It is unclear to some persons how our natural environment can impact our everyday lives and not realize how much of it we take advantage of its free services. This ranges from the air we breathe, the food we eat and the beaches we travel to for recreational activities. The enjoyment we get from our environment came to a stretching halt when Hurricane Irma, a category 5 hurricane swept through the Virgin Islands on September 6th 2017. The damages left from the hurricane gave the people of the Virgin Islands an urgent wake-up call as shortly after, another category 5 hurricane Maria came through causing strong storm surges and flooding within coastal communities.
The Minister of Natural Resources Labour and Immigration, Hon Vincent Wheatley made a plea of wanting to plant over 10,000 mangroves within the Virgin Islands and from this, Rotary joined in this mission to accomplish this task.
Wanting and achieving this project was two different components as we first had to understand and learn more about mangrove forests. The club partnered with the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College to learn more about mangroves and was introduced to their mangrove nursery programme. From there, we were able to learn how they propagate and care for the mangrove seedlings until they were healthy enough to withstand various environmental conditions.
By spreading the word of what the club was doing with the college, many Rotarians brought their children and others were inspired and voiced their willingness to help and volunteered many weekends in caring for the seedlings are conducting outplanting efforts.
It is our hope to build strong coastlines which will reduce flooding events in low lying coastal communities. From these efforts, those households and families will remain safe.
WE ARE ROTARY
WE ARE PEOPLE OF ACTION
Rotarians are people who make the impossible, possible!