Pioneering Saint Lucia
Sustainability in Saint Lucia
Words by Tracey Davies
Splendid views, sultry vibes, and sweet, sweet offerings, Saint Lucia perfectly encapsulates the Caribbean idyll. At 27 miles long and 14 miles wide, this glorious mango-shaped isle shrouded in rainforest has everything from volcanic hot springs to floury white beaches lapped by the Listerine-blue waters of the Caribbean Sea. It’s easy to see why everyone from honeymooners to hikers, families to friends flock to its heavenly shores each year. In peak season, visitors can outnumber residents three to one so holidays here come with an environmental responsibility. It’s increasingly important to stay in hotels and resorts which have solid green credentials, choose environmentally and socially responsible tours, and engage and invest in the island’s many local communities.
Saint Lucia’s beach resorts and hotels are a key part of the success of sustainable tourism on the island. Luckily, most have the foresight to protect their environment, are fully committed to the green programme and have proper systems in place to conserve energy and reduce waste.
For example, in 2018, Ti Kaye Resort and Spa was the first hotel on the island to introduce a ban on single-use plastics and many have since followed suit. Although big resorts such as Windjammer Landing, BodyHoliday Saint Lucia and Sugar Beach, and boutique properties like Jade Mountain and Anse Chastanet, have excellent eco-credentials, it’s the smaller places, like Fond Doux Resort, housed in a 19th-century plantation house in Soufrière, that take sustainability to the next level. Part of a working cocoa estate, this gorgeous eco-luxe resort is entirely Saint Lucian-owned, managed and staffed. It uses solar powered water heaters, energy efficient lights and low-flow loos, plus they only work with local tour operators, food producers and craft-makers.
Ethical Dining
From soursops and sweet potato to christophenes and allaloo, the produce from Saint Lucia’s small farms is as vibrant and colourful as its national dress. Castries Market is a lively hullabaloo where you’ll find local mamas jostling with hotel chefs over the best fresh fruit and veg for their kitchens, and stalls selling home-baked rum cake and distinctive locally made jewellery. Many hotels are embracing the farm-to-fork concept and creating their own organic gardens, including the BodyHoliday Saint Lucia. The popular well-being-focused resort now offers the I-TAL Experience – ital is a plant-based diet favoured by Rastafarians – where guests can take a guided walk through the hotel’s vegetable gardens to pick, prepare and cook an ital meal with a professional chef.
However, not all visitors to Saint Lucia are as welcome. Lionfish, the beautiful stripey, spiny fish, are a notorious invasive species in Caribbean waters. While they might look pretty, they’re causing widespread damage to coral reefs by greedily eating everything that swims in their path. One way to help protect the marine environment is to eat them. Several hotels, resorts and restaurants on the island have become part of the Marine Catering and Training Consultancy’s ‘Eat Them To Beat Them’ campaign in order to manage the increasing numbers of lionfish. Luckily, they are delicious with white, flaky but firm flesh and a taste similar to grouper and mahi mahi.
Ti Kaye Resort and Spa was the first hotel on the island to introduce a ban on single-use plastics and many have since followed suit
Cool conservation
The waters around Saint Lucia offer some incredible diving experiences where you can come face-to-fin with grouper, manta ray and barracuda or explore some of the many wreck-diving sites. Thankfully, the island has some thriving coral reefs, largely thanks to the work of the Soufrière Marine Management Association, which is dedicated to protecting and preserving them. Scuba Saint Lucia, the dive centre at the Jade Mountain resort, has partnered with REEF Rescue Network and the Perry Institute for Marine Science to launch two coral nurseries just metres from the shore, which snorkellers can check on each day.
The waters around Saint Lucia offer incredible diving experiences where you can come face-to-fin with manta ray
Elsewhere, the Grande Anse Sea Turtle Conservation is in place to protect leatherback and other sea turtle breeds so they can return to the island’s beaches each year to lay their eggs in relative safety. Of course, the best way to really see Saint Lucia’s natural attributes is from behind a cavalcade of dancing dolphins on a sunset cruise. There are several companies on the island which offer wind-powered catamaran cruises, so grab an authentic rum punch and kick back and enjoy the fruits of this beautiful mango-shaped Caribbean isle.
Good news from Saint Lucia
East Winds Resort is having a living banana museum, which showcases indigenous banana varieties such as Cavendish, Lacatan, and Gros Michel
Scuba Saint Lucia offers a PADI Invasive Lionfish Speciality course, where divers learn about controlling the lionfish population
The Rabot Estate cocoa plantation uses every part of the bean – even the husks are turned into mineral rich chocolate compost
The government has banned importation of Styrofoam and selected single-use plastic containers since August 2021.
4 Faves in Saint Lucia
Parrot Spotting in the Rainforest
Much of Saint Lucia is covered in rainforest, which means it’s jam-packed with indigenous wildlife. Take a guided walk along the Millet Bird Sanctuary Trail and spot more than 30 breeds, including five indigenous to Saint Lucia, including the rare Jacquot parrot, the island’s mascot, and the oriole, black finch and warbler. Guided by local bird enthusiasts, the easy two-hour walk also offers spectacular views of Mount Gimie, Saint Lucia’s tallest mountain, and the Roseau Dam.
Chocolate making experience at Hotel Chocolat
Visit the Rabot Estate, a 250-year-old cocoa plantation now owned by Hotel Chocolat. Under the steely gaze of the Pitons, this beautiful estate offers Project Chocolate experiences, including a rainforest tour of the cacao groves, lunch and a bean-to-bar chocolate-making experience, where wannabe chocolatiers are given a warm stone pestle and mortar, baked cocoa nibs and cocoa butter, and shown how to make their very
own bar of Hotel Chocolat.
Soak in Sulphur Springs
Welcome to the world’s only drive-in volcano. The Soufrière volcano last erupted in the 1700s, now it’s best known as Saint Lucia’s wellness hot spot. A soak in the warm volcanic mud bath detoxifies the body, relaxes muscles and helps heal numerous skin ailments from sunburn to eczema.
Hike the Pitons
Gros Piton and Petit Piton, a pair of conical plugs of volcanic magma which rise 786 metres and 738 metres respectively above sea level, are a dream for the hiking set. Offering the best vantage point on the island, take a guided hike up Gros Piton with one of the experienced local guides for incredible views over Soufrière, Vieux Fort, and the neighbouring island of Saint Vincent.
Where to stay in Saint Lucia
East Winds
East Winds offers a private, luxury all-inclusive experience that provides a peaceful escape from the hustle and bustle of island life. Wake up steps away from Saint Lucia’s most beautiful private beach, tucked away among lush plants, trees, and a kaleidoscope of colourful bird life. Here, you’ll also find the ‘living banana museum’, which was planted as part of East Winds’ efforts to help preserve increasingly rare varieties of bananas; rare because they are difficult to grow or difficult to transport and so only have a small local market. The museum and its banana heritage mission is part of the extensive kitchen garden at East Winds producing organic fruit and vegetables for use in the resort’s kitchens.
Fond Doux Eco Resort
Fond Doux Eco Resort is a locally owned and operated, certified organic estate and a member of Green Globe, set in the heart of St. Lucia. The 19th-century eco-friendly plantation house resort is best known for its romantic, intimate, and private ‘eco-luxurious’ cottages. The resort owners’, Eroline and Lyton Lamontagne, have gone to such lengths to protect the land and heritage so it can be enjoyed for years to come, preserving the local history by restoring abandoned buildings and sourcing locally made furniture to support the surrounding community.
Bay Gardens Resorts
Centrally located in the heart of St. Lucia’s entertainment capital, Rodney Bay Village, the Bay Gardens Resorts family of hotels offers inviting, island-inspired accommodation and is committed to supporting environmental protection. Whether it is in the forefront or behind the scenes, the resort’s decisions and choices are driven by sustainable tourism and its three Green Globe-certified properties are testaments to its efforts. Having been Green Globe certified for five consecutive years, Bay Gardens Resorts became the first and only company on Saint Lucia to be awarded Green Globe’s Gold Member status.
Ladera Resort
Boasting one of the most romantic locations on the island – set on a volcanic ridge line over the majestic Pitons, Ladera Resort is just as proud of its eco-friendly philosophy and commitment to sustainability. General manager, Christian Gandara, has set up the ‘Ladera Green Team’ who meet weekly to plan local actions including planting trees and doing street clean-ups. Ladera Resort also has an on-site carpentry shop, and three master craftsmen who create furniture, panels and sculptures using tropical wood, tiles and stones found on Saint Lucia for use in the hotel, and also to donate to local non-profits.
Want to find out more?
Read more from the Sustainable Caribbean supplement of Charitable Traveller, find out more about the island’s sustainability practices, or head to the Saint Lucia page to find out more about the only country in the world named after a woman.
by net effect