Leave only footprints

But while we are insisting that these ignorant and potentially harmful visitors come and go without registering their presence apart from on the inevitable booking forms and emails, tourism provides a living for a vast number of Caribbean islanders, just as it does in other parts of the world where they have no better ideas.

That includes Tobago. While big sister Trinidad has been getting her hands dirty for many years with the petrochemical industry, the smaller sibling just wants people to visit for a week or two and leave, having brandished their credit and debit cards often enough to benefit the locals.

We, as the mystical new-agers and the educators of children like to say, are just the current custodians of the planet, and in particular the part of it we happen to occupy.

When the final reckoning comes - however and by whomever that may be - fingers are going to be pointed and excuses are going to be made.

If, and this is entirely possible, the judgment is made from afar, looking at the earth through an atomic telescope and seeing a scarred, dead planet smoking in the distance like an abandoned camp fire, the human race will be blamed collectively. “You thought you were so clever,” the judges will say. “Build his, develop that, and erase whatever was there because man’s need for accommodation wouldn’t let anything stand in his way.” They’ll look at the way we abused our birthright. Tropical rainforest? Very nice, but it took up too much room and what good was all that timber standing up, with leaves all over it? But they will congratulate Tobago for leaving its forest pretty much alone. Pity we can’t say the same for the countless acres of nice, productive, verdant land that were sacrificed in Trinidad to make way for oil refineries, processing plants and industrial estates.

As for Port of Spain, it probably didn’t turn out much worse than most cities, but look what they had before the building started: a tropical island. Yes, it remains technically a tropical island, and the capital is a modern city in the tropics, but in many parts an ugly one, like a cute child with wild curly hair who turned into a fat, shaven-headed brute.

“Tobago?” the judges will continue.

“Well, you guys didn’t do too badly, considering the role model you were saddled with. More by luck than judgment, perhaps; more by sloth and lack of imagination than by determination to leave nature alone.” They will point to the outlying areas that have escaped largely unscathed.

But they’ll look at Scarborough and see a fragment of cracked, scuffed Perspex that should have been the jewel in the crown. That beautiful steep part at the eastern end: if that had been on the cliffs of Italy or an island off the coast of France it would have been full of bistros and brothels, pretty in a decaying way and known as The Old Quarter, part of what was labelled the prettiest harbour town in the Caribbean.

The French would have planted tall, shady trees along the seafront and created outdoor cafes and rectangular beds of gravel on which to play boules. And they would have built distilleries where exotic drinks were made, not only bringing in revenue but providing the locals with a reason to get up in the morning.

The long, wide, tree-lined streets that they like to call boulevards could have been full of Tobagonian noblemen and women, born rich after generations of industry and success, strolling arm in arm past the markets and all the way along towards Lambeau, with parasols protecting their tender dark skin from the unrelenting sun.

It’s not too late, Tobago. All you need is vision and enterprise. Bring in some investors. Show them the natural bounties with which the island is blessed, and get them to build; the damage is done already but the landscape can be improved.

Build - not hotels and holiday apartments but chocolate factories and distilleries for making fruit liqueurs, places where quality, beautiful things are produced.

The economy would boom and you could provide employment where now there is none. Work hard, market the island and its products and transform inertia into action. Make Scarborough and its surrounding areas hives of industry.

You can leave the Parlatuviers and Speysides untouched, apart from creating discreet, tasteful weekend homes for the merchants from the capital. Or sit there and watch the Middle Eastern states, branching out in case the oil industry crashes, making islands out of nothing and stealing the tourists from under our noses.