New dive equipment for Tobago Cays Marine Park

The regular monitoring of living marine resources in the Tobago Cays Marine Park (TCMP) is about to go up another level.

The management of the park officials declared the recent purchase of equipment under the Project "Enhancement of Resource Management Capacity within the Tobago Cays Marine Park" funded by St Vincent and the Grenadines Conservation Fund.

Four sets of dive equipment including of tanks, BCDs, fins, masks, weights and dive computer will allow its park rangers to independently perform biophysical monitoring of conchs, coral reefs and sea turtles.

It will also enable for routine maintenance of TCMP in-water infrastructures such as moorings and demarcation buoys.

Other materials and equipment would help the office to establish an extensive biophysical monitoring program that would provide the scientific underpinning for the adaptive management process of the Park.

The rangers will also be off to dive school for advance SCUBA Certification training and the brand new four-stroke engines will be installed on their patrol boat.

The Tobago Cays are known as the “Jewel in the Crown” of the Southern Grenadines and are of significant economic, cultural, social and environmental value to St Vincent and the Grenadines. It is home to a wide variety of animals and plants.