A few photos of the mask-making part of today’s activities with 11 year-olds from French Quarter at Loterie Farm. The kids made a bunch of insect and spider style masks. More photos of the activities coming soon.

At the recent tourism conference in Anse Marcel, Les Fruits de Mer were happy to be a part of the working group that developed ideas and an action plan for promoting heritage-based tourism on the island. We believe that developing this type of tourism is crucial to both the local economy and the preservation of natural and cultural heritage on St. Martin. Economically, this growing segment of the tourist market can help drive sustainable growth as traditional mass tourism has largely matured, bring higher-value tourist visits and ensure that more of the revenue from tourism on the island goes to local businesses and stays in the local economy. It can also drive the preservation of local heritage because it depends on these assets. No outside investor can build an 18th-century fort on St. Martin or create a lizard that lives nowhere else.

You can read more about the workshop and the conference in the article below. What parts of St. Martin’s heritage do you think would make great tourism assets? How can we create events that help preserve local traditions, but also drive tourism revenues? How can education about local natural and cultural heritage prepare the youth of today for the heritage tourism careers of tomorrow?

If you’d like to share your ideas, feel free to post them here. If you’d like to help turn those ideas into reality, consider joining Les Fruits de Mer (https://www.lesfruitsdemer.com/about-us/membership/)

Three officers of Les Fruits de Mer had the opportunity to attend the tourism conference organized by Député Daniel Gibbs on Thursday, and took part in the roundtable discussion of natural and cultural heritage assets and their use in driving tourism, particularly during the low season. It was a great opportunity to share ideas and perspectives between organizations involved in nature, culture and arts as well as local businesses looking for ways to boost tourism and make the island a more compelling destination. You can read more about the workshop here: http://www.sxmislandtime.com/component/k2/25384-heritage-development-planned-at-tourism-conference.html

The Daily Herald, Sint Maarten, October 2013

St. Martin’s Week, Saint Martin, October 2013

SXM Fax Info, Saint Martin, October 2013

St. Martin’s Week, Saint Martin, September 2013

The Daily Herald, Sint Maarten, September 2013

Le Pélican, Saint Martin, September 2013

The Daily Herald, Sint Maarten, September 2013

Today Newspaper, Sint Maarten, September 2013

Thank you to everyone who completed the short survey about our Migratory Bird Festival. We had a lot of great feedback, as well as great suggestions for future events. This feedback is very important to us and we will be using it to make our next event even better. If you attended the Migratory Bird Festival and haven’t had a chance to complete the survey yet, it is super-short and you can access the survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RGTBKWQ

Huge thanks to everyone who attended our Migratory Bird Festival at the Mangrove Discovery Trail on Étang de la Barrière in Cul-de-Sac. We had about 200 visitors for guided tours of the trail, art activities for children, a little bit of beach cleaning and other good times. Here are some photos from the event by Olivia Roudon.

Lots of wildlife depend on our salt ponds and wetland areas. There was a great clean-up this morning on the canal in Grand Case, the second of many events to help make my favorite town even better. Huge thanks to everyone who came by and helped out. We did a lot of cleaning along the canal as you can see. The place looks great! We also put up a temporary fence to try to catch garbage from the dumpster area before it goes in. Check out the before and after shots to see how much less trash there is in this area right now. Merci beaucoup à tous! If you want to know about future clean-up events, visit: https://www.facebook.com/fortheloveofgrandcase or Association Les Fruits de Mer.

If you are interested in the seabirds at Dog Island, you might enjoy this video from CaribinTV, with some nice footage from the same visit. http://www.caribintv.com/dog-island

The yellow subtitles make it look even more like lost footage from a Cousteau expedition. I think a couple of the figures I give for the number of nesting pairs of birds may be off in the subtitles, but you can find out more information about this IBA (Important Bird Area) here: http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sitefactsheet.php?id=19783

Get ready for the biggest birding event of the year! We will be hosting a special event in honor of the birds that fly thousands of miles to visit St. Martin each fall. Part of International Migratory Bird Day, there will be plenty of activities and guided tours of the mangrove discovery trail at Étang de la Barrière right next to the Pinel ferry dock. Learn about our migratory bird visitors and the mangrove, beach and mudflat habitats that bring them here each year. More updates to follow, so “Join” (https://www.facebook.com/events/518285941588370/) the event and invite your friends! It is free and open to the public and there will be special activities for children, so bring the whole family. The event will be on Sunday, September 29th from 8-11am.

The canal didn’t look as bad as it does sometimes, but we were still able to get a couple hundred pounds of trash from just the beach side of the bridge. That was just with a handful of folks in about an hour. If anyone wants to join in next time, there’s plenty of trash to clean up on the other side of the bridge!

Contact us to find out how to participate or visit For the Love of Grand Case on Facebook.

We are officially a French non-profit association: