Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity

Barbados has seven Important Bird Areas covering approximately 185 ha (0.1 per cent of total land area) including marine areas [ ] 58 The transformation of a quarry to a natural reserve Walker’s Quarry has been in opera- tion on Barbados for over 50 years. The silica sand found in abundance there is primarily used in mak- ing concrete for the building and construction sector. However, as the lifespan of the quarry is coming to an end, the owners have focused their attention on transforming the area into Walker’s Reserve with the aim of restoring biodiverse health and climatological resilience to the land in the area. The key objectives of the reserve include: • Returning extracted areas of the quarry to ecological health • Cultivating a mixed-use permac- ulture site providing food, fibre, medicine and livelihood • Mitigating, by design, potential on- going environmental impacts that might have otherwise been caused by the extraction operation such as soil erosion, landslides, and further ecological degradation • Providing habitat to threatened and endangered migratory birds and endemic species to the Lesser Antilles • Protecting the endangered leather- back turtle habitat • Inspiring ecological and agricul- tural tourism for the Scotland District of Barbados • Providing meaningful livelihood opportunities for residents of Saint Andrew and neighbouring parishes • Striving to help stabilize the climate through reforestation and regenerative land use • Providing a gene bank of rare and useful plants for the island. Walker’s Reserve uses a permacul- ture design to restore the natural ecological functions of the quarry by introducing various perennial food systems. The project began its imple- mentation in 2015 and is expected to run over a five-year period, resulting in the planting of 100 different spe- cies in 12 different planting patterns with approximately 52 different planting plots. Revegetation will be mainly of native species, especially those known to grow in the area. To date, through the project, sever- al plant species have been established including fat pork (Chrysobalanus icaco); cashew (Anacardium occi- dentale); khus-khus grass (Vetiveria zizanoides); agave (Agave Rigida Var. Sisalana/Agave barbadensis); various legumes; coconut (Cocus Nucifera); almond (Terminalia catappa) and loofah (Luffa aegyptiaca or Luffa acutangula). B arbados is the most easterly island in the Eastern Caribbean chain. 34 km long and 23 km wide, it has a total land area of approximately 432 km 2 . Approximately 86 per cent of the island is a karst topography rising in a series of limestone terraces towards the centre of the island. There are no permanent rivers. The Scotland District comprises 14 per cent of the land area in the northeast of the island and is made of sedimentary deposits such as sands, shales and clays. These layers are profoundly folded and faulted, resulting in frequent land slippage. Barbados green monkey found in numbers across the island Joe Ross on flickr Barbados