Park rangers deserve pay

After reading Mr. Brendel’s article about the ‘Park rangers’ at Barkers, I felt a real urgency to write to you. I do not know anything about their pay or how it was set up, but I do know what they have done for the Barkers area.  

His headline states $560K for Barkers. When I did my math for this amount, it came out to be $28,000 per employee per year; not an extraordinary amount of money for what they have accomplished.  

Before they started working there, Barkers was a dangerous place to go. It was treated as a “dump” and looked like one. It was filthy. It was the place that drug deals were made and I even saw two people having sex in a truck one afternoon. Then we had the murder back there and some rapes. It was not used by the public for recreation. 

The transformation of this area since the park rangers started working there is not anything you can put a dollar value on. The area is kept clean and is safe. I just cannot tell you the difference in the feel in Barkers.  

People are using it to walk, run, walk their dogs, bicycle, fish, kite surf, horse back ride, jeep tours and camp. I no longer see the “scary” stuff going on. There are kids riding on their four wheelers and motor cycles (very, very loud) on weekends, using the long stretch of road for speeding, but that is another issue that needs to be addressed.  

I walk all through Barkers every day that I am here. All the rangers are always working very hard. This is more than just a job to them. This is one of the last areas on the Island that is open land and can be enjoyed by all in its natural state. They take a great deal of pride in what they are doing.  

If this programme is cancelled, it would be the end of Barkers as we know it now. It would very quickly go back to the drug dealers, poachers, crime and again become a dump. I wish everyone would put the politics aside and think what is best for the people of Grand Cayman. I believe what I have just addressed was all left out of the article. They have done a great deal more than just cleaned out brush. 

Ann Wall