Times of the Islands Summer 2017

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
For reasons not yet fully understood, our two largest
islands, Middle and North Caicos, were covered by
large areas (locally called “yards”) of Caribbean pine similar
to the northernmost Bahamas. (Interestingly, the pine
doesn’t exist in the central and southern Bahamas, creating
an inexplicable 500-mile disjunction between the
populations).
Because of the common theme of pine, TCI’s
Department of Environment & Coastal Resources (DECR)
partners with institutions working with pine yards in
the Bahamas, including the Bahamas National Trust and
Bahamas Forestry Unit. Over the past decade, pine specialists
from these two groups have visited the Turks &
Caicos to assist with the management of our pine yards
in the wake of the pine tortoise scale insect infestation,
which has killed about 95% of wild trees. They have been
invaluable partners, particularly in preparation for the
introduction of a controlled burn programme for Middle
Caicos pine yards.
In April 2017, this partnership led to a collaboration
between the DECR and Bahamas Forestry Unit in the
form of a native plant identification training programme.
Bahamas Forestry received a grant from the Global
Environment Facility for the project, “Pine Islands—
Forest/Mangrove Innovation and Integration,” which will
focus on baseline data collection and land use planning
in these ecosystems.
Participants in the native plant identification training programme
learn field characteristics of plants in the New Providence pine yard.
To carry out this work, their team of forest officers
and forest rangers, working across four islands, needed to
know how to identify the native trees and shrubs found in
the pine ecosystem. Forest Officer Ingeria Miller, a member
of the Pine Rocklands Working Group, requested the
Two new female pine cones, still receptive to pollen, grow above a
cone that is several months from maturity. Caicos pine cones take two
years to mature from pollination to seed release.
assistance of DECR Terrestrial Ecologist/Environmental
Officer B Naqqi Manco in the creation and execution of a
native plant identification training. The programme ran
for a week and included 14 participants, who learned how
to use characteristics and tools to identify plants, rather
than learning species by rote memorization. Topics covered
included plant anatomy and related terminology,
plant taxonomy (classification and botanical names),
specimen collection and pressing, use of an herbarium
collection, use of field guides and botanical texts, and an
exercise in the use of dichotomous keys. Forest Officer
Miller raved about the programme saying, “This was one
of the singularly most enjoyable training sessions of my
career. (Officer Manco) was not only extremely knowledgeable
but quite entertaining and kept the audience
engaged from start to finish. Your quizzes and repetition
techniques also deepened the impression and facilitated
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