Former Administrator's interview

By J. Brock (SARTMA-FI)

Brian Baldwin, (BB) the Administrator on Tristan da Cunha and his wife, have been visiting the Falklands and seeing first hand some of the wildlife that has made the Islands a unique tourist destination. While in the Falklands Mr. Baldwin managed to visit the Fisheries Department to discuss methods of patrolling and the role of fisheries observers. He also met with his friend Monsignor Agreiter, himself a regular visitor to Tristan da Cunha. But what impressions will he take away with him hopefully to apply to Tristan da Cunha.

BB: Basically it’s a nice change for us from Tristan. It’s larger and obviously interesting. We have enjoyed the environmental aspect and have been on a number of trips. We have been out to Volunteer Point and Gypsy Cove. For us to come to the Falklands, it’s such a long way from the UK and it’s a place I would never, ever get to in the normal course of events. It’s quite an experience, just the sheer distance away from the UK and to find how utterly British it is. At the same time they look Scandinavian in appearance, I think with all the coloured roofs.

BB: I have certainly met people here who have been very useful for me to take ideas back to Tristan. I have just been talking to the Fisheries Department about patrol and control of your fisheries and that’s been very interesting. There are one or two ideas such as satellite tracking of licenced vessels and we certainly apply that to Tristan. It’s been good to talk to Jane Cameron at the Archives about the general running of Government. It’s nice to meet people I correspond with via e-mail or on the telephone in the course of business and to meet those people has done me good. With the Falklands recent history, that’s been interesting to me to because I have always liked and studied history. So coming here was an exciting time from that point of view and the trip here was fun. I mean, coming on the EXPLORER via South Georgia is really the trip of a lifetime. I had quite an adventure on the ship, as you no doubt heard we encountered an enormous storm from Tristan to South Georgia

BB: I’ll mention the wind. But we have been lucky and had some super weather. Penguin colonies certainly stick in my mind and Stanley itself. I thought it was flat. I didn’t realise it was on the side of a hill as you are. Friendliness of the people. They have been very interested in us coming from Tristan and we just had a really good time. A nice, friendly, relaxing place, very nice. I think also what struck me about it was the sort of frontier town atmosphere here. Obviously the place is developing quickly and a lot of money appears to be coming in from the fishing revenue. I have never seen so many Land Rovers per head of population in my life. I feel it’s a little bit controlled but nevertheless frontier atmosphere here at the moment. I don’t know what it was like beforehand but I would guess things are moving at quite a pace here at the moment.

BB: We’ve got a man, Norman Glass, who is working with Golden Touza and we just had a chat about that with them. There is potential not only for them but with other companies to try and get young Tristanians here for somewhere between six months and a year for work experience for their own benefit and for the island’s benefit when they go back because we have problems just now with its sheer isolation. You think the Falklands are stuck out in the middle of nowhere but in Tristan, you’ve got no air link at all and the ships only come once every three months. It does show in a way in the lack of experience that we have on Tristan.

There’s nothing wrong with Tristanians at all that a little experience wouldn’t help. It would open up their minds and the ability to work and develop new ideas and I think the Falklands, in many ways, are ideal for this because it’s a small community so they don’t get totally over-awed. They might do if they went off to the UK. The economies are similar. I mean, it’s fishing and agriculture. Though the Falklands are much larger, it’s very similar and it would make them feel at home so they wouldn’t feel over-awed when they got here.

BB: Simon Glass is in training, actually, which is funded by the British Government. We’ve got quite an extensive training programme that has developed over the last few years. Simon is in our Agriculture Department. He’s gone off for three to four months, depending on the ships, and he will be training in veterinary services. We’ve only got one Tristanian who is not a vet but he has done the job for so long now that he is as good as any in terms of practical experience. We wanted to get somebody else with a little more technical training so that they can help our existing Head of Agriculture who is also the vet. Young people go to the UK and to St. Helena. The reason they go to St. Helena is because it’s relatively easy for them to get there. I say relatively easy but it does take quite a bit of planning. St. Helena is sort of our head department, if you like. We are a dependency of St. Helena. So, traditionally, we send people there for certain aspects of training which is sometimes more appropriate in a smaller community. We do send teachers off to the UK for training.

BB: Not at the moment. This training programme is actually funded from the UK will take at least three to four people a year from Tristan to either St. Helena or to the UK and the training will be basically organised on a work-experience sort of basis. We are not looking for people going and getting degrees or high quality qualifications at this stage. We are actually giving them real, practical work-experience. Our teachers who have gone are not sufficiently qualified with their basic educational requirements to go to Teacher Training College. Nor, would we want them to be away for three years. But they have been going off in the last couple of years and have worked in small, rural schools and learned the modern methods of teaching purely by working experience and that’s why the education of our children is based on that type of teacher training. Certainly, I would like to see more Tristanians coming to the Falklands for on the job training and work experience. We are exploring a number of ways how that could be done. We are very grateful for the assistance that the Falkland Islands Councillors have already given to Norman with transport costs.

BB: We are not by any means a rich economy. We just about break even with our budget so we don’t have a lot of money to spare. And, of course, the Islanders themselves are not that rich. The average wage is about £150.00 a month. Airfares and the cost of getting out to Capetown and so on are prohibitive. So, we will have to look for some assistance to get people across, the men anyway, with the fisheries because it is very relevant to us and we have to develop our fisheries. We’ve got two long-term fishing agreements now. We’ve just got a second one at the moment. We do need more people to be trained as fisheries observers. In particular we are interested in the environmental aspects of fishing because that’s something which I think will become more and more important to us. We are already pretty conscious of the necessity to have a sustainable fishery. There is a lot more than just interest in fishing methods. There is not a great deal of environmental matters and how it fits in with economic development of Tristan. I think we would certainly be looking for people to come here to get some exposure to that type of thing. Certainly they could bring that knowledge and experience back.