The Saint Lucia National Trust (SLNT) is 50 years old and while it may have had some form of observance and celebration of its establishment and track record, this is also a time to plan for the next 50.
It was established in 1975 by an Act of Parliament (No. 16 of 1975) to, among other things, conserve the island’s natural and cultural heritage.
It’s a non-profit membership organization, funded by government and should be allowed work without partisan interference.
But, though supposedly independent, the Trust has also had to depend on how-much the government of the day views how it implements its mandate.
Over the last five decades, its actions have been supported and opposed by governments with differing positions on and levels of appreciation of its vital role as a protector of the nation’s heritage sites.
In recent times, one government pulled the Trust’s subvention following its refusal to entertain location of a dolphinarium at Pigeon Island — and another reinstated it.
Lucky for the Trust!
But, after five decades, while the SLNT should not have to live in limbo according to which party is in office, it must also admit there’s much work to be done to get Saint Lucians today – especially the present majority youth generation – to start understanding and appreciating its vital role.
In the past half-a-century, apart from the Climate and Regime Change, much more has also changed — including how-much Saint Lucians care about preserving and protecting our heritage sites.
Those who care are quickly becoming an endangered species and there’s dire need to get the Trust to better help preserve and protect our heritage sites.
But, most Saint Lucians alive today (more than two-thirds of who were born after 1975) hardly know what and where our heritage sites are.
This problem has existed for too-long now and it’s time the Trust takes time out to refresh its approach to public education.
Once-upon-a-time it could have been said the Trust was an agency agitating to protect and preserve our heritage landmarks, but as it grew older, it’s seemingly transitioned into a quick- response agency that reacts speedily — but only too-late.
Take the quiet weekend destruction of the old Royal Gaol (a.k.a. Her Majesty’s Prison), which the Trust allegedly took legal action against, but couldn’t prevent as the then government had made its mind up — after the deep-dive dolphinarium dispute the Trust had won (at least in the court of public opinion).
The public knows not what became of the Trust’s action, but it was also public knowledge that the then government’s plan was to bulldoze what the Trust had indicated (only then) was one of the oldest buildings in the City of Castries.
The former national heritage treasure was brough down in two days, to make way for what is still today a grassy paid-parking lot.
Then came the latest story of the ‘Powder Magazine’ at Morne Fortune.
The Trust issued a loud public condemnation after it saw a video posted on
social media of “a road monster truck associated with the Barbadian group Offroad Junkies 246, driving up the wall of the Powder Magazine.”
It was only then – after that fact – that the Trust informed the general public that “The 260-year-old structure, constructed between 1763 and 1765, is Saint Lucia’s oldest intact building and a vital part of the country’s heritage.”
Just before that, the Trust had also issued another public statement condemning the theft of bricks from a war cemetery, also at Morne Fortune — and hopefully appealing to the unknown thieves to return their valuable loot.
So, what has the Trust done or is doing to discourage visitors or locals from even thinking of doing what the Bajan Offroad Junkies did, or what the local brick thieves have taken with no intent of returning?
It can generally be assumed that the visitors and thieves may not have known the historical or heritage value of the naked treasures that have stood still and alone at ‘The Morne’ for over two-and-a-half centuries.
But, while that may be so, it does not justify what each did.
There was also a much-earlier incident (also under the previous administration) where the two pillars at the southern end of the Rodney Bay stretch. with an inscription marked ‘U.S. Navy’, which most Saint Lucians only see as ‘just two old pillars…’
One was heavily tilted during road works on the highway and it started to appear they would have been pulled-down to widen the road.
But (fortunately) that didn’t happen – and regime change came soon enough to erase the possibility.
In this walled case, however, the average citizen driving past at least twice daily – including tourism and local taxi drivers – have no idea the sign was erected when the Americans were allowed to establish a naval base in Gros Islet during World War II.
Nor is it widely known that the popular area on Reduit Beach called ‘The Ramp’ was a real ramp for US naval aircraft, the concrete remains of which the Reduit Police Station sits on.
Or, why the deserted and dilapidated (but still-looking-good) ‘Married Women’s Quarters’ (near the Trust at the back of the Vigie Peninsula) completed in 1900 but abandoned in 1905. has not been identified as perhaps the best place for a national museum.
If anything, these cases alone make the bigger case: for the Trust to undertake an intensive and sustained educational program aimed at introducing Saint Lucians to what remains of our unburied and still-naked treasures of national historical and heritage import.
Robert Devaux wrote a small but detailed book on Saint Lucia’s Archaeological and Historical Sites several decades ago that needs to be upgraded, as a public document, to be used for public education — along with a strong case for protection of these sites through visible signage and security guards, where needed.