Sea Turtle Recovery Action Plan for St. Kitts and Nevis - WIDECAST

CEP Technical Report No. 17
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
True to the spirit and structure of the WIDECAST project (which consists of an
international Sea Turtle Recovery Team 1/ and resident Country Coordinators throughout the
Wider Caribbean region), this Action Plan could not have been written without the enthusiasm
and participation of many people over the last three years. First and foremost, the senior author
owes a debt of gratitude to Thomas Honebrink, Peace Corps Volunteer, Conservation Officer for
the Southeast Peninsula Land Development and Conservation Board, and Co-Founder of the
Marine Division of the St. Christopher Heritage Society (SCHS), and to Joan Robinson,
WIDECAST Country Coordinator-Nevis, Curator of the Museum of Nevis History, and
Founding member of the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society (NHCS).
In addition to input from the WIDECAST Country Coordinators, the personal
knowledge, pertinent literature, and creative thinking provided by Audra Barrett (Assistant
Fisheries Officer), David Robinson (Chief Curator, NHCS), Leonard Huggins (Research
Assistant, NH-CS), and Oliver 'Toms' Wilkes (Cooperatives Officer, Fisheries Division) in Nevis
have been central to the development of this document. Robert Young (Vanier College, Quebec)
and his students are responsible for a wide variety of marine and coastal field studies, conducted
since 1990 under the aegis of the NHCS, which have greatly expanded the ecological database
available for Nevis and as such have contributed meaningfully to this Recovery Action Plan.
Also in Nevis, valuable information and/or programme support has been provided by the Hon.
Malcolm Guisherd (Minister of Agriculture, Housing, Lands and Labour), Edred Ward (Senior
Cooperatives Officer, Division of Fisheries, especially for providing tags from slaughtered sea
turtles), Joseph Wiltshire (Assistant Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Housing,
Lands and Labour), Augustine Merchant (Director, Dept. Agriculture), Ellis Chaderton (SCUBA
Safaris Nevis), Les Windley (Sea Nevis Charter Boats), Lornette Hanley (Assistant Curator,
Nevis Museum of History), Lloydster Parris (Research Assistant, NHCS), Paul Harris (NHCS
Volunteer), the Nevis Environmental Education Committee, and many of the fishermen of Nevis.
David and Joan Robinson, Hyleta Liburd (Chief Education Officer, Department of
Education), Serena Herbert (Science Club, Charlestown Secondary School), Pam Barry
(Manager, Golden Rock Hotel), Sybil Seigfried (resident), and Dr. and Mrs. Adly Maguid
(Owners, Newcastle Marina) arranged for sea turtle slide shows presented by WIDECAST in
several public venues. Sharon Stanley, Brian Zimmerman, and Jim McLaughlin (Peace Corps
Volunteers) integrated the "WIDECAST message" -- sea turtle biology and conservation -- into
the environ-mental curriculum of the Nevis public school system. Many others have supported
the local WIDECAST project; among those most involved with community sea turtle
programmes and media coverage are Valerie Sargeant (Librarian, Nevis Public Library), Evered
Herbert (Mana-ger, VON radio), Thouvia France (VON radio), Mary Spooner (Host, Let's Talk,
VON radio), and Steve Manners (Govt. Information Service; TBN Host, The Week Gone By).
Karen Eckert is grateful to David and Joan Robinson, Robert Young, and Sharon Stanley for
their friendship and generosity in providing housing and transportation during her repeated visits
to Nevis.
In St. Kitts, Joseph Simmonds (Fisheries Officer), Ralph Wilkins (Assistant Fisheries
Officer), Kate Orchard (SCHS Council member; biology and chemistry teacher, St. Teresa
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