With trees of different varieties in hand, these young 4H members proudly climbed the East Coast hills to plant 1 200 trees.
Green coast
7/5/2009
THINGS are looking up for the 4H movement.
Yesterday the 4H Foundation, as part of its continuing major resurgence, started a major effort to help rehabilitate some of Barbados’ popular recreational spots.
Chairman of the Barbados 4H Foundation, Everton Hunte, other members of his organisation, and representatives from the National Conservation Commission (NCC) and Ministry of Agriculture looked on proudly as a large number of children from the 30 4H clubs in Barbados planted 1 200 young trees yesterday on the East Coast, where the Party Monarch has been traditionally held.
Hunte said that the effort, carried out with the support of the Ministry, Soil Conservation Unit, NCC, First Caribbean International Bank, and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, was to help stabilise the area, which has been prone to major land slippage in recent months. Trees planted by the youngsters including sea grape, flamboyant, tamarind, and mahogany.
“This morning’s exercise started about three or four months back, when we partnered with the National Conservation Commission to rehabilitate the East Coast by planting a number of trees. What we did in those first few months was to get over 400 young 4H-ers to actually go to NCC headquarters and plant seeds. So what we are seeing today is the end result of [that] planting of seeds. We are hoping to follow through today with the actual planting of a number of trees, probably about 1 200 trees, to rehabilitate this section of Barbados, which I consider the most beautiful part of Barbados,” he stated.
“We are hoping to instil in the young 4H-ers the idea that the environment counts and the environment is not just for the present, [it] environment is for the future. So that when they look back when they are 20 years old they can...say, ‘Look I helped to rehabilitate this section of Barbados’.”
He hoped the activity “would instil that sense of purpose in the young people of Barbados so that we can take this section and develop it into a natural park”. He added, “I know that the Prime Minister had said that this section would fall under the area of the national park, so we are here this morning to play our part as young 4H-ers, young environmentalists, young agriculturalists to get this section up and running.”
Hunte said the project on the East Coast of the 4H partners was an investment of about $30 000.
He hopes to carry out similar exercises at Bath, St. John; Silver Sands, Christ Church; Crane, St. Philip and said discussions in this regard would take place with the NCC and Coastal Zone Management Unit.
The chairman said, “If we can get at least another $150 000 within the next 18 months, we could probably spread this project right throughout the island, even inland.”
He said the renewal of the 4H movement started two years ago, but has been intensifying since the appointment of Minister of Agriculture, Senator Haynseley Benn and would see the addition of about five new clubs soon. He hoped to have 90 clubs in total within the next 18 months, which represented three in each of the island’s 30 constituencies.
