Can people come for a portion of the Saturday program? I know someone who can't get off work for the full day but still wants to attend and learn whatever they can.

I would assume yes. I have someone with the same issue and I told them to just come when they could.

Yes, please come even if you can't stay for the entire time...

Diana from JET

Just reminding everyone of this weekend. Try to attend whatever part you can!

What a great weekend thanks to JET, Jamaica Environmental Trust!

The weekend started at 3:00 p.m. Friday with a coral reef building exercise for the students at the Sandy Bank Primary School. Volunteers were asked to come on stage and were given a card showing who of the coral reef family they represented and act accordingly. The brain coral stood erect and still. The sea fan waved back and forth gently in water, etc. It was a great exercise and was especially poignant when the plastic bag came along, the turle ate it and got taken off the stage because he died. The sea fan got taken off the stage when the person snorkeling came along and cut it so she could take it home, and all the green algae took over as the reef was dying out. A wonderful exercise which I think could easily be used on adults as well.



Then the puppet show educated us on the indigenous, migratory and other birds not only of Jamaica, but what was specific to this area and to Great Pond.



A question and answer period followed each segment which really showed how much the children learned.



Then yummy goodies were given away. But the best part was the "plastic" glasses the juice was served in were made out of corn and were biodegradable! Way cool!!



Back at the school at 7:00 p.m. many gathered to watch "Jamaica For Sale". Here is a review I found on Variety.com:

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117938873.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

My personal reaction to this movie was being left feeling very depressed. I had no idea this massive amount of contruction of mega resorts was happening on the North Coast and it made me feel even more protective of our little Treasure Beach. I highly, very highly recommend everyone watch this movie. It really is an eye opener.

The next morning the workshop opened with a letter written by Jason Henzel and read by Mrs. Moxam.

Then Miss Christine from JET gave us an overview of the agenda of the day. The room had several vacant chairs when we started, but I'm happy to say by the end of the day most every chair and all the benches were full.

Dr. Ann Sutton, well known ornithologist, author of the newly published "Birds of Jamaica", and Treasure Beach villa owner gave us a very interesting talk entitled "What are our Treasures." I had no idea of all the indigenous plants, cactus, birds, and animals which were found only here in this area. She showed us why South St. Elizabeth is such a unique area both geographically and cuturally. Again, anyone hearing this presentation would be bursting with pride of the area and an even stronger feel to protect it.

The showing of "Massa God Fish Can Done" followed showing all of us the urgency to act now with new laws and fishing practices to try to save the little that is left in the sea. The good news is we can see by the example of the fishermen in Belize that there is hope if we do act now.

The next presentation was given by Diana McCaulay, CEO of Jet. It was entitled "How 'Development' Can Destroy - The Story of Negril". I swear you could hear the collective intake of breath from the room when she showed us the before and after photos of Negril. What it was and what it is now. She futher explained how this all came about. Again, we were strengthened in our cause to keep Treasure Beach from becoming another Negril.

Danielle Andrade, the legal director of JET, gave us an overview of "The Legal Rights and Responsibilities for Environmental Protection". Phew, heavy topic and heavy beauracracy! This is the point where we felt very very grateful for JET's support and input. I don't know of any one of us who could take on what is needed to work with the government to make sure proper environmental impact studies are performed, environmental laws are adhered to, and so on. This is a massive task! But, thankfully, JET has offered to work with us. We need to work beside them. They will not do this on their own, but working together we can have some hope that things may get accomplished and changes may be made.

After this sobering report, it was time for lunch! Lots of good discussion occurred and we got to drink out of those corn glasses once again!!

After lunch Diana McCaulay led us in an exercise which she entitled Visioning. An absolutely brilliant exercise where the end result showed what visions were common from all of us in the room. We all took some time and had some laughs, but all of us took this very seriously.

I think this was very interesting as there were persons representing all aspects of the population of TB. Older, younger, retired, employed, returning residents, ex-pats, business owners, students, etc. I was plesantly amazed at how much all of our individual visions were shared.

In closing, my personal opinion is this whole weekend was just invaluable and I sincerely hope JET will come back again and give us another workshop. I am sure the word will spread in Treasure Beach as to how informative this workshop was and the attendance at the next workshop will be even greater. I was especially encouraged by the positive reaction of the younger members of the group who said they would not only come back again but recommend this workshop to others.

I also hope JET will make regular appearances at the school and even give a few of the presentations we saw on Saturday at the school. We need to understand the value of what we have so we can be more vigilant in protecting it.

Special thanks to:

Annabelle Todd, Lisa Ginzel, and Cookie Kinkead for organizing this weekend.

Ann Sutton and Folichon for housing the JET folks.

The TBWG for hosting the meeting at their group house.

Andreas Oberli for sharing his extensive knowlege.

For all who deeply care for Treasure Beach and participated in this weekend's activities.

I'm looking forward to the next time!

You can view more photos of the weekend here or by the link in the Photo Gallery

The distributor of the "corn cups" is:

Earthbound
Biogegradable Food Packaging Company Ltd.
876-754-3381
876-314-2290
876-504-5404
earthboundja@yahoo.com
www.earthboundja.com

Just think what a difference we could make if we insist on biodegradable box food containers and no scandal bags!