IT SEEMS Renate Herberger has become the first person to swim around the island of Barbados.
Last Thursday, Herberger completed the swim she started on Saturday, April 9. With the support of local fisherman Chelston Thomas, who provided boat support, the German-born swimmer and environmentalist completed her swim in five days even though she did not swim on Tuesday because of the bad weather experienced.
But she was not swimming to set any records. She said she swims to save the seas.
Herberger feels she has a contract with the ocean.
“The oceans keep me alive and I devote the rest of my life to the ocean and its protection,” she said.
In 2005 while on her way to her teaching job at a university in Mexico, Herberger tore a meniscus, was shipped home to Canada, where, after being put on a waiting list, she developed a thrombosis due to the long flight and immobility.
“Since the treatment came so late the veins have shut down, [and] now when I am on land I have to wear the compression stocking that simulates the hydrostatic pressure of the ocean,” she said.
“I would never have been able to do swims of this magnitude if I was not forced to be in the water so much due to my injury. The longer I am in the water the better I feel. As soon as I am on land gravity takes back over and I am in tremendous pain. So I am the perfect person to do these swims,” Herberger said.
Herberger’s swims are for the promotion of marine sanctuaries or marine protected areas.
The first was in 2007 when she swam the 22-kilometre crossing of a gulf in Costa Rica.
“It got a lot of media attention and I realized I was onto something then I came back to Costa Rica to swim the entire coast of the country.”
She has successfully completed 4 300 kilometres in four swims and is willing to embark on many more to raise awareness.
Herberger said that the fact that right now only one per cent of the world’s oceans is under permanent protection and in order for the oceans to recover from massive overfishing at least 30 per cent of the oceans needs protection, as well as a 100-mile band no-take area for islands.
“The worldwide ocean situation is severe and my swims, because of the publicity they gain, can help to change public opinion about the very ill state of the world’s oceans and if the ocean were to crash – and it could within the next
15 to 30 years – there could be a massive ecosystem collapse and that could wipe out our future generations,” Herberger stated.
Herberger stated her intention to complete more swims around many of the Caribbean islands to raise awareness of the state of the coral reefs.
She explained that coral reefs, which support 25 per cent of marine life, have at least one life cycle and if 80 per cent are gone, there would be nowhere for those creatures to go to have their babies to be protected and sheltered.
Over the last 50 years, she said, 90 per cent of all large fishes, 12 shark species, all marine turtles and whales species have been placed on the in danger of extinction list.
Therefore she is calling for a worldwide boycott of any fish product that comes from draggers or long line and for people have to ask where their fish come from when they buy it need to ask where the fish come from.
Herberger said, “Customers need to be educated and to know that every dollar they put into circulation is a vote for or against wildlife. There are certain fish you simply should not eat at this point because they are not sustainable and are on a safe list.
“In general, people should only eat fish at least once per week just to give the ocean a break because the consumption of fish has gone up and with the modern fishing methods fish have no chance at all to replenish their numbers.”
Herberger said that in her five-day swim she hardly saw any fish around the island and while swimming at least 100 to 300 metres offshore she could also examine the coral reefs most of reefs are in very bad state.
“You are lucky here because you have mostly brain coral and a lot of it is still in reasonably good health but in the Folkestone Marine Park most of the coral I saw was dead.”
The environmentalist called for impetus at the government level to expand the band around the island to create a protected area, seeing it as important not only to tourism but to the sustainability of the island.
