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HomeNewsArchivesEUAN MCFARLANE AND THE ST. CROIX ENVIRONMENT

EUAN MCFARLANE AND THE ST. CROIX ENVIRONMENT

April 28, 2003 — Nominations throughout the Caribbean are being accepted until July 1 for the Euan P. McFarlane Environmental Leadership Award for Outstanding Environmental Leadership in the Insular Caribbean.
Endowment funding for the award was provided by Laurence S. Rockefeller, and the program is administered by the nonprofit Island Resources Foundation (IRF), which has had a St. Thomas base since its inception in 1972.
Nominees will have to meet a considerable body of criteria in order to be eligible for the award, which was established "to provide recognition for persons demonstrating initiative, resourcefulness and leadership in promoting conservation and enhancement of the environment in the insular Caribbean, with priority given to the smaller islands of the eastern Caribbean," said an IRF release.
Nominees for the McFarlane Award should be persons who have applied themselves to the preservation of the natural or built environment and whose career or avocation demonstrates an appreciation of and adherence to the advancement of environmental stewardship and balanced development in the Caribbean.
Any resident of a Caribbean island is eligible for nomination, although priority consideration will be given to residents of the smaller eastern Caribbean islands. Nominations may be made by an interested individual or organization familiar with the nominee. Self-nominations will not be accepted.
Nominations must be postmarked by, e-mailed or faxed by July 1, 2003. Details about what materials and information should be included with a nomination, award criteria, and submission addresses can be found in the award announcement on the IRF Web site.
Winners are announced, and presented with an unrestricted $1,000 cash grant, each year at the annual general meeting of the Caribbean Conservation Association and simultaneously in Islands magazine. The 2002 CCA meeting was held in November in Port of Spain.
A list of previous award winners is at the end of this article.
Euan McFarlane: "He did good works quietly."
And who was Euan McFarlane, that an environmental award has been named for him? For many years a resident of St. Croix, McFarlane will be recalled as someone who had a finger in many a pie, and was involved in virtually all activity related to environmental conservation, on St. Croix and throughout the Caribbean, from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Euan McFarlane moved to St. Croix with wife Betty, and children Peter and Ann in December 1948, where he built two houses overlooking Christiansted near the old ruin known as Bulowminde, son Peter McFarlane reported in an e-mail communication. The project took longer than expected and in the end, Euan, always known as "Mac," and Betty McFarlane stayed in the U.S. Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands nearly 30 years.
Early projects undertaken by Euan McFarlane included the Alexander Theater, an early St. Croix airport terminal structure, the parsonage for St. Paul's Anglican Church in Frederiksted, and the miniature sugar mill at the water's edge near Club Comanche.
At some point he linked up with Rockefeller and became, first, supervisor of construction of Caneel Bay Resort and Little Dix Bay resort; and eventually, Rockefeller's "environmental advisor for the entire Caribbean region," a quote by Charles Neilson of St. Croix in McFarlane's obituary in the St. Croix Avis.
After completion of Caneel and Little Dix Bay, recalls Dr. Edward Towle, founder and longtime president of IRF, Rockefeller began to look for projects that would benefit V.I. residents, not just visitors. Bringing a consultant from the National Park in 1960 to inventory sites, he determined that he wished to work toward a territorial park system that would be for the residents. McFarlane became his agent in these matters.
Rockefeller was interested in the environment throughout the Caribbean, and McFarlane was responsible for seeking out land and arranging purchases, looking for interesting projects.
Rockefeller had restored the Morgan Lewis windmill in Barbados from total ruins, said Towle, and he saw the possibilities of doing this with the Whim Estate on St. Croix. McFarlane, a Scotsman, went to Scotland where resided the mill manufacturers who needed to be persuaded to assist with restoration by providing replacements for worn-out and rusted machinery parts.
The Whim project was a nice combination of "critical mass," said Towle, as a demonstration project to set the standard: it involved land conservation, architectural restoration, conservation of historical resources, a library and a museum.
"Mac" McFarlane is remembered by Ed Towle as a founding member of the V.I. Conservation Society and was key to establishing the Caribbean Conservation Association. "He always stayed in the background," said IRF's Judith Towle. "He did good works quietly."
Ed Towle regards him as his mentor. "When I moved here to work at CVI's Caribbean Research Institute," — the university's forerunner of the Eastern Caribbean Center — "I was very green," Towle said, referring not to his environmental bent but to his knowledge of the area. He first faced queries from Antioch Press: where was the promised proceedings of the Caribbean Conservation Conference, an undertaking in 1965 by Rockefeller which brought together not only all the Caribbean conservationists from Puerto Rico to Trinidad, but also serious political figures? As he pulled those verbatim materials together for publication, he realized that here was his own master plan for his time in the Caribbean.
Coming to know McFarlane through this effort, Towle suggested that a more systematic and formal re-survey of the Caribbean be made, repeating Rockefeller's earlier cruises aboard his yacht in search of knowledge of the Caribbean. Rockefeller agreed to fund such a trip, so Towle recruited, by telephone call to a man he'd never met, Sir Philip Sherlock, at the time vice chancellor of the University of the West Indies, and McFarlane, Towle and Sherlock made a month-long survey cruise.
At home in St. Croix, McFarlane supervised construction of the Fountain Valley Golf Course, became active in the St. Croix Landmarks Society, was on the building committee for Island Center, and was instrumental in the founding of Good Hope School. He, unlike many founders and builders, remained involved in the institutions he had built: for a time he was manager at Fountain; he was a board member, president and vice president of the Landmarks Society; and was a trustee of the Good Hope School board for many years.
Ed Towle remembers another project: Little Sandy Cay. Rockefeller bought the cay and brought in a horticulturist to plant trees. On an island that only had "four scrub trees," said Towle, suddenly appeared "180 palm trees." McFarlane was responsible for barging in water, first in barrels, then to feed an irrigation system that covered the island. He also had involvement with Little St. Thomas, Little Princesse, and the Salt River area in the U.S. Virgin Islands; and with the procurement of Sage Mountain, Virgin Gorda Peak and New Jerusalem acreage in the British Virgin Islands.
McFarlane died in 1983 while vacationing in the Highlands of Scotland. Rockefeller established the award in 1987.
"I feel very honored that Mr. Laurance Rockefeller saw fit to honor Dad by endowing the award," said Peter McFarlane. Award recipients "have truly represented the ideas and ideals that were so important to Dad."
As an aside, he notes that he has fond memories of St. Croix: "The late 1940s and early '50s were quiet, peaceful, and a wonderful place for me to spend my more formative years between the ages of 10 and 13 and summers thereafter."
Previous McFarlane Award recipients
1988, Yves Renard, St. Lucia
1989, Mervin Williams, St. Lucia

1990, Ronald Charles, Dominica
1990, Arlington James, Dominica
1991, Alissandra Cummins, Barbados
1992-93, Kevel Lindsay, Antigua and Barbuda
1994-95, Jalaludin Ahmad Khan, Trinidad and Tobago
1996-97, Reginald Murphy, Antigua and Barbuda
1996-97, Maurice Widdowson, St. Kitts
1998, Andrew Simpson, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
1999, Ian Lambie, Trinidad and Tobago
2000, David Robinson, Nevis
2001, Charles Chavoudiga, Guadeloupe
2002, Jacqueline and Larry Armony, St. Kitts

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