Dear Editor,
I HAD the opportunity to visit Almond beach which is now threatened by erosion and flooding, with Mr and Mrs Ishak Basir on a PPP excursion as a teenage boy in the late 60s. We travelled from Charity by big sloops and speed boats with about 100 people. As we entered the mouth of the Pomeroon River, the water was really rough and the boats were tossing from side to side, but we managed to make it to Almond Beach without any trouble.
We had to walk in the water some distance to get to the long and wide beach. It was my first trip there, so I decided to explore it while the other people were having fun by dancing to the sweet music. This beach runs from Waini Point to the mouth of the Pomeroon River on the north shore. The entire area is about 100 miles and it is called Shell beach; four of us walked and walked until we were tired. We even saw some Amerindians who had settled there on the beach in huts.
There was a long stretch of coconut trees along the beach and inland, the natives planted coffee, cocoa, plantains, bananas and some other crops; these were open to the Atlantic Ocean with no sea or river defence. Lots of fishermen would go to Shell Beach to catch fish, crabs etc, and sometimes they ended up catching the marine turtles which live there and in their nets. I knew that one day Shell Beach would be flooded and erosion would take place with the raging sea. Since my visits to this place, lots of development have taken place on this beach over the decades.
The rising sea level will now force the people to occupy higher, flat sand lands. The dramatic changes in the weather patterns were noticeable for thousands of years and what we are now seeing today with the flooding of Georgetown and other parts of the country, is just the tip of the iceberg.
While the traditional high tides keep rising, over-running the normal man-made river and sea defence, the usual farmers’ guidelines which were used to calculate weather patterns have gone haywire. This new government has to go back to the drawing board to work on a strategy to protect the marine turtles and Shell Beach. Farmers in the 60s could have known when to cut and burn and plant their new farms — when the night is cold and the river is dark with fog, one would depend on a full day of sunshine. When the corkwood tree blossoms, it would signify two months of dry weather, and acoushi ants beginning extensive destruction to plant leaves would signify that the rain is coming. As experts predict an increase in rising sea-level strength and activity along the Shell Beach, the coastal wetlands provide a critical protective barrier for marine sea turtles and the people living there.
Almond Beach has a proud history of providing sands and a safe place for the turtles and their eggs, but as we can see now, climate change has sent the jaguars roaming in search of food and they have started to hunt and eat the turtles which are being left vulnerable in the open spaces. However, the erosion and flood of 2017 showed us all the price we pay for the loss of our coastal beach. Without a healthy and sustainable Almond Beach in the North West region, to carry on the wildlife habitat for thousands of different species of animals and plants, we therefore need to protect Shell Beach urgently. Inaction is not an option .But if everyone works together, we can balance this equation. Action must be swift; there is a certain urgency to protect this zone, because Shell Beach and the other six beaches along the Waini to Pomeroon River mouth are facing challenges today with global warming and rising sea levels which can decimate the entire areas for another 25 or 30 years. What we fail to do will have lasting consequences.
Regards
Mohamed Khan