{"id":142270,"date":"2015-07-11T16:18:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-11T20:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=142270"},"modified":"2015-07-11T16:18:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-11T20:18:00","slug":"raglan-riviere-and-the-dominica-botanic-gardens-website-providing-structure-to-the-development-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/raglan-riviere-and-the-dominica-botanic-gardens-website-providing-structure-to-the-development-effort\/","title":{"rendered":"Raglan Riviere and The Dominica Botanic Garden\u2019s Website \u2013 Providing Structure to the Development Effort"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A botanic science lithograph of tropical foods grown at the Dominica Botanic Gardens, circa 1921<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On July 6, 2015, Raglan Riviere, the co-founder of the Dominica Academy of Arts & Sciences (the \u201cDominica Academy\u201d hereinafter) passed away. A soft spoken and modest person, Mr. Riviere quietly toiled away at his computer to fashion the Dominica Academy\u2019s website www.da-academy.org<\/a> as a platform atop which Dominicans at home and abroad could gather to pursue development projects in the arts and sciences.\u00a0 In fifteen years of endeavor since its launch on November 1, 2000, the Academy accomplished many things, big and small,\u00a0 to include: assisting youth development in supporting the revival of the Dominica Cadet Corps, \u00a0providing medical supplies to restocked the medical stores when the facility at the Princess Margaret Hospital was consumed by fire in 2005; hosting the Dominica Development symposiums alongside the Roosevelt \u201cRosie\u201d Douglas Foundation and\u00a0 encouraging research and development in agriculture, arts, history. The first ever soccer competitions on island \u00a0between the residents and those born overseas of Dominican heritage took place in 2005 as part of this inspired coming together of the Dominican family, as is chronicled here – http:\/\/www.da-academy.org\/daaschronicle03.html<\/a> . Of great importance to our survival however, was the effort he led to create the Dominica Botanic Gardens website launched in 2005.<\/p>\n

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The Botanic Gardens \u2013 A Development Laboratory<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the widely acclaimed book Science and Colonial Expansion<\/em><\/strong> by Lucille Brockway (Yale University Press, 2002) the role of economic botany is explored in how it made Great Britain the most powerful nation on earth in the 19th<\/sup> century. Britain, unlike any power before \u2013 or since \u2013 had created a network of botanic gardens and a systematic research infrastructure to determine which plants grew best, where, and how. With the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew as the mothership, satellite botanic gardens were developed across the empire in pursuit of finding those plants which had value for human sustenance. The Dominica Botanic Gardens, started in 1890, and was one of those satellite stations developed by Kew Gardens. Charles Murray of the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens was its first curator. In the middle of the 20th<\/sup> Century the Dominica Botanic Gardens was considered one of the most beautiful botanic gardens in the world. The book clearly reveals that Britain\u2019s success did not derive solely from superiority in the military arts, but also thrived on the basis of superior organization, and teamwork which birthed a competence in the botanic sciences. For instance, the development of West Indian sugar cane cultivation provided the capital which propelled Britain\u2019s industrial revolution; rubber grown in Asia spurred innovation in transportation, and sisal was grown to make rope \u2013 a basic but essential tool for modernity. Most telling in this focus on using the scientific method was the role of the cinchona plant in making quinine so as to combat malaria disease so prevalent in lands the British sought to colonize. In 1860 a British expedition to South America led by Clement Markham brought back smuggled seeds and plants which were introduced in several areas of the British ruled India and Sri Lanka. \u00a0So able to combat malaria, British settlers could now pursue their commercial interest with slight hindrance from that disease.<\/p>\n

The breadfruit is common place on Dominica and other parts of the West Indies and is a potential ally in our quest for food security. However, how many people know that this fruit came from the 1793 expedition to Tahiti and the other islands in the south Pacific by Royal Navy Captain Bligh? Bligh\u2019s expedition had been backed by Sir Joseph Banks, patron of Kew Gardens. \u00a0An earlier mission had led to the mutiny of Captain Bligh\u2019s crew. The mutineers under one Fletcher Christian had cast Bligh adrift in the hope he would perish. Bligh, a skillful navigator, survived and he finally brought the breadfruit to the West Indies as a source of food for the enslaved Africans who worked the land growing sugar cane.<\/p>\n

Today, however, our people have cast off the chains of slavery. But what about the chains on our minds which inhibit reasoned judgment, knowledge of our past as a guide to the future, collaborative engagement in the arts and sciences, or beneficial partnerships in enterprise across the political divide? \u00a0Why is it that our Dominica Botanic Gardens is not at the center of our quest for survival, as it should be?\u00a0 If we do not protect, preserve, and promote our Dominica Botanic Gardens how can we meaningfully advance our agriculture? The Dominica Academy was a grassroots effort, founded by us, for us. It was designed as a space within which we could enjoy the freedom to engage critical and scientific inquiry so as to innovate and create that which is needed to build a competent and advanced society. It was designed to be non-partisan and focused on the development mission.\u00a0 Dominicans at home, and abroad, could combine our efforts in beneficial development endeavor \u2013 just as other great nations have done. Those who miss that point have failed to grasp the importance of such an academy, or the importance of transforming beneficial colonial era institutions to sustain a more independent future.<\/p>\n

In the face of such challenges, what will it take for Dominicans at home and abroad to appreciate that we have the key to mastery in agriculture in the center of our national capital? That key is The Dominica Botanic Gardens. How many school tours take place there? How many symposia on plant science and food security take place there? What displays on local, lean and green cuisine can we host under the auspices of our gardens to cultivate a love for agriculture among our young?\u00a0 Where in national planning, or legislation, do we see an effort for the expansion of research and development based on our Dominica Botanic Gardens? Where is the consensus that we should develop the Dominica Botanic Gardens as a world class center of learning in the botanic sciences? During the annual independence celebrations a big fete is held at the Dominica Botanic Gardens, the so-called \u201cCreole in the Park.\u201d That event has absolutely no focus on the botanic sciences. Such misplaced energy is a rebuke to common sense.\u00a0 We can celebrate, yet educate. We must learn to place education ahead of entertainment, it is that simple.<\/p>\n

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Proposals to Preserve & Promote the Dominica Botanic Gardens<\/strong><\/p>\n

To that end we propose:<\/p>\n