The Cayman Islands are a group of three Islands Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. Grand Cayman is the biggest of the three measuring in at 22 miles long and 8 miles wide. Then comes Cayman Brac which is 12 miles long and averages about 1 mile wide. Finally, we have little Cayman the smallest of the three Islands a miniscule 10 miles long and a maximum of 2 miles wide (“Cayman Islands”, July 26,1999).
The Islands could be best described as a cold desolate place. The main Island is a trash covered dump. Any semblance of a beach has been had the sand replaced with human filth, sun can hardly ever be seen because of the constant smog, and the only animals are green iguanas, lion fish and insects which are too stubborn to die out. The other Islands aren’t that much better Cayman Brac is just rocks at this point and little Cayman is completely under water.
Oh wait! That’s the wrong description! Apologizes. What I should have said is… The Cayman Islands a warm, sunny and inviting Islands nestled between Jamaica and Cuba. Cayman somehow manages to be both a thriving diverse ecological environment while at the same managing to be a major hot spot for hundreds of tourists looking for a tropical vacation. Home to a myriad tropical forests and long lush sandy beaches and large variety of both plants and animals. Such as the coconut tree, palm tree, thatch palm, or even the banana orchid. The animals that make their home here are no less impressive than the plants. A few we have here on the land we have our very own blue Iguana, Cayman Parrot, the Cayman Racer or even various species of bat and in the water, we have the green sea turtle, grouper, snapper, and even the Caribbean spiny lobster.
So, the question remains with all the ecological nightmares happening around our beautiful Islands which could lead to that first horrific description. How has Cayman stayed this beautiful? I mean think about it even though we aren’t as big as other counties taking care of the environment of the Cayman Islands is still a pretty big job. It takes thousands of dollars, hundreds of volunteers and countless hours. How is it done how do we do it all. I can sum it all up in one word, conservation. We have all heard about conservation in one way or another whether our love and care for the environment drives us to actively seek it out, we hear about it from teachers/presenters in school or we find out about it via various media such as television, radio or the world wide web.
However, have you ever stopped to think about what goes on behind the scenes of many of these conservation efforts? In other words how they are carried out. To look at that I must first introduce our valiant heroes in this never-ending effort to protect the environment of the Cayman Islands. The group who despite trials such as insufficient funds or lack of legislative support still press on and manage to accomplish the protection of the environment. There are quite a few bodies one could consider here but, the one that comes to mind out of them all is the National Trust.
