Commissioner Rolando Wilson (centre) met with Island(er)s at the Helm team members Corinne Hofman and Menno Hoogland on Tuesday, April 5.
SABA--Saba Commissioner for Culture Rolando Wilson on Tuesday, April 5, welcomed a team of scientific researchers working at the Saba Heritage Centre to discuss the potential impact of research findings.
The Saba Heritage Centre currently hosts several team members of the Island(er)s at the Helm research programme, which focusses on social adaptation to climatic challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean. The transdisciplinary project is supported by Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO, in collaboration with University of St. Martin (USM) and various institutions and stakeholders across the Kingdom and the wider Caribbean. During the coming five years, the Caribbean-European team, including anthropologists, archaeologists, ethnobotanists, climatologists, engineers, human rights scholars and political scientists, hopes to engage in co-creative research with government agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and first and foremost with local communities to develop sustainable and inclusive solutions for the challenges that the island(er)s face in the context of climate change.
The visiting team is looking into the island’s deep past when Saba’s first inhabitants settled the areas of Plum Piece, Old Booby Hill, Black Rock and Fort Bay Ridge around 3,800 years ago, and the ensuing centuries when the island became more populated. The researchers laid out the questions they seek to answer to Commissioner Wilson: What did the island’s climate look like over time? How did the first settlers on the island adapt and respond to the devastating hurricanes and extreme droughts? How were their houses built and how did they take care of their water? What did the first inhabitants of Saba eat and what were they planting? What knowledge can we obtain from the past and the present to become well-equipped for the challenges of the future?
The Saba Heritage Centre seeks to document and archive the island’s unique heritage and preserve the Saban stories for generations to come. It houses all archaeological findings from the island which are curated by the Saba Archaeological Center SABARC.
Commissioner Wilson expressed the importance of Saba’s cultural heritage and its safeguarding and protection for future generations. “Saba’s culture merits to be a top priority and should be taken care of,” Wilson stated.
Today, Thursday, April 7 at 5:30pm, researchers will present their initial findings to the public in an event sponsored by the Heritage Centre. More information can be obtained by visiting Saba Heritage Presentations by Island(er)s at the Helm team at
https://www.kitlv.nl/islanders-at-the-helm/.
Island(er)s at the Helm will also hold a public meeting at USM in St. Maarten on the evening of Tuesday, April 12, at the university’s lecture hall with some of the same scientists who will be carrying out research activities on the neighbouring island.
