How underwater statues and organic farms are helping Grenada stay sustainable

Theresa Marryshow is an organic farmer with an unlikely mission.

It’s not like she grows the tastiest arugula, cucumbers and lettuce on the eastern side of Grenada, a small island in the British West Indies, although she does.

She also has a message for visitors: this is a place with the potential to sustainably feed itself and its guests.

“People don’t understand how the food gets here,” said Marryshow, a retired government agriculture official who manages her family farm in Bacolet, St. David, in the rural southeastern part of the island. “They don’t know that someone prepared the soil, planted it, tended it and harvested it.”

Visitors come to Grenada for its white-sand beaches and rainforests and to hang out at the famous all-inclusive resorts like Sandals Sandals La Source Grenada and Spice Island Beach Resort. But Marryshow, who is also chair of the Grenada Network of Rural Women Producers, wants them to come up with new ideas about sustainability and ways to save the planet.

She gets help from progressive hotels, environmentalists who build remarkable underwater attractions, and other farmers who have a spiritual connection to the land. And once visitors understand the magnitude of the problem – and the possible solutions – Marryshow says a light bulb goes on, “and they get it.”

This is part five in a series on sustainable tourism in Central America and the Caribbean. Here’s part one about it sustainability in Panama, part two about saving Bonaire’s number one tourist attraction, part three left Aruba’s struggle to remain sustainable, and part four about Curaçao’s conservation efforts.

Delivering fresh produce to Grenada — and more

The idea of ​​cooperative farming caught on during the pandemic, when Grenada, like many islands, was cut off from the rest of the world. Marryshow had started her organic farm on a small piece of land. The Sandals Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps local communities, asked if it could supply the fruits and vegetables the resort needed. The foundation also offered to help her build a new patio and kitchen to meet the increased demand. Marryshow regularly provided Sandals with boxes of lettuce, mint, peppers and herbs.

Marryshow says the idea was a success.

“Soon other hotels and restaurants were interested in what we had,” she says.

Marryshow then helped set up a network of farmers specializing in different types of fruits and vegetables. Some supplied fruits such as mangoes, bananas and breadfruit. Others grew herbs such as oregano and mint.

“We often tap into their network to find what we need from them,” said Deleon Forrester, spokeswoman for Sandals La Source Grenada.

Several times a month, Marryshow also welcomes a group of guests from Sandals La Source Grenada and other resorts for brunch. She offers them a tour of her farm and serves a light brunch with cocoa tea, bread made from breadfruit flour and fresh eggs from her farm.

“I want people to know that you can do this, that you can be sustainable in a place like Grenada,” she says.

Her message resonates on this island.

From farm to table at Spice Island Beach Resort

At Spice Island Beach Resort, an all-inclusive hotel south of St. George’s on the Caribbean side of Grenada, they take the farm-to-table idea seriously.

Janelle Hopkin, director of the resort, says she got tired of just talking about sustainability – it was all talk and no action – so she decided to take action. That’s why she started an organic herb and vegetable garden on the property.

“This is where we grow all our vegetables, such as lettuce, and the herbs we use in our recipes,” she explains.

Calling it a garden may be an understatement. It is large enough to be a farm and practices sustainability by capturing and recycling rainwater, composting food waste and avoiding pesticides.

Hopkin says there is an appetite for farm-to-table food at her own restaurant, Oliver. But there is an inherent challenge in running a five-star hotel and trying to be sustainable.

She says practicing sustainability requires intention – and that usually involves some discomfort.

For example, when the hotel installed sensors that automatically turned off the air conditioning when guests opened their patio doors to walk to the beach, it meant they had to be prepared to return to a room that wasn’t the ideal temperature and that it would take 10 to 15 minutes before it cools down again.

“It requires that guests themselves have a sustainability mindset and actively participate in the hotel’s conservation efforts,” says Hopkin.

But agriculture isn’t the only way Grenada is trying to stay sustainable.

This underwater sculpture park could save Grenada’s reefs

Phil Saye is also on a mission in Grenada. He wants to save the vulnerable reefs around the island.

In 2006, he noticed that too many boats were being drawn into the picturesque Flamingo Bay and were slowly destroying the reef. Saye, who then owned a diving company, collaborated with Jason deCaires Taylor, a British artist living on the island, to create the Grenada Underwater Sculpture Park in the Molinere Beauséjour Marine Protected Area, just north of Grenada’s capital, St. George’s.

Today, the sculpture park is a legend in the Caribbean and one of the island’s most visited attractions. Divers and snorkelers can view 96 underwater works of art, including the recently installed works of art Coral Carnivala collection of images in a carnival parade.

Visitors are in disbelief when they surface after their dives. Immersed art is the last thing they expected to see in the Caribbean. When they find out that the statues are also good for sustainability because they draw visitors away from the reef, they consider it a bonus.

Saye also founded the Grenada Artificial Reef Project, which has sunk concrete pyramids off the coast in an effort to protect the existing reef. Most of the organization’s reef conservation efforts take place away from recreational diver boats, and they keep the marine environment healthy, he says.

“The idea was to provide a stable structure to recruit marine life and increase the biodiversity of the area,” says Saye.

That would keep divers off the reef and potentially attract new life to the area. Coral and plankton quickly attach to anything you sink in these waters, creating an artificial reef.

Sitting in the open-air lobby of Calabash Grenada, an all-inclusive property near the airport, Saye says Grenada has come a long way since he started pushing for a more environmentally sustainable island. Bureaucrats questioned him. Hotels are wary of his activism. But interestingly, the community support has always been there. And there’s a reason why.

How sustainability works in Grenada

Compared to other destinations, sustainability in Grenada is an easy sell. Ask anyone about the importance of environmental conservation and they will be happy to tell you what they have done. Taxi drivers will describe what is growing in their herb gardens or have a conversation about the solar panels they want to buy to make their home less dependent on the electricity grid.

To find out why Grenadians feel they are in harmony with nature, visit Atiba Mawuto, a Rastafarian farmer who lives in the rural Mamma Cannes region of the island, high in the green hills overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Mawuto grows exotic fruits and herbs here, including nutmeg, bananas and cocoa. He also offers farm tours and explains the Rastafarian approach to natural resource management. Rastafarianism teaches self-sufficiency and sustainability through responsible land use.

He is encouraged that visitors to Grenada are interested in his approach to sustainability. It’s about using only what you need, recycling and, above all, listening to nature. When tourists see his farm and hear him talk about sustainability, they understand what is at stake. And they know what needs to change.

True sustainability, he says, “is a way of life.”