The Project is aimed at developing, refurbishing a number of designated tourist sites across St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with designs and catering to its own unique state and environment.

“The important thing is that the scope for each site has been based on a rigorous community involvement,” Alistaire Grell, Technical Advisor assigned to the project told THE VINCENTIAN. Grell went on to explain that, once a feasible decision had been reached, then it was up to the technical people to create a design to facilitate this.

He drew the examples of the Youremei Heritage Village at Orange Hill, which will entail more preservation type work as opposed to the site at Black Point, which demands more immediate (modern) construction work. “We want to try to still be eco-tourism based, and we try to promote structures with this feel,” Grell said. He explained that natural material is used where possible but concrete is also used which, while not usually associated with eco-tourism, is durable and “is necessary to hold things together.”

The Technical Advisor spoke of the strategies being deployed to ensure that the sites are up to the everyday wear and tear associated with the weather.  He pointed to Black Point, where a tyre sea defence is being constructed. “There has been a problem with the retreat and loss of sand from the beach,” Grell explained. He outlined the design, noting that it is eco in design and the way it functions. “The wave energy from high seas would interface well,” Grell said.  Through the use of a concrete structure and old tyres, he said that the idea would be for some of the energy to be lost upon impact, in return receding into the ocean with very little or no impact on the expanse of beach, for which Black Point is renowned.

Media personnel were treated to a tour of the tourist sites on the Windward on Tuesday last.

source of article:
by Dayle Dasilva
2009/05/14
The Vincentian Newspaper
www.thevincentian.com