MIND THE GAP: IN CONSERVATION, AGE IS NOT A FACTOR!
Added to website: 15 January 2008
-by- Howard Peters
It was the Spring of 2001 and I had just seen in an unwelcome 58th birthday. A time for reflection when middle-age shows signs of losing its middle. For the past dozen or so years I had run a small business importing fashion accessories from the Andean countries of South America, but the economy of the region and competition from the Far East was putting pressure on my margins so I had decided to call it a day. I was going to miss my annual three month journeys escaping the London winters to visit my producers in remote rural towns and villages of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. I would especially miss the weeks of backpacking to wherever my map and spirit would take me from Mexico to Patagonia.
It was some years earlier while journeying through Belize that I had first learned about Coral Cay Conservation (CCC) and the work they were doing using volunteers to survey the fish, corals and other marine life of the Meso-American Barrier Reef. Around the world, coral reefs are under relentless pressure from over-fishing, pollution and other human impacts. My time around the Amazon and the primary forests of Central America had shown me first hand the widescale destruction being inflicted on the terrestrial world. CCC were attempting to address issues of equal or even greater severity in the tropical marine environment. Supported by the government of the host country, their reef assessments was leading directly to the establishment of marine protected areas to conserve fish and protect their habitats. This allowed time for the recovery of these fragile ecosystems both for the benefit of the local population and for our common natural heritage. It was a cause with which I could relate.
And so it was 10 months after the unwelcome birthday I enrolled to join a small band of 10 volunteers and a team of professionals – expedition leader, science officer, scuba instructor and medical officer – as the pioneer group in the inauguration of a new base in the Mamanuca group of islands in Fiji in the western Pacific. It was an eclectic mix of individuals: mostly young and waiting to go on to university, but with a few mature volunteers in their 30’s and 40’s and with me approaching 59, soon to be celebrated on a remote and largely uninhabited island. Although I was a qualified diver albeit with limited experience, the majority of volunteers were novices who first underwent on-site training to a level that would give them the capability to dive to the 30m survey depths. Dive certification out of the way, the next two weeks involved comprehensive education in species identification held in the classroom and on practicals diving the reefs. Only then could the volunteers be formed into survey teams and return reliable statistics. Later, my dive training would be taken by CCC to divemaster level .
Almost all the volunteers had no previous experience in marine environmental sciences. The older members in particular had come from occupations as diverse as a furniture maker from Canada to an oil driller from the North Sea. Later on I would join other CCC expeditions in Malaysia and the Philippines and I would meet others of my age and older. All, however, shared a common goal: to expand their minds, to help save the natural environment and to experience life in remote regions of the world. Age was never an issue; the younger members of the group had exactly the same goals and supported the same values. But it would be wrong to imply it would suit everyone. Volunteers need to have the time available, a reasonable level of fitness and an affinity with the water. They must be prepared to leave behind many daily comforts and accept basic living conditions, and they should expect to work intensively especially during the training period. Most importantly they must enjoy being part of a team. But the rewards are substantial for those willing to accept the challenge, whatever the age.
As for me, my years at CCC so motivated me that in 2007 I completed a full-time MSc university course in Marine Environmental Management at York and will progress on to a PhD in the hope of adding the fruits of my research to the benefit of marine conservation.
2008 Howard Peters
