ONE YEAR SINCE THE opening of the National Trust office.

I have been receiving responses to the last Newsletter, one of which said that I did not identify myself in the Bermuda Photo! This is remedied this time, for those who do not know me. I could perhaps have said - the oldest lady in the Bermuda picture!

The last Newsletter was ready at the end of May, but printing and other delays meant that you did not receive it until August. It was actually printed on the Falklands. This one is being done in the Office, so that we can send surface mail to UK. Costs should be about the same, and we appreciate comments. It is a trial run.

We have been extremely busy, and I do not know how I managed by myself, as Vanessa is also fully committed. Indeed we could do with a full time assistant!  Our days are busy. St. Helena has lots of committees and the National Trust is now represented on quite a few of these, including the Land Planning and Development Control Agency, and the new Environmental Advisory Consultative Forum. The Agency is now reviewing the 1993 Land Use Plan of Graham Rogers, to be presented to Legislative Council, and I am reading it through in great detail, as although there have always been protected areas and provision for Tree Preservation, these things have not always been recognised, and we see this as part of our role. Changes are afoot on a large scale for St. Helena – proposed airport and Wharf Improvement being the biggest, and we need to ensure that what we do in the name of “progress” does not jeopardise our environment. For example some of the buildings along the sea front date from the 1700’s, and we would like them preserved as they are, but there is a plan to raise the roofs for a boat repair shed. We are trying to suggest an agreed alternative position for this.

The Government audit having been completed, the AGM took place on Tuesday 23 September 2003.The post of Vice-Chair is now filled by Dr. Rebecca Cairns-Wicks, and the “at large” members are Isabel Peters ( SHG Environmental Coordinator) and Lucy Caesar ( Museum Curator). The President gave his Annual Report covering the first year since the Inauguration, up till 31 March, and this has been presented to the Governor and Financial Secretary as required by Ordinance, along with the Accounts. The next AGM will have to be before 7 May 2004, since that is the date when most of the Officers are elected till.

The Chief Auditor has recommended that the FCO money be transferred to our account, and we hope that this will be agreed, as it would make our life much easier. FCO requirements of 6 monthly reports have all been met

As we review the first year in the office, I think we are becoming recognised and progressing. There is still a lot to do, of course, and we look forward to your continued advice and support.

Barbara B. George, Director

INAUGURAL PROJECTS

The new committee has been formed and is operating. Vanessa Yon, The Administrative Assistant of SHNT is now Secretary and Treasurer of this group also. I joined the Committee for a tour recently, and saw the Information boards with the names of all those who planted trees up to 2001. They need more, of course, as many continue to plant trees. More recently the 3 visitors from FCO planted 10 trees each, and mentioned how impressed they were by this project and the dedicated work of all involved, particularly Dr.Cairns-Wicks’ voluntary commitment to this project.

All Local Councillors will plant a tree in November, and the CPA delegation visited and were much impressed by the Project.

MUSEUM

The Curator, Sarah Holland, left the island at the end of  September. Her flair and ideas have been greatly appreciated, and we look forward to the museum she has created continuing from strength to strength under the capable management of Lucy Caesar. We thank Sarah warmly for her contribution towards making the museum a friendly, exciting place to be, for all sectors of the population, and wish her well in whatever she does next.

Lucy will be able to put her experience in teaching, and her degree in Environmental Science to good use. They currently have an exhibition on Family Names and Nicknames. The Heritage Society is debating a museum committee, and we look forward to hearing more, and are assured of representation thereon. We are planning to remove the museum from our “Projects” and into the member organisation category.

FLAX MILL

It has been decided that, when we have the first Trust Council meeting after the AGM we will agree a working group to take this forward, and SNCG has suggested it would collate all the information available – tapes, slides, video. We intend to host a reminiscence session for former workers before the end of the year, so that all this can expand the display in the museum for now. We still hope to have a working flax mill some day.

SCHOOLS PROJECT

Sarah has finished an initial General Resource Pack for each Middle School. I will continue with specific ones, seeking help when needed from Lucy, now that the AGM is out of the way. I hope to do these fairly quickly as I had lots of the research on hand, ready to be typed. I have also discovered that the scanner at the museum can scan slides onto computer, and thence to CD’s. Modern technology never ceases to fill me with wonder. I had been trying to find a way to do this, and now find it is here! If anyone out there hears of a good programme to transmit voice on tapes to computer text, please let me know. I believe the present ones are not very good., and we have several tapes to transcribe.

MEMBER GROUPS AND OTHER RELATED ACTIVITIES

FRENCH PROPERTIES

On the last trip of the RMS from Capetown the Hon. French Consul returned from France where he consulted with the Foreign Ministry of the French Government, which is keen to accept its responsibility to maintain its historic buildings overseas. Accompanying him, at the request of the French Government were two very high powered officials – Pierre Caillot, architectural advisor and Jean-Marc Daniel, Director of the Buildings ( embassies and diplomat’s properties) and Equipment, both from the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres.  They told me that their work entails long hours and very busy lives, so they had never envisaged having the time to come to St. Helena, and the journey was an amazing one (they had to wait 4 days on Ascension, for only 2 here!). The fact that they were away from France for about 2 weeks, to enable them to come here for two days, illustrates the importance the French Government places on the historic property of Longwood House.

NATIONAL HERITAGE REGISTER

Michel Martineau, the Hon French Consul, has now returned to the island, and will help the Director go round SHG houses and stores to digitally photograph antiques. I am not knowledgeable in this area, so need his help in this very important effort to catalogue our heritage, and prevent it disappearing. There is a law in place preventing any item before 1911 from being taken away from the island. This law was made after a collector took many Boer artefacts away. Once this is done, hopefully people will be willing to include items in private collections. The valuable books and prints in the libraries in Jamestown, Prince Andrew School, ANRD and Plantation have been listed al ready in Access.

HISTORIC BUILDINGS

Dr. Cairns-Wicks, and myself represent the Trust on the newly appointed Environmental Advisory Consultative Forum (EACF), and we hope this body is going to be able to take a lot of our recommendations forward. This would include our recommendation for a visit from a restoration expert, and recognition of the need to find the money to protect the built heritage, which is unfortunately not included in the Environment Charter.

ARCHIVES

The Trust Council expressed its concern to SHG about the need for consultation on the way forward for something as important and irreplaceable as our Archives, as SHG planned to move them to a new building. Mr. John Pinfold from the Bodelian Library in Oxford came on holiday for two days, and was asked to meet with SHG regarding the Archives. He promised to send his views to the National Trust. Nothing is happening to date, as the plan for the new building has not been finalised.

ARTS AND CRAFTS ASSOCIATION

The Association continues to run the shop in town with voluntary help from its members, and will soon be hosting an exhibition of St. Helenian Child Art from the 1970’s. Eddie Ladan a Capetown artist arranged sponsors for this. The paintings were given to the Archives, and will now be displayed again. This may renew the idea of an exhibition of St. Helena Artists, off shore.

On Monday 6th October, the Centre opened specially for the short visit of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and members of the Arts and Crafts group came to demonstrate their skills.

ILLEGAL FISHING IN ST. HELENA WATERS

Those of you who read St. Helena Herald on the Net will know that this is very much in the news. Particularly illegal fishing in our territorial waters. There are lots of ships fishing illegally, but it seems to be a difficult subject to tackle, and we are not sure what we can do, to help the effort the local Government Fisheries Department is making. Green peace articles on the Web indicate that they can be plundering rare species, as well as regular fish stocks, so we are concerned. I did write to Damon Stanwell - Smith, whom I met in Bermuda, for advice, and had a reply promising to find a South African contact. I believe it is exceedingly difficult to bring these things to court

There is also local concern for the future of the local fishing industry in general.

FARMER’S ASSOCIATION

By Tony Leo

The St. Helena Farmers Association is back in full swing thanks to the many farmers and other interested people who turned out on a wet night to meet at Kingshurst. The Chairman, Ronald Coleman did explain that the reason why the Association was dormant for so long was because the committee could not function without a secretary. Ronald tooknotes previously but he felt there must be a secretary elected.

Our new secretary is Lionel Williams, and very soon the committee will be meeting to move forward with the business of the Farmers Association.

It was so pleasing to see members pouring into the hall that night and bringing their concerns to the meeting. These were discussed in a very orderly manner.

The burning issues that night were the farmers’ subsidy and the pressures surrounding the slaughtering of animals at home. Members were assured that theycould continue doing their back yard slaughtering as they have been doing, because no one has said that they cannot.

Most members paid their subscription that night and just in case others would like to settle their debts they can get in touch with Lionel Lawrence who has taken on the Treasurer’s work for another year.

TREE PRESERVATION

This is our latest cause for concern. There has been a lot of tree felling/lopping recently, which has stimulated much discussion. We are hoping to get some agreements with all parties through EACF, so that we can all identify what needs protecting, and everyone will know which areas and trees are protected.

In our own lifetime the trees around us become like friends. They give us a sense of familiarity, identity (a sense of place) and enjoyment. It is perhaps not surprising that tree felling or pruning generates so much emotion irrespective of whether the decision for the work has been based on informed or rational decision processes. We welcome the support of Land Planning to establish tree preservation orders, and the commitment of ANRD to maintain consultation on the development of future forestry policy.

BUSINESS PLAN

The Business Plan has now been completed, and we are grateful to Dr. Rebecca Cairns-Wicks for her help with presenting it in an accepted format. The Objectives are as follows:-

Ongoing:-

• Manage Office at Broadway House.
• Manage Inaugural Projects
• Continue and maintain National Heritage Register
• Continue Communications strategy – Membership Register, publicity, promotion etc.

Key issues for September 2003 – October 2005

• Identify and pursue sources of funding to achieve objectives and provision for the Trust after the present Project. This includes achieving Charitable Status in UK.

• Commission saleable merchandise and develop services to create sustainable stream of revenue.                
• Recognition of the SHNT by all branches of SHG, private sector and civil society as a partner in the conservation of the island’s cultural and natural heritage, terrestrial and marine
• Set criteria for National Heritage Register
• Optimise capacity of member groups and affiliates

FUTURE FUNDING

Charitable Status is still high on the agenda, and we are in communication with UKOTCF on this matter. We have a few donors waiting until this is achieved. Our legal officer also informs us that this can be achieved locally in the near future.

PROMOTION

Monthly lectures at the Consulate started in July, when Dr. Dan Yon from York University in Toronto, a St. Helenian who was a founder

member of the Heritage Society in 1980, offered to give a talk on The St. Helena – South African Connection. This was very well received and people asked us to continue such evenings. In August, Dr. Danny Shreier, a linguist, married to Karen Lavarello from Tristan da Cunha, was visiting the island, and agreed to give a talk on Tristan history and language. Both these talks have set a very high standard, and we hope they can continue. Drs. Philip and Myrtle Ashmole are here for 3 months from the end of September, and have offered to give some talks, and Dr. Ian Baker will arrive in November on holiday, and we hope to be able to persuade him to give one also.

Regular monthly articles and radio programmes promote the Trust locally.

The television idea is proving more difficult, as we have to remember copyright on films such as “Atlantic Realm” which it would be great to show on local TV., and it is more costly than anticipated to produce our own. However we are working on this. The radio programmes have good feedback, and hopefully enthuse more people to preserve their history.

ST HELENA’S ENDEMIC INVERTEBRATES – FORTY YEARS ON

MYRTLE AND PHILIP ASHMOLE

Nearly forty years ago, in 1966 and 1967 to be precise, members of two expeditions from the Belgian “Muse? Royal de l’Afrique Centrale” made an exhaustive study of the invertebrates of St Helena. Previous to this there had been studies of some groups, most notably by J C Melliss, Thomas and Edith Wollaston and Arthur Loveridge. The Belgians’ results were published in their museum journal during the following years, some in English and others in German or French. An analysis of these publications has enabled us to calculate that out of about 1037 invertebrate species described from St Helena (excluding fossils), about 400 are endemic. This is in contrast to the much younger island of Ascension, where less than 30 endemic species are known.

Whilst the endemic plants of St Helena and the Wirebird (an endemic plover) have been much studied during recent decades, attention to the invertebrates has been minimal. Admittedly such flagship species as the giant earwig and giant ground beetle have been highlighted, due primarily to the work of Paul Pearce-Kelly of London Zoo, but neither of these conspicuous species has been seen during the last 46 years. Most of the other endemic invertebrates have been ignored.

Invertebrates are much harder to study than plants. Very few stand still. Most are hard to identify in the field, and anyway are so small that a microscope is necessary. Guides and descriptions may be in languages other than English, and are often full of taxonomists’ jargon and in obscure publications. Popular books are often geographically based and give scant attention to rare species while specialist books are hard to find.  Added to this, invertebrate specialists usually concentrate on their “own” group, and do not attempt to identify rare species from other groups. It is not surprising that most people stick to plants.

Most of the endemic invertebrates of St Helena have been found in the humid high part of the island where there are remnants of the endemic vegetation. However, on Prosperous Bay Plain, in the arid area in the east of the island, some 55 endemic species have been found. More than 20 of these have been found only here and nowhere else on the island, and this is precisely the area where it is proposed to build an airport.

This is why we have been asked by the St Helena Government to make a study of the invertebrates of the area concerned. We are delighted to be back in St Helena, and to be working in an area that holds a particular fascination for us. We have started by studying the sites that were sampled so long ago by the Belgians, as closely as we can identify them. This should give us a reasonable idea of how many of these endemic invertebrates survive. They already have human-induced problems to contend with, including predatory introduced animals (e.g. mice, a large centipede and scorpions) and also collecting by homebuilders of the loose surface rocks that provide crucial shelter for animals in this hot climate. Although these problems all existed four decades ago it seems likely that eventually they will take their toll of some endemic species. When we have studied these sites we will extend our work to nearby areas that are not likely to be disturbed by airport construction. In this way we hope to be able to ascertain if there are other areas where this unique assemblage of endemics can survive more or less intact.

We will be working here for three months, and during that time hope to be able to give a training opportunity to interested Saints who might be able to take the work forward as necessary after we leave. We will produce an interim report when we leave but our final report will be later and will depend on input from many specialists in the various groups of invertebrates. This will then form part of the Environmental Impact Assessment relating to the airport.

Don’t hold your breath for rediscovery of the Giant Earwig – our best guess is that it is extinct!

Ref: St Helena and Ascension Island: a natural history. Philip and Myrtle Ashmole (2000). Anthony Nelson, Oswestry.  ISBN 0 904614611

ST JAMES’ CHURCH

The church closed in September last year for essential renovations inside. Most of these have been completed, and it was opened specially for Father Fred George to take his last service there on the island, prior to his departure. It is hoped that all works inside will be finished and the church can re-open at the end of the year. The next step is restoring the outside of this historic building, the oldest Church of England in the Southern Hemisphere, dating from1774. The clock was given by the E.I.C.  in 1787, and a steeple was added in 1843, and removed when unsafe in 1981.

St Helena Dive Club article

By Emma Bennett

The St Helena Dive Club held the Annual General Meeting on the 18th August 2003 at Pilling Middle School. A new committee was formed, with Larry Thomas being elected as Chairperson, and numerous activities being planned for the forth-coming year.

Regular diving for club members is being started with a successful dive at Long Ledge a few weeks back. Although a little bit cold on the sea temperature side, the marine life encountered was exciting enough to put that at the back of divers minds!!

A night dive at the Papanui was another adventure that brought to light many dark organisms! It is amazing to see different organisms becoming active, when normally they are sessile animals during day light. Certain fish that normally flee, come close up and don’t mind being touched!

For next month we are planning a combined Dive Club and Yacht Club outing, which is an annual event. It should turn out to be a day full of activities, making use of the tropical sea to its full extent. Who knows, the possibility of encountering the resident school of Pantropical Spotted Dolphins might even be on the agenda!!

PROTECTION OF WRECKS

This is also a matter of concern to SHNT and we hope that laws will be in place soon to ensure that any diving on these historic sites is also strictly supervised. The RAF divers came for our Quincentennial celebrations, and were diving on the wreck of the “White Lion”. They presented a plate from the Ming Dynasty to the new Museum, so we do have some valuable relics to protect.

COUNCIL MEETINGS

The Trust Council has decided on quarterly meetings after the AGM, and an Executive Committee will be appointed in October. Most of the secretarial and Treasurer’s work will be more efficiently accomplished in the Office, now we have an Administrative Assistant. We are hoping to ask SHG for the adjacent room, as we need more space, and it has not been used for some time.

The whole Council now consists of:-

Mr. Gilbert Yon - President

Dr.  Rebecca Cairns-Wicks - Vice President (SNCG)

Mrs. Estelle Wilshere - Secretary

Mrs. Olive Williams - Treasurer

Miss Isabel Peters - “At Large” Member

Miss Lucy Caesar - “At Large” Member

Mr. Alan Nicholls - SHG Representative

Mrs. Pamela Young - SHG Representative

Mr. Tony Leo - Farmer’s Association

Mr. Terry Richards - Fishermen’s Association

Mr. Steve Biggs - Tourism Association

Mrs. Serena Thorpe - Arts and Crafts Association

Mr. Nick Thorpe - Heritage Society

M. Michel Martineau - French Properties

Mrs. Emma Bennett - Dive Club