Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler By Earl Bousquet

The trailer will haul you along a brief but exciting trail into a deepest parts of Saint Lucia’s unknown world you’ll never have seen or heard of.

It’s called ‘Saint Lucia – The Wild Side’, inviting you to realize that ‘Beyond the Beaches, A Wild Side Awaits!’

I knew nothing before its sceenings at Caribbean Cinemas, until a friend invited me to share the pleasure of “discovering the wild side of Saint Lucia…”

And though the producers of this documentary film on Saint Lucia’s wildlife may not be well-enough-known beyond Caribbean shores, their joint production shoots at the stars in ways no-less skyrocketing than what David Attenborough, the British wildlife bard, has been producing for the world.

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The production is as riveting a story as the original 1903 version of ‘Call of the Wild’ – a 1903 novel by Jack London upgraded to an epic movie in 2020.

But while London’s story is about the life of a dog relocated from city life to the Alaskan wild, the Saint Lucia film documents the various birds and animal species indigenous to the island.

The producers – brothers Lyndon and Kendal John — combined for their first joint production on wildlife, conservation and biodiversity, shown in local cinemas since June.

The film is actually for everyone, as it tests viewers’ knowledge of their island’s wildlife – and easily reveals just-how-little even the most-knowledgeable amateurs will have learned over time.

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The producers directed the cameras to the actual locations of the birds, animals, snakes, bats and other wild beings, taking viewers the closest possible and sometimes directly into their actual habitats — and the research was as deep and wide as the scope of materials covered.

I never felt I knew it all (as this isn’t how the journalist in me thinks) but was indeed surprised at how many local wildlife species I’d never seen or heard of, including invasive species that now threaten the existence of a few – from the world’s smallest snake to the iguana.

The researchers also record which local species (like the mongoose) introduced by colonial settlers to get rid of others – and which invasive species came from where and di what damage.

It was the second film by local producers that I’ve been to Caribbean Cinemas for a special screening, the first being ‘Shantaye’s World’ produced by Mathurine Emmanuel, tracing the story of a Saint Lucian girl extracted from her rural home and transplanted to London’s city life – a virtual a human version of ‘Call of the Wild’.

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Like with ‘Shantaye’s World’, Saint Lucia’s cinematic ride on the wild side is essential viewing for not just every Saint Lucian, but anyone from anywhere interested in better understanding the importance of ecological equilibrium to Planet Earth and all of Humankind.

Climate Change is unfolding everywhere, every day and new features come more often than before, some entirely new — like the appearance of a water sprout over Saint Lucia’s Western coastline last Saturday.

As I watched last Sunday’s final screening before the local production heads abroad, my long memory went all the way back to the start of the end of Century 20, when Gabriel ‘Coco’ Charles – the island’s best-known promoter of conservation, who lived and died also promoting the cause of the protecting and preserving the island’s wild species.

‘Coco’ tirelessly walked and drove, climbed hills and mountains and descended slopes and valleys, to take and preach the message of conservation that eventually got to the minds of the likes of the producers of the original ‘Wild Side’ film produced by the John brothers decades after his transition to The Great Beyond.

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That night’s audience featured mainly adults and those of my near-septuagenarian generation, but there were also a few young persons brought along by parents to ensure the continuity the likes of ‘Coco’ (and others named in the ending credits) would have willed in their last testaments.

Environmental literacy, conservation education and climate change awareness are among the many new features of life today that children, youth and tomorrow’s people need to learn as of now, when their brains are still fresh and unclogged.

Just like ‘Civics’ was introduced in the local school curricula in the late 1960s and IT is now being applied to daily school work, it’s important for governments and education ministries across the Caribbean always review students’ forever need to adjust, adopt and adapt accordingly.

Where History has become so-much of an endangered subject in Caribbean education at all levels (from secondary to university) that the University of the West Indies (The UWI) had to go to extreme lengths to preserve it as a vital subject, the same can happen unless ways are found to attract, encourage and engage young people to become more environmentally aware and conscious.

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The film being reviewed here is one-of-a-kind on a subject that preceded us all and will continue to be relevant to all future generations, starting with all humans inhabiting Planet Earth today – and especially small-island states already overwhelmingly vulnerable to all that’s changing global climates for the worst.

It’s understandable that the producers will do their best to recover the costs of putting such a production together, but films like this ought not to be treated as children coming of age and expected to find their feet along life’s difficult highways and byways.

But they shouldn’t be left to discover by accident.

Instead, films like these with more meaning than just storytelling are important to be adopted in ways that will allow for them to be viewed by every Saint Lucian everywhere – at school, at home and abroad, at work and play.

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I’m happy my friend encouraged me to attend the screening of a second Saint Lucia film produced locally for international viewing – and I do encourage the producers to continue sharing their brotherly love for producing films we’ll simply want to see — over and over again!