Green Pages

What impact does the Australian pine have on the local plant community? Story & Photos By Chloe Hardman Tall trees waving in the winds are a common sight along the beautiful beaches of the Turks & Caicos. Locally known as the cedar, these trees offer pleasant shade. But have you ever stopped to wonder where these trees ...

Searching for the TCI’s National Flower. Story & Photos By Sophie Williams As a botany student in the UK, I regularly see the beautiful purple heathers covering the hillsides and dominating the landscape. When I was offered the opportunity to study the Turks & Caicos heather, I was excited and eager to see an endemic species of ...

Studying the charismatic white spotted eagle ray populations of South Caicos. Story & Photos By Jan Lupton Venture on a dive or snorkel in the beautiful seas surrounding the Turks & Caicos Islands and you may be treated to an encounter with one or more white spotted eagle rays gracefully flying through the water. In contrast to ...

Tackling TCI’s turtle fishery. By Peter Richardson, Biodiversity Programme Manager, Marine Conservation Society (MCS) Humans have hunted turtles in the Turks & Caicos Islands for centuries. Yet turtles still thrive here, in good numbers too. With their extensive, pristine coral reefs and vast swathes of seagrass beds, lagoons and tidal creeks, the low lying Turks & Caicos ...

A collection realised by collaboration. By B. Naqqi Manco, Senior Conservation Officer, Turks & Caicos National Trust Photos Courtesy TCI National Trust and Board of Trustees, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew When I was in university, a friend of mine – recognising my love of plants – brought me an African violet as a gift. Its source unknown, she’d ...

mega millions numbers Helping to ensure the palms are “present” in TCI’s future. By B. Naqqi Manco, Senior Conservation Officer, Turks & Caicos National Trust Photos Courtesy Board of Trustees, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and TCI National Trust Call me a Scrooge. I’ve never been big on Christmas. The consumerism, the materialism, the mad rush at supermarkets and ...

Story & Photos By B. Naqqi Manco The Turks & Caicos Islands are blissfully free of dangerous land animals. Our largest native land animal is a humble vegetarian, the Turks & Caicos Rock Iguana. No large predators lurk in the bush. Our three small snake species are all non-venomous and shy. Possibly the only creature throughout ...

Great Blue land crabs are a tasty terror! Story & Photos By B. Naqqi Manco, Sr. Conservation Officer, Turks & Caicos National Trust They come every year. The spring rains awaken them and the Islands are subject to the onslaught of a creepy crustacean invasion. Most welcome these creatures, but I’m still working on feeling anything but ...

A Trip to Little Water Cay By Jonathan Sayao, T & C National Trust Education Officer Photo By Brian Riggs Listed among the Turks & Caicos Islands’ must-see places to visit is Little Water Cay, popularly known as Iguana Island. This 116-acre cay lies just off the eastern end of Providenciales and has two small ...

Two popular snorkeling trails get a spring cleaning. Story & Photos By Richard Green Jr. After guiding thousands of people around Smith’s Reef and Bight Reef snorkel trails for a decade, the educational trail markers circling the popular Providenciales nearshore patch reefs have been treated to a much needed cleaning, thanks to two of ...

An environmental history of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Story & Photos By Brian Riggs, Curator, National Environmental Centre In 2001, the Turks & Caicos Islands Government signed an important and far reaching document. The Environmental Charter (see page 59) outlined TCI’s commitment to the environment and conservation efforts on behalf of all the ...

What can the Conch Bar cave system tell us about sea levels in the past? By Gina E. Mosely M.Sc., School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, UK with Professor Peter L. Smart and Dr. David A. Richards Reports on climate change and its effects are becoming a regular occurrence within the media as researchers try to ...

You decide:  an argument for change. By Marlon Hibbert, Scientific Monitoring Officer, DECR As the year 2007 draws to a close, the world is turning its attention to Bali, Indonesia where countries will meet under the United Nations banner to forge a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international treaty designed to ...

Restoring mangroves in the Turks & Caicos Islands By Eric Salamanca, Scientific Officer, DECR Photo By Brian Riggs, Curator, National Environmental Centre The world was shocked when a tsunami struck the coasts of southeast Asia in December 2004. More than 200,000 people were believed to have died as a result of the sea surge and a ...

TCI’s ReefBall coral relocation project makes transplantation a success. Story & Photos By Christopher Guglielmo Imagine yourself snorkeling off the beach in the perfect turquoise waters of Providenciales’ Grace Bay. You pass a patch of turtle grass where conch and sand dollars line the bottom. You get a bit further out, past several stands ...