Every year, thou­sands of tourists from around the world trav­el to To­ba­go to ex­pe­ri­ence first-hand its pris­tine beach­es, lush rain­for­est, and stun­ning coral reefs. For most of them, their first stop on the is­land is usu­al­ly the Buc­coo Reef.

In 2017 alone, the Tourism Min­istry record­ed 173,018 vis­i­tors to T&T.

Thou­sands of tourists flock to To­ba­go year­ly. It is es­ti­mat­ed that more than 90 per cent of peo­ple who vis­it the is­land go to the Buc­coo Reef.

De­clared a Ram­sar site in 2005, the Buc­coo Reef is recog­nised as To­ba­go’s ma­jor tourist at­trac­tion be­cause it is eas­i­ly ac­cessed with­out div­ing gear as the area in which it is sit­u­at­ed is not as deep as oth­er scenic un­der­wa­ter spots. The reef is home to at least 119 species of fish and the crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered hawks­bill tur­tle, mak­ing the Buc­coo Reef a tourist’s par­adise.

The Ram­sar Con­ven­tion, which T&T signed on­to in 1993, makes pro­vi­sion for the pro­tec­tion and con­ser­va­tion of wet­lands, in­clud­ing man­groves, reefs, and nat­ur­al aquifers to­wards achiev­ing sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment through­out the world.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, man-made pol­lu­tants, ris­ing sea tem­per­a­tures, and rough seas are tak­ing their toll on this nat­ur­al won­der.

Even the glass bot­tom boats and jet skis which have be­come pop­u­lar with vis­i­tors have got­ten a bad rap. Boat op­er­a­tors have been ac­cused of adopt­ing a “par­ty” vibe when tak­ing peo­ple out to the reef and are said to be con­tribut­ing to the reef’s stress­es.

“The tour op­er­a­tors are re­spond­ing to the mar­ket that wants a par­ty when they go out but the noise is keep­ing the fish life away, they won’t stay when there is all that noise out there. When tourists come, they usu­al­ly don’t want that type of ex­pe­ri­ence out on the wa­ter be­cause they are usu­al­ly more ed­u­cat­ed on the reef sys­tems than our own peo­ple…but it is the Tri­ni par­ty lifestyle is en­cour­ag­ing it and it is now very pop­u­lar,” said Alvin “Big Dougie” Dou­glas who owns a pop­u­lar dive shop in To­ba­go.

Divers op­er­at­ing in the area for decades now fear that if the site is not pro­tect­ed, by the next 20 years, the Buc­coo Reef will be noth­ing but a fond mem­o­ry.

The reef is more than just a tourist at­trac­tion, in ad­di­tion to sus­tain­ing fish life and con­tribut­ing to the ecosys­tem, coral reefs al­so pro­tect coast­lines from dam­ag­ing storm surges from the ocean.

To­ba­go’s Buc­coo Reef bor­ders and pro­tects the pop­u­lar Store Bay and Pi­geon Point beach­es but even with that pro­tec­tion, over the past ten years, both shore­lines show signs of ero­sion.

In this sixth in­stal­ment of the Guardian Me­dia se­ries on glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change on T&T’s ecosys­tem, our news team vis­it­ed To­ba­go, ac­com­pa­nied by a dive mas­ter and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Dave El­liot and Dou­glas, the own­er of Fron­tier Divers.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park last week­end, our news team saw piles of bro­ken, bleached coral along the shore­line.

Buc­coo Reef is lo­cat­ed on the south­west­ern coast of To­ba­go near Scar­bor­ough and fringes the Bon Ac­cord La­goon Com­plex, which is made up of sev­er­al wet­land types, such as the coral reefs, sea­grass beds, and man­grove forests.

In its Ram­sar pro­file, the Buc­coo Reef is said to be home to en­dan­gered and vul­ner­a­ble species of coral such as Acro­p­o­ra palma­ta, Diplo­ria labyrinthi­formis, D strigosa, and Sideras­trea siderea.

The white-sand beach­front of Pi­geon Point is said to come from the waste of par­rot­fish: the fish bite and scrape al­gae off of rocks and dead corals with their par­rot-like beaks, grind up the ined­i­ble cal­ci­um-car­bon­ate reef ma­te­r­i­al (made most­ly of coral skele­tons) grind it dur­ing di­ges­tion and then ex­crete it as sand.

Ram­sar’s web­site al­so states that the site con­tin­ues to be ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by in­tense tourist ac­tiv­i­ty and pol­lu­tant dis­charges.

“So far the re­strict­ed area sta­tus and ex­ist­ing man­age­ment plan have been un­able to pre­vent these im­pacts,” the pro­file states.

Big Dougie: The reef

is very stressed

Dou­glas dis­cov­ered his love for div­ing at the age of 14, when a fish­er­man vis­it­ed his class­room to talk about dif­fer­ent species of fish found liv­ing in the reefs around the is­land.

De­ter­mined to see the won­ders first-hand, Big Dougie went to the on­ly dive shop on the is­land at the time and be­gan do­ing odd jobs, clean­ing equip­ment, and boats un­til he had enough mon­ey saved to get cer­ti­fied to dive.

Thir­ty-three years lat­er, his dive shop, Fron­tier Divers is one of the most pop­u­lar on the is­land and every week he takes dozens of tourists around the is­land to ex­pe­ri­ence the beau­ty of the coral reefs.

He joined the Coast Guard when he be­came an adult and stayed in the ser­vice for 13 years be­fore re­tir­ing to open Fron­tier.

Big Dougie said he has seen many changes in the Buc­coo Reef over the years, most no­tice­ably the dis­ap­pear­ance of the wide range of fish life.

“Yes, there are a lot of changes in the con­di­tions, what is hap­pen­ing is that the reef is a lot more stressed than it was be­fore and the va­ri­ety of fish life you used to see be­fore, you don’t see any more, you don’t see a lot of bar­racu­d­as, sharks any­more and it is be­cause the reef is very stressed,” he said.

He said there are a num­ber of fac­tors caus­ing stress to the reef, in­clud­ing changes in the weath­er, rough seas, and man-made pol­lu­tants.

“The reef could take some stress com­ing from the weath­er, it can take some from rough seas and it can take some pol­lu­tants but it can­not take all three at the same time. In my life­time, I have seen so many changes in the Buc­coo Reef that I feel in the next ten to 20 years, we will on­ly be able to talk about the Buc­coo Reef be­cause we won’t have it any­more.”

He es­ti­mates that the reef draws 95 per cent of vis­i­tors to the is­land.

“Es­pe­cial­ly for To­ba­go this is our great­est re­source, 95 per cent of vis­i­tors that come to To­ba­go go to the wa­ter, it is im­por­tant we do some­thing to re­duce the stress on the reef. The Buc­coo Reef is un­der a lot more stress than the oth­er reef sys­tems, to be frank, the va­ri­ety of ma­rine life you can see in oth­er parts, you can’t see in the Buc­coo Reef.”

He does not be­lieve that those tasked with safe­guard­ing the reef are ca­pa­ble of do­ing what needs to be done.

“It’s not so much the boat traf­fic but the pol­lu­tants that run off the land. It takes peo­ple with pow­er be­cause the forces right now are not able to man­age it. I know per­son­al­ly they have had pro­pos­als on the ta­ble for man­age­ment but you don’t see any­thing hap­pen­ing. They need to zone the reefs, in such a way that they can man­age both the econ­o­my and the reef and re­duce the num­ber of jet skis that go in­to the area be­cause of noise pol­lu­tion.”

Dou­glas said al­though the reef was a pro­tect­ed area, the leg­is­la­tion alone is not enough.

“The cur­rent leg­is­la­tion is ad­e­quate so the is­sue is not putting more laws in place, the is­sue is en­force­ment and ed­u­ca­tion. They have to po­lice the area, peo­ple still il­le­gal­ly fish and hunt tur­tles, we can’t do any­thing about the rough seas but the things that we can do, we are ne­glect­ing it and if we don’t man­age it prop­er­ly we will lose it.”

He thinks part of the is­sue is that those charged with the reef’s pro­tec­tion don’t see the con­stant changes.

“Divers like my­self who go in­to the wa­ter are the eyes and ears of the wa­ter, we are the peo­ple who see the de­struc­tion of the ecosys­tem first, the peo­ple who man­age it on land don’t see.”

Dou­glas said the com­mu­ni­ty of Cas­tara has found the per­fect bal­ance be­tween pro­tect­ing and com­mer­cial­is­ing its reef and that needs to be done across the is­land.

“Cas­tara has found a way to in­volve every­body who lives there for them to un­der­stand the im­por­tance of the reefs and for them to prof­it from it. If the en­tire is­land could do that, you wouldn’t have to po­lice it. You have to ed­u­cate the peo­ple, you have to be con­sis­tent, you have to start in schools, the com­mu­ni­ty—they have to see the con­nec­tion be­tween the ecosys­tem and mon­ey in their pock­ets or they won’t care about pre­serv­ing it.”

Eng­lish­woman Vic­to­ria West told Guardian Me­dia she has been div­ing since 2011 and has vis­it­ed reefs all around the world.

West said this was her first vis­it to the is­land and she is al­ready en­chant­ed by To­ba­go.

“Gen­er­al­ly the reefs looked quite good, I didn’t see any rub­bish, they looked quite alive not too much dead coral which is al­ways good com­pared to the Egypt­ian reefs which are not so bright and colour­ful—and they have loads of ma­rine life around them,” she said. “I’ll def­i­nite­ly be vis­it­ing To­ba­go again be­cause I love the is­land and I want to try to dive in dif­fer­ent ar­eas like Spey­side just to have a mix of the ex­pe­ri­ences.”