REMARKS BY PREMIER AND MINISTER OF FINANCE, ENVIRONMENT, NATURAL RESOURCES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

HONOURABLE DR. NATALIO D. WHEATLEY

ON THE OCCASION OF

THE LAUNGH OF MOTOR VESSEL

THE VIGILATE

 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11TH, 2024

Greetings and good morning to all!

 What a beautiful Virgin Islands’day and a day to celebrate!

It was only a few decades ago that boat launchings were a regular and highly anticipated feature of Virgin Islands life. The Virgin Islands has a rich heritage of boat building and seafaring, of which we are proud! The traditions around boat launchings are equally rich and I’m happy to see that some of these traditions have been integrated in today’s launch.

My great grandfather was a man by the name of Claremond Floyd Davies of East End. He was one of The Virgin Islands’ most renowned and prolific shipwrights under whom many other boat builders apprenticed. From his work yard - the Wuk Wuk - at Parham Town, he launched many a boat. So, boat launchings are in my blood, and it gives me great pleasure to join in today’s celebration as we not only launch a boat, but we launch possibilities that will sail The Virgin Islands to the great destination of resilience and prosperity!

Possibilities such as:

• First and foremost, expanding the scope and scale of the Ministry’s coastal water quality monitoring programme, allowing the programme to reach the sister islands in particular. As the Sailing Capital of the world, maintaining pristine coastal waters is as basic and essential to our bread and butter as it is for a baker to keep flour in his kitchen;  
• Expanding and enhancing coral reef, beach and wider environmental monitoring and restoration programmes, including on our sister islands;
• Enhancing surveillance of our Territorial waters to crack down on illegal fishing, particularly from foreign commercial vessels; and
• The ability to quickly investigate and respond to reports of vessel groundings, marine oil spills and other marine pollution incidents.

These possibilities directly connect to our resilience and prosperity.

I won’t spend the time this morning to make the argument for why our natural environment is so critical to our economy, quality of life and resilience to natural disasters. I hope that these core facts are no longer a point of discussion among us, but a well-accepted part of our reality as small islands where the only natural resource that we can monetise is the beauty and diversity of our fragile environment, and where our size and location make us highly vulnerable to natural hazards against which ecosystems like coral reefs, mangroves and salt ponds are great defenders.

Former Chief Conservation and Fisheries Officer, the late Mr. Bertrand Lettsome, said it best when he said, “As our environment goes, so goes The Virgin Islands.”

“Vigilate”, the Latin word which translates to “Be Watchful” sits at the base of our Territorial Badge and is the aptly selected name for the Ministry’s monitoring and surveillance vessel that we will launch today. Vigilate summarizes well the ethos that we must apply to stewarding the gems we have been gifted that are The Virgin Islands.

This morning, I want to speak just briefly about what it means to “be watchful” as it relates to our environment, in particular our coastal and marine resources and why it is even more critical and urgent than ever. -

To “be watchful” means to be alert and aware. In the last few decades, the level of threat to our environment has increased exponentially as The Virgin Islands rapidly transitioned from a subsistence economy, based on fishing and farming, to a service-based economy dependent on tourism and financial services.

This transition has come with rapid development that has not always been sensitive to and considerate of our environment. In particular, over 50% of mangroves along the southern coast of Tortola have been destroyed by coastal development since the 1950s and we’ve filled in most of our salt ponds.

The limited data we have suggests that most of our reefs are in decline. And it’s not just our reefs. We have also, for instance, destroyed 20 or so white-sand beaches that, up to the 1950s and 60s, dotted the southern coast of Tortola.

Beyond this, The Virgin Islands, like small islands around the world, stand on the frontlines of climate change - the consequences of which we are already painfully experiencing and only expect to intensify, including warmer temperatures, stronger hurricanes, more frequent flood events, sea level rise and more.

This directly translates to the degradation or death of our coral reefs, erosion or disappearance of our beaches, other direct disruptions to our tourism sector and costly impacts to our communities.

In this environment of increased threat, business as usual is a recipe for our demise. So, we must set about doing things differently. First, we must recognise that we can’t effectively respond to threats that we have not clearly understood, quantified and that we do not actively monitor. Moreover, we can’t ensure protection of our natural resources if we are not continuously studying, quantifying and better understanding what we have and how it is being impacted by the changes all around us.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we have to be watchful –

Vigilate! We must start to actively monitor our environment – our water quality, our coral reefs, our beaches…our environment at large. Lack of data about our environment is one of the greatest barriers to enhancing environmental management and protection and achieving sustainable development for the benefit of all. This was clearly highlighted at the global Small Islands Developing States (SIDS 4) Conference held in Antigua just earlier this year, to the extent that one of the most celebrated outcomes of SIDS4 was the launch of the SIDS Global Data Hub.

Data has historically been undervalued, but its time has arrived. The world and the Caribbean region have recognised, and now The Virgin Islands must recognize, that data is the key to understanding and solving complex problems and, in today’s global finance landscape, data is also the key to unlocking investment to implement the solutions to these problems.

Virgin Islands - now is the time to wake up and take the helm! 

As we set sail Vigilate today, let us all embrace and commit to the journey of “being watchful” through enhanced monitoring and data gathering to support better planning, management, enforcement and unlocking of solutions and the finance to implement them.  

In closing I’d like to sincerely thank all those who have made the launch of this great journey and the possibilities it brings a reality. First and foremost, I’d like to thank the RESEMBID programme, funded by the European Union and implemented by Expertise France. The contribution of Vigilate as a monitoring and surveillance vessel is a perfect example of where just small investments really can make the world of difference!

We thank you for this valuable contribution to sustainability in The Virgin Islands and we look forward to demonstrating the resulting benefits.

On The Virgin Islands side, I’d like to thank the Ministry of Finance for the important support and coordinating role it has played in implementation of all RESEMBID projects in the Territory as well as the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change for leading implementation of this particular project under RESEMBID towards enhancing coastal water quality monitoring in The Virgin Islands.

In particular, I’d like to thank the Project lead, Environmental Officer - Ms. Atoya George, for her hard work and commitment to making Vigilate a reality. I am aware that there were points along this journey where it seemed that procurement of the vessel would not be possible due to various challenges and the easier option would have been to give up. But you persevered and, as a result, we are here today to celebrate the launch of Vigilate!

I know many others have contributed to this reality and to today’s programme and will be detailed in the Vote of Thanks, but I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to you all.

Thank you and Hip Ho!