Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

As the ex­cite­ment builds for the an­nu­al Great Race in To­ba­go tak­ing place to­day, con­cern is grow­ing at Store Bay over a leatherback tur­tle nest on the pop­u­lar beach.

Hun­dreds of peo­ple are ex­pect­ed to flock to Store Bay for the race and af­ter-par­ty, but beach­go­ers are be­ing warned to watch their step while rev­el­ling.

Over a week ago, a leatherback tur­tle came ashore at Store Bay and laid her eggs. Since then, a small pick­et has been placed around the site to pro­tect it. How­ev­er, stake­hold­ers are wor­ried that the pick­et is in­suf­fi­cient to pre­vent a pos­si­ble tram­pling of the nest as a large crowd is ex­pect­ed to de­scend on the lo­ca­tion.

Ronal­do, aka Sug­ar Head, who rents beach chairs and um­brel­las at the beach, said he has tak­en a per­son­al in­ter­est in pro­tect­ing the eggs.

“We know is Great Race time and you guys com­ing up to have a lit­tle fun on the is­land, but we want you to be mind­ful and cau­tious of the tur­tle nest,” he said. The nest is to the right of the stair­case on the beach.

He said the au­thor­i­ties are aware of the sit­u­a­tion and urged them to act swift­ly to pro­tect the site.

“So what they say­ing, they have a pro­tec­tion bar­ri­er at Pi­geon Point. They sup­posed to bring it to bar it up here, but yuh see the time, and to­mor­row is the big day, and they haven’t done any­thing as yet. So I’m gonna take it up­on my own to make sure it is fin­ished for in the morn­ing.”

Ronal­do said he planned to put up a sign and place his own bar­ri­ers so the pub­lic can be aware. He promised to al­so pa­trol the area to en­sure beach­go­ers do not en­croach on the site.

Asked how he would man­age his busi­ness while keep­ing a close eye on the site, giv­en the over­whelm­ing num­ber of peo­ple ex­pect­ed, he re­vealed life­guards and oth­er stake­hold­ers will al­so be pa­trolling the area.

“It will be a task try­ing to do it on my own, but an is­land wasn’t built by one man. There are oth­er guys on the beach who will help me.”

Alvin Dou­glas, who owns a dive shop at Store Bay, urged the au­thor­i­ties to pri­ori­tise eco-tourism.

He said tur­tles and man­ta rays are of­ten trapped in il­le­gal nets in the sea.

“It is easy to host a fete, to lime, but to pro­tect our en­vi­ron­ment for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, it takes work.

“We are poor stew­ards of our en­vi­ron­ment,” he said.

While not ad­vo­cat­ing for the Great Race to be shift­ed, he said a more strin­gent re­sponse was re­quired.

“It is dis­ap­point­ing. Even though the Great Race has been here for 100 years, if you re­alise a tur­tle has nest­ed in this area, then mea­sures have to be put in place to pro­tect that.”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia in Buc­coo yes­ter­day, Bar­ry Lovelace, di­rec­tor at the De­part­ment of Ma­rine Re­sources, ap­pealed to the pub­lic to re­spect the cor­doned-off site and main­tain mind­ful­ness for their safe­ty, the safe­ty of oth­ers and the tourism prod­uct.