Pull quote: ‘My father sent me to a boarding school in Barbados to get a good academic background and to become a polished and sophisticated young lady. I got my academics alright, but by nature, as a girl, I was more of an outdoor renegade. The polish and sophistication gets rubbed off a bit every now and then’
SOME PEOPLE call her a community advocate; some ‘The Mangrove Champion’; others ‘Turtle Lady’. To many, she’s simply Annette.
It doesn’t matter which of these names people prefer to use, Annette Arjoon-Martins good-naturedly answers to all.
“I sense the love and respect, the recognition from my fellow Guyanese and friends. I am not hung-up on designations and what not; never was, never will be!”
Annette Arjoon-Martins is Chairman of the Mangrove Action Committee (MAC) and a nationally and internationally acclaimed conservationist; a successful commercial eco-tourism operator; a mother of two; and a qualified airplane pilot with a refreshingly down-to-earth personality.
As she told the Guyana Chronicle in a recent interview: “My father sent me to a boarding school in Barbados to get a good academic background and to become a polished and sophisticated young lady. I got my academics alright, but by nature, as a girl, I was more of an outdoor renegade. The polish and sophistication gets rubbed off a bit every now and then.”
Annette Arjoon became Annette Arjoon-Martins last December when she and the legendary musician, Dave Martins of Dave Martins and the Tradewinds fame, got married.
By the late 1990s though, her name had become well-known in local environmentalism and conservation circles. It was a name that was even then synonymous with Shell Beach in Region One (Barima/Waini) and the protection of sea turtles.
In 2000, in keeping with her love for the animals and her obsession with their conservation, she established the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society (GMTCS), subsequently hailed as the first and most successful conservation non-government organization (NGO) established in Guyana.
Between 2001 and 2008, she earned prizes from the Commonwealth Foundation, the United Nations, the Guyana Chamber of Commerce and Shell Antilles, and the private sector here in Guyana for her environmental work.
In 2008, she won the Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence (ANSCAFE) prize in the field of public and civic contributions.
ANSCAFE is the Caribbean’s leading recognition programme; some say its the Caribbean equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize launched by ANSA McAL Foundation in October 2005.
She was one of two Guyanese selected for the ANSCAFE prize in 2008, the other being Dr. David Dabydeen, who received recognition for his contribution to the Arts and Literature.
A note on the justification of her being selected as a laureate for Public and Civic Contributions stated: “One of her most outstanding contributions was the transformation of the people and communities in the Shell Beach area from subsistence turtle hunters to turtle protectors.
“The Amerindians of Guyana have traditionally used turtle eggs and meat for food; it has taken a lot of work to bring them to the point where they can see this same animal and its environment as a source of income and means of moving towards financial self-sufficiency.
“She has facilitated the startup of the North West Organics, which produces cosmetics and food products from traditional materials as a means of sustainable livelihood for these communities.
“At Shell Beach, she also developed the first non-timber product management plan for the crabwood forest. As a result, the residents in communities there were granted complete management rights to that forest, so that they can now legally keep out the people who were in the habit of cutting down the trees. This ownership helps the communities to maintain their supply of non-timber forest products to meet their production needs as well as to safeguard the biodiversity of the areas.”
Mrs. Anette Arjoon-Martins hails from the Pomeroon. She was born to Carmen Murray, a resident of the Pomeroon with relatives at Moruka, and Mr. Yacoob Ally, a sawmilling businessman.
She attended primary school in the Pomeroon, and then moved to Georgetown for secondary education, which she received at the Dolphin Secondary School on Broad Street, in Charlestown.
She left Guyana in 1977 for Codrington High, an English boarding school for girls in Barbados, where she completed her academic education with distinction in 1982.
Her father was in the timber industry, and around this time, he bought an aeroplane to make his operations more efficient. This incidentally marked the beginning of the domestic airline, now known as Air Services Limited (ASL).
At age 18, Annette undertook training as a private pilot at Briko’s Flight School in Trinidad, which saw her become a licensed pilot. She returned home, worked with the timber business for three years, but found the aviation business more interesting. She then managed ASL for ten years.”
By 1992, she’d founded the Shell Beach Adventures ecotourism company, with the beach in the North West District as the main destination. It was around this time that she got her first glimpse of a giant leatherback turtle.
As she recalled: “There was this British scientist who would charter our aircraft to Mabaruma every year. His name was Dr. Peter Pritchard. He had been visiting Guyana regularly since 1962. He was one of several undergraduates at Oxford University who were studying turtle populations around the world, and he had chosen Guyana as his location. I always used to wonder, ‘What is Dr. Pritchard doing out there?’”
Her curiosity led to a life-changing experience.
“One year I went out with Dr. Pritchard to Shell Beach and I saw one. Can you imagine seeing a turtle six feet by four feet coming out of the ocean at night, digging up the beach, laying its eggs, covering them over, and then sauntering back into the ocean! It blew me away!”
It was love at first sight, and the beginning of ten years of hard and dedicated work to protect the animals, and to empower the residents to protect them.”
As Chairperson of MAC, Mrs. Arjoon-Martins wants to apply the formula successfully used at Shell Beach for her current labours in the restoration and preservation of mangrove trees.
“At Shell Beach,” she said, “we got the communities to see the turtles as being of more value alive than dead.  At Shell Beach, they are now getting $10,000 per gallon for their crabwood oil. So instead of cutting down the crabwood tree and then making $20,000 by selling the boards, they are making oil twice a year and making 20 times more money.
“I created North West Organic products to look at the needs of the community which had six and eight children to feed; who would have had to kill the turtles out of necessity for their subsistence had there not been an alternative source of income.
“We want to use this same approach with respect to mangrove conservation without confrontation; no undue reliance on rangers and police.
“There is this exciting concept of payment for ecosystem services. Mangrove trees have the highest rates of sequestration of carbon. Look at that potential benefit if, at some point let us say, the Trafalgar Community in West Coast Berbice decides to manage and protect their five-mile stretch of mangroves, and they could get pai
d for doing that.
“Whatever carbon credit is going in that area, will go to that community. Look at the benefits; it’s all very new, but the potential is great. A coastal community may soon be able to receive payments, just for preserving mangroves along its section of the coast.”
Mrs. Annette Arjoon-Martins said that having successfully set up conservation projects at Shell Beach, she has since handed over ownership of those project as well as North West Organics products to the residents, because “after ten years of guidance and training, they can manage their own affairs.”
Her brother, who is manager of ASL, asked her to help him manage operations at that end. “Then when the government asked me to consider chairing the mangrove project because of my track record in the North West, I felt hugely honoured,” she said.
Mrs. Arjoon-Martins acknowledges that much more public awareness work needs to be done for the successful restoration and preservation of Guyana’s mangroves.
“We are doing very well at the moment,” she said. “Our focal ministers, Minister Robert Persaud and Mr. Robeson Benn have been very supportive. The public has generally been very supportive; we have not had one negative experience to date, knock on wood.”
It’s a privilege she’s grateful for. “I thank  God every morning and every night, because I think that I am the most fortunate person in the world to be doing two jobs that I absolutely love: Aviation and conservation. How many people have had that beautiful opportunity that I have?”
Her advise to young women is: “We can do anything that our male counterparts can do, and sometimes better. Don’t fall into that glass ceiling syndrome.”