Ralph Ban­warie

Su­san Lakhan-Bap­tiste, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Na­ture Seek­ers, said she has wit­nessed more than three decades of growth and trans­for­ma­tion with­in the non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion, which she de­scribed as a mod­el of com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven con­ser­va­tion suc­cess.

Lakhan-Bap­tiste was speak­ing at the launch of the Folk­lore Trail at the Orosco Road Tur­tle Site in Matu­ra on Fri­day.

She said when Na­ture Seek­ers was launched, the chal­lenge of chang­ing en­trenched prac­tices seemed over­whelm­ing.

“Our com­mu­ni­ty was deeply in­volved in the hunt­ing and slaugh­ter­ing of the leatherback tur­tle,” she said, adding that many at the time be­lieved mean­ing­ful change was im­pos­si­ble.

How­ev­er, through lead­er­ship, tech­ni­cal guid­ance from gov­ern­ment agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Forestry Di­vi­sion, and the com­mit­ment of res­i­dents will­ing to em­brace a dif­fer­ent fu­ture, the or­gan­i­sa­tion grad­u­al­ly be­came a cat­a­lyst for trans­for­ma­tion.

“What drove that change was vol­un­teerism, ded­i­ca­tion and the be­lief that our nat­ur­al re­sources could be­come tools for con­ser­va­tion while cre­at­ing sus­tain­able liveli­hoods for our peo­ple,” she said.

Lakhan-Bap­tiste added that the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s suc­cess be­longs to all who con­tributed to the jour­ney, in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment agen­cies, NGOs, cor­po­rate part­ners, tour op­er­a­tors, cit­i­zens and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers.

“To­day our suc­cess be­longs to every­one who stood along­side us—gov­ern­ment agen­cies, NGOs, cor­po­rate part­ners, tour op­er­a­tors, cit­i­zens, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and all those who be­lieve that con­ser­va­tion goes hand in hand,” she said.

In­vi­tees were lat­er tak­en on a guid­ed tour of the folk­lore trail, where or­gan­is­ers gave in­struc­tions and hand­ed out sym­bol­ic pro­tec­tive items—broom­sticks with salt and wa­ter at­tached in small plas­tic bags—meant to ward off mytho­log­i­cal fig­ures.

Along the trail, guests en­coun­tered char­ac­ters from lo­cal folk­lore in­clud­ing Pa­pa Bois, Ma­ma Glo, the la­ga­hoo, the soucouyant and douens.

The event was at­tend­ed by sev­er­al diplo­mats, in­clud­ing Chi­nese Am­bas­sador Hangyen Ren, French Am­bas­sador Guil­laume Pierre, Span­ish Am­bas­sador Cristi­na Pérez Gutiér­rez, and Pana­man­ian Am­bas­sador Diomedes H. Charles.

En­ter­tain­ment was pro­vid­ed by the UWI drum­mers, pan­man Levy Romero, and stu­dents from Matu­ra Pri­ma­ry and Sec­ondary Schools.