THA celebrates Main Ridge Day

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Sec­re­tary of Tourism Zor­isha Hack­ett said To­ba­go can­not re­ly sole­ly on sand, sea and sun to at­tract vis­i­tors to the is­land.

Hack­ett was speak­ing at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture last week dur­ing de­bate on a mo­tion to de­clare April 30 Main Ridge Day, com­mem­o­rat­ing 250 years since the rain­for­est was de­clared a pro­tect­ed re­serve.

The mo­tion was passed unan­i­mous­ly.

Hack­ett said the de­ci­sion in 1776 showed that an un­der­stand­ing that the en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion of a peo­ple is not sep­a­rate from its de­vel­op­ment.

As part of the cel­e­bra­tions, the To­ba­go Tourism Agency Ltd will be un­veil­ing an im­mer­sive dig­i­tal Main Ridge ex­pe­ri­ence us­ing Google Street View and vir­tu­al re­al­i­ty.

Hack­ett said this will dig­i­tal­ly cap­ture the rain­for­est ecosys­tem, cre­ate 360-de­gree nav­i­ga­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence and pro­vide glob­al ac­cess to the is­land’s in­te­ri­or.

By pro­vid­ing this vi­su­al­ly stim­u­lat­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, Hack­ett said po­ten­tial vis­i­tors would re­alise To­ba­go is more than a coast­line.

“Her­itage that is not ac­ti­vat­ed be­comes his­to­ry, but her­itage that is struc­tured, in­ter­pret­ed and po­si­tioned be­comes eco­nom­ic, ed­u­ca­tion­al and glob­al cap­i­tal,” she said.

Hack­ett said To­ba­go’s UN­ESCO Man and the Bios­phere des­ig­na­tion el­e­vates the is­land con­sid­er­ably.

“It means To­ba­go is not just to be seen as a des­ti­na­tion. We are a liv­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry, a demon­stra­tion site, a mod­el of bal­ance be­tween en­vi­ron­ment and econ­o­my.”

She said the glob­al tourism mar­ket is dri­ven by sev­er­al fac­tors be­yond pic­turesque coast­lines.

“The at­trac­tions of­fered by the des­ti­na­tion must cul­mi­nate in ex­pe­ri­ences.

“In our re­gion, there are count­less des­ti­na­tions of­fer­ing the prover­bial sun, sea and sand. For far too long our Caribbean tourism has leaned on a sin­gle nar­ra­tive.

“While To­ba­go’s coast­lines are ex­cep­tion­al, it can­not be the on­ly pil­lar of our tourism econ­o­my,” she said.

Hack­ett added that To­ba­go’s Main Ridge al­lows it to not just of­fer leisure tourism but ex­plorato­ry, re­search-based and ed­u­ca­tion­al tourism.

She said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) is al­so tap­ping in­to well­ness tourism, her­itage tourism and sport tourism.

“This is where To­ba­go must be pre­cise, We can­not mar­ket our­selves in the same way our com­peti­tors do. We must mar­ket our­selves as spe­cif­ic, as rare, as pur­pose­ful and be­yond or­di­nary.”

Mean­while, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the THA must take de­ci­sive ac­tion to pro­tect its as­sets and its fu­ture.

He hailed the 1776 leg­is­la­tion as pi­o­neer­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal law which the world can em­u­late.

He urged the pub­lic to show re­spect for not on­ly the green spaces but the blue spaces.

Au­gus­tine said en­sur­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the Buc­coo Ma­rine Park is es­sen­tial to pre­serv­ing lives and liveli­hoods.

He chas­tised the pub­lic for re­cent com­plaints about not be­ing able to host night par­ties at the Ny­lon Pool.

“That is a blue as­set that is un­der threat be­cause peo­ple don’t know how to be­have...

“If we are not care­ful we will end up with a sit­u­a­tion where there is no eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in the Buc­coo Ma­rine Park be­cause it would be de­stroyed com­plete­ly,” he said.