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by Stuart Heaslet

One day in 1999 I was standing on the old wooden boardwalk at Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary in Barbados about 50 meters from a group of giggling schoolchildren. I turned away for a moment, but looked back when I heard a collective gasp.

Flying less than 10 metres above us was an osprey, carrying what looked to be a large tilapia. The fish was struggling mightily for its life and freedom in the osprey’s talons, and for a moment the group was stunned into silence. Ospreys had been seen here, of course, but never so close.

A few moments later the spell was broken by sounds of amazement and laughter. “I don’t think I would want to be that fish,” said one small boy, while another spread his arms and pretended to swoop down on a classmate. But a few children remained quiet as they continued to stare after the bird.

Earlier, at the request of the Rare Species Conservatory I had been to Barbados as a project consultant to conduct candidate interviews resulting in the hiring of Roger Sweeney, as the assistant director and aviculturist for the Sanctuary. Through them I had met Peter Allard, a businessman and the owner of the Sanctuary, and knew him to be sympathetic to preserving the extraordinary and diverse biodiversity and habitat at Morne Diablotin, home of the rarest Amazon parrot on earth. 

The vision of a Graeme Hall sanctuary came to Allard from Dr. Karl Watson. Graeme Hall was very unlike the Morne Diablotin National Park project as it was surrounded by urban development and was not known as an island biodiversity "hotspot." But the Graeme Hall mangrove woodland was the last of its kind in Barbados, and it deserved to be saved and protected as part of the island's biological and cultural legacy. And the Government of Barbados seemed to be on board with preserving the health of the mangrove wetland given that the 1988 National Physical Development Plan in force at the time had over 160 acres of wetland buffer areas to the north.

A few years later, Allard asked me to finish the Sanctuary project and to implement a commercial eco-tour operation that would also support environmental education and habitat monitoring programs. By this point in my life and career I was very interested in projects that that preserved biodiversity and improved the quality of life for people. I had come to believe that biodiversity is one of earth's libraries with great secrets yet to be discovered, and it is strange to think that we often don't place as much of an economic value on it as much as we would, say, the inventory of a grocery store.

So it was that particular moment with the children and the osprey that signaled my eventual return to Barbados, and that nearly a quarter of my professional life would be inextricably bound to the restoration and preservation of the last mangrove and sedge swamp on the island. In 2001 I was asked by Allard to leave my home in the US to oversee design and construction of the new Sanctuary, and implement eco-tour operations.

My arrival in Barbados occurred after Allard's initial commitments to purchase various parcels of land within the Graeme Hall Swamp in 1994 and 1995. Allard and Mr. Michael Cullen, an architect from the US, along with Alan Armstrong, an Irish-born engineer in Barbados, first designed a conceptual plan that would accommodate visitors within a small portion of the overall wetland. This conceptual design is the basis for today's Sanctuary.

The design of the Sanctuary had to deal with many problems, some of which were obvious, others were subtle. Some of the more obvious problems were: How do you integrate visitors into a wild area without disturbing animal behaviour? And how do you construct a commercial low-density visitor and education facility without having significant environmental impacts on a wetland?

After Allard outlined his vision for the Sanctuary, Cullen and Armstrong set to work with preliminary civil engineering and detailing plans for layouts and structure designs. Since much of the work had to be phased in conformance with phased permissions from Government, initial work focused on boardwalk and site preparations.

Construction began with the addition of migratory bird ponds adjoining the Main Lake, and combining them with an integrated network of boardwalks connecting various elements within the Sanctuary. The network was carefully imposed on the landscape in a way that allowed environmental “buffers within buffers,” thereby protecting wildlife from human intrusions, and linking observation and interpretive sites in an aesthetic manner.

From the air, it is possible to see how man-made structures are buffered from the natural habitat. No buildings are built immediately adjacent to the mangrove woodland, and artificial irrigation has not been allowed to cross into this habitat.

What surprised me the most during my years in Barbados were some of the most remarkable people I have ever known. These people were the power behind the Sanctuary - while Peter Allard had the vision and was able to provide the financing, it was local people who literally spilled blood to get the project done.

People like Sammy Samuels, Ernest “Hulk” Hines, Bhopaul Sundar, Cecilia Nichols, the MacKenzie brothers and over five hundred other men and women built the Sanctuary into what it is today.

Their names are on a bronze plaque located at the Migratory Bird Exhibit. In alphabetical order, all the same size, as no one was more important than anyone else. The men who dug the ditches and canals also built the interpretive exhibits because they knew precisely where the best photographic view lines were. The engineers, architects and project management people could not have functioned without the passionate contribution of rank and file Barbadians who created a work of art and beauty in the the middle of the Graeme Hall Swamp.

Make no mistake, Barbadians built the place. It was an outdoor project, forcing everyone to work in hot, uncomfortable conditions. I witnessed their pride in what they did, and could tell that they knew what they were doing would be there for multiple generations.

What impressed me the most was the fact that everyone wanted a stake in it. It wasn't just about coming to work and taking home a paycheck. Everyone was always asking questions, such as "shouldn't we extend the path here one more meter?" or some other question that kept challenging the original design concept. The result? They knew why a path turned a certain way, what factors made a good photographic viewpoint, and exactly why it was important to make it all wheelchair friendly. In short order they took these aesthetics to heart, and built a park using their innate intuition and skills.

The skills brought to the project were essential. Numerous examples included “Hulk” Hines, one of the finest backhoe operators I've ever met. Hulk knew how to “feel” the ground through the hydraulics of his machine and minimise damage to the sensitive ecosytem and the underground utilities already in place.

Ardeene Goodridge ran crews to complete the final finishes to the Aviaries and gardens.

Design elements came from David Spink and Michael Cullen. And in a meeting one day nearly a decade ago Kevin Farmer of the National Museum gave inspiration to stay true to the history of Barbados.

Sammy Samuels was an all around powerhouse who put his intellect, heart and soul in the Sanctuary – and Cecilia Nichols not only ran the landscape crews but designed many of the gardens. Much of what people see and photograph at the Sanctuary is because of them.

Crews from R&S Construction were essential, and worked in marginal conditions while they built walkways, underground utilities and various structures. I had to buy a pair of new boots every four months just to keep up with them. Paul Grangaram and Haffies Mohamed became geotextile experts and reconstructed the canals, built sewer lines and later repaired much of the old infrastructure that had rotted in a few short years.

The Mackenzie brothers were brave enough to take on a job they had never done before - to put the stainless steel screening over the Aviary structures built by Ralph “Bizzy” Williams. Both the Mackenzie brothers and Bizzy charged a fair price, and they worked hard to build two of the largest Aviaries in the Caribbean. And despite the danger of working high on thin beams of steel, and the lack of experience, nobody got hurt.

I was proud of the initiative shown by the daily crews. But to meet the educational outreach obligations of the Sanctuary, respected Barbadians who understood the link between the local environment and the culture of Barbados were needed to develop interpretive exhibits.

Wayne “Doc” Burke developed the informal education programme for visitors, and he was responsible for the interpretive text at the Migratory Bird Exhibit, making sure that people understood the nature of flight, the need for science-based preservation, constantly challenging all of us to make good decisions during the construction process. I believe Wayne sacrifices the most of anyone that I know in order to continue his work as a Barbadian environmentalist. He is currently working on the Woodbourne Migratory Bird project with support from Birdlife International, and he is doing so with almost no money.

There are hundreds more examples I could cite of selfless Barbadians and others who worked to make the Sanctuary what it is today. They have my lifelong respect because they were the ones who suffered the most to create one of the most beautiful places in the Caribbean.

I am profoundly grateful that Peter Allard gave me a chance of a lifetime to be part of creating the finest park in Barbados, a safe haven for children and families and wildlife. While I was in Barbados I was treated with grace and respect by those who worked on the Sanctuary.

I will never forget them.

Note:  The Graeme Hall legacy has continued for many generations. History of ownership was sometimes contentious. The biological importance of the site is fascinating and unique to Barbados, with more information located in the Reference Centre of this site.

Here is the list of people who worked to build the Sanctuary. You can see these names cast in bronze at the Migratory Bird Exhibit.