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13 St.Vincent and the Grenadines Recent Efforts in Protecting Heritage Richard T. Callaghan Introduction Reginald Murphy probably conducted the first true cultural resources management (CRM) work in St.Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). The work consisted of a transect survey across the island in an east–west direction for the Cross Island highway (Murphy et al. 2003). Murphy also produced plans to enhance 19 cultural and natural sites, including the petroglyph site at Layou, and plans to restore the curator’s house at the Botanical Gardens.A summary of this work was incorporated into a report by Ivor Jackson and Associates (2004). In 2008 the Tourism Development Project (TDA) was executed by the Ministry of Tourism and implemented by the National Parks, Rivers, and Beaches Authority (NPRBA 2009).The SVG government and the European Union funded the TDA. It is discussed in detail in the National Park and Protected Areas (NPPA), System Plan 2010–2014 (NPRBA 2009). In part the NPPA was drafted to lay out a plan to implement recommendations of the Ivor Jackson report (2004),but it goes well beyond this.The report was presented at five public meetings around the country.The document, passed by the St.Vincent and the Grenadines Cabinet on May 12, 2010, lists 25 sites as cultural landmarks and is a significant piece of legislation regarding national parks and protected areas.Cultural landmarks fall under a broader heritage definition (National Parks,Rivers,and Beaches Authority 2009:vi).This definition includes:people;boat, seafaring and other maritime seafaring traditions ; Amerindian, African and European contributions and artifacts and petroglyphs;architecture and engineering (churches, homes, industrial ruins, military facilities, and fortifications); sites of rediscovery and resistance; and song and dance. In addition, restoration of the historic Curator’s House as part of the enhancement of the Botanical Gardens is included under natural landmarks. The house was built in 1891. Many important plants were introduced here, St.Vincent and the Grenadines:Recent Efforts / 107 most famously breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis (incisa). These were suckers from those Captain Bligh in 1793 brought from Tahiti, Polynesia. The Botanical Gardens are famous worldwide because of the mutiny on the H.M.S.Bounty. The Curator’s House will be used as a herbarium and botanical museum; the restoration was completed in 2009 (Agar and Johnston Architects 2010). Along with the opening of a new media center, with library and climatecontrolled archives, it is a major contribution to the protection and dissemination of heritage on St.Vincent and the Grenadines. In 2007 plans for the construction of an international airport at Argyle on the Windward coast were announced, and shortly thereafter Kocks Consult was hired to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (Kocks Consult 2008). One of the sites to be impacted was the well-known Yambou Valley petroglyph site.The National Trust raised the issue of preserving the site with the CEO of the International Airport Development Company (IADC), Rudy Matthias (Martin 2010; Martin and Moses 2011). Construction plans were examined to determine if the runway could be redesigned to avoid the site. Unfortunately, this would have required extending the runway into the sea, adding a prohibitive cost to the airport project. As an alternative, funds were made available by the IADC to produce high-quality reproductions of the petroglyphs and to move them if possible (Martin 2010). Finding a team with the necessary experience to move the petroglyphs was a challenge. However,the general secretary of the High Council of Antiquities in Egypt has identified a team of experts to come to St.Vincent to relocate the petroglyphs .The team includes top-ranking archaeologists and restoration specialists as well as senior engineers. Archaeological surveys identified the densest concentration of sites known for St.Vincent at the north end of the proposed expanded runway (Callaghan 2007).Although only impacts on natural resources were included in the scope of the EIA,Kocks Consult decided to include a discussion of impacts on heritage resources. Two sites were deemed to be of particular importance, Escape (KuCe-5) and Argyle (KuCe-6). The Escape site is the focus of ongoing research, which indicates the possibility of learning much about prehistoric community structure. The Argyle site appears to be almost unique in that it is a single component Island Carib site from the early contact period. Other sites were also deemed important but choices had to be made due to limited funds. Since 2000 a University of Calgary team led by Richard Callaghan has conducted investigations...

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