Pitts]

Hi Stuart

That's good news in the short-term, but your idea of a network of marine protected areas is surely the best way forward in the longer-term

In the meantime i invite everyone who has any factual information, or contact, or organisation whom may provide me with relevent information concerning implimentation of, management of and both the short and long term benefits of such schemes ( including how local fishermen benefit) to send me the information please.

Have you contacted Dr Owen Day of the Buccoo Reef Trust?
I'm sure that Owen's knowledge and contacts would be invaluable in getting the Speyside reefs protected.

I also have a friend who may be able to help. He works for Oxford Uni and has visited Tobago to discuss environmental issues and how to plan for the effects of climate change on eco-tourism.

All the best

Steve

[Caribstu]

David - Thanks for the links and i've emailed to see what they could provide in terms of scientific research.

[Caribstu]

SP - I went there personally at the start of all this and asked ONLY that i could get a letter outlining the environmental effects this would have on the reef etc.. aparently that was too much trouble as the reply i got was "I'm too busy". My feelings on this would not be suitable for public comment.