This week Anguilla hosted a workshop on the Development of a Statement of Significance for the Fountain Cavern. The workshop was planned as follow-up to the Conference on the development of a Caribbean Action Plan in World Heritage that was held in St. Lucia last year, and was designed to build capacity and co-coordinating mechanisms for enhanced communication and co-operation between agencies responsible for the protection and management of national heritage sites and protected areas.

Ijahnya Christian

The UK Government sponsored the meeting under a bilateral agreement with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, which oversees the process of listing World Heritage Sites. As everyone knows, the Fountain Cavern has been placed on the tentative list of sites for nomination to the World Heritage List and with the help of the experts present in Anguilla this week, local authorities were guided and enabled to take another step in the very long process that could lead to the Fountain making that prestigious list.

As one of those Anguillians who was party to the agreement to close the Cavern as a protected measure, I have shared the frustration of those numerous persons who have expressed concern, and sometimes anger, at the fact that the Fountain is no longer accessible as it once was. I don’t think that anyone of the persons involved in taking that decision, almost two decades ago, envisioned the slow pace of the process and could empathize with those who felt that yet another one of their God-given rights was being curtailed. This week, however, regional and international partners have given Anguilla full credit for recognizing the outstanding value of the Fountain Cavern and for having protected it so well. This means that as Anguillians we need to balance our need for the freedoms of old with the interest I am sure we all share, with making sure that future generations of Anguillians can still have and enjoy the treasure that Anguilla can share with the world and feel proud that we have not destroyed it once we knew its value.

I should rephrase that because Anguillians have known the value of the Fountain as a source of freshwater for a very long time. There are many stories about going to the Fountain for water and I would be interested in meeting anyone who has a Fountain story to tell and recording those stories to add interest to how we must educate about the cavern before we are able to use it again. It is in this area of public awareness and education that we have not done well. The picture painted in many people’s minds is that of a small group of people, some of whom even ain’ BH, making a decision to keep Anguillians away from what is theirs. What we need to be reminded of, however, is that Anguillians inherited that treasure from the indigenous people of Malliouhana. We are not even sure of what their name for the island was, but it is clear that for them the Fountain was not just a place with good water but a sacred place. It is the unique presence of Jocahu presiding over the other deities in the Fountain that enables that site to be considered for World Heritage listing.

It is my hope and recommendation that the Ministry of Environment located within the Chief Minister’s Office and the Anguilla National Trust, which has direct shareholder responsibility for the development of the Fountain Cavern National Park, will organize a public meeting to report on this workshop and to share the elements of the Statement of Significance or the Statement of Outstanding Value which is one of the important steps in the UNESCO process. Those who attended the last public meeting during Lord McIntosh’s visit showed much interest which I am sure has not waned and this is how we can demonstrate accountability in a situation that no one particularly likes but that we all understand to be absolutely necessary. When it comes to the Fountain Cavern, every Anguillian is a stakeholder in the guardianship of a national treasure that could increase the number of sites from the Caribbean region that are of significance to world heritage.

The Youth and Culture Division stands ready to work with those two agencies to ensure that whatever we know about the Fountain Cavern is infused in the school curriculum along while the Trust will continue to promote conservation in the curriculum so that students and teachers will appreciate why the cave is still off limits. However, I agree completely with the Honourable Speaker of the Anguilla House of Assembly, David Carty, who “discovered” Jocahu – that whether or not the Fountain Cavern makes it to the World Heritage list, Anguilla has to determine how it wants to use and manage the cave in a manner that continues to preserve it as well as we did before we knew its archaeological value. This is what the concept of sustainable use means.

One of the real benefits of having the workshop in Anguilla at this time is the presence of Dr. James Petersen and Dr. John Crock who head the biennial University of Vermont Archeology Field School in Anguilla. These archaeologists have contributed significantly to Anguilla’s study of the Amerindian culture that prevailed before the arrival of the Europeans and subsequently the Africans. One of my professional objectives is to find a way for us to prioritise the study of the Africans in Anguilla in the same way, as our teaching of history is still very Euro-centric. It really is HISstory and my research agenda would seek to balance this by also ensuring the telling of HER story when the story is told.

Another area of engagement with the Anguillian population will be the national inventory of heritage resources that was begun many years ago and that is also a required step in the World Heritage process. Apart from the Fountain, Big Spring and other archaeological sites, top on my list is still Sombrero, which has its own unique and interesting stories to tell, and which still has no management plan in spite of its established ecological value. I really hope that there will be a public meeting following the workshop so that the information does not flow only one way. Meanwhile, what would you place on your list of heritage sites Anguilla?

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