The Gambia has taken a major step by launching a campaign as unforgiving climate threatens to erase country’s dark history, CNN reports.
This move borders on efforts to stop the popular Kunta Kinte Island formerly known as James Island a speck of land at the mouth of the Gambia river which was once a major waypoint of the transatlantic slave trade where African abductees were brutally imprisoned before being forcibly transported to the US.
A Gambian historian, Hassoun Ceesay reportedly told CNN “It was the departure point for hundreds of thousands of blacks captured in the Gambia River area from 1588 to 1807” among who is the famous rebel Kunta Kinte who the James Island was later named after in history in 2011 by the Gambian authorities.
However, what made this island in question an attraction for tourists and historians is the growing public awareness of Kinte’s story and the horrors of slavery.
CNN further reports that sometimes in 2003, James Island was certified a UNESCO World Heritage Site as a “unique memorial to the Atlantic Slave Trade.” Fortunately or unfortunately, the site one of Gambia’s most popular visitor attractions is slowly disappearing as climate threatens to erase its dark history as the famous island shrinks due to coastal erosion which the new Gambian government under President Adama Barrow acknowledges and set to urgently address.
“Most of the island was reclaimed from the river, and with time and global warming it has drifted back to the river,” says Ceesay.
The seaward side of Fort Bullen, constructed by British soldiers, has suffered erosion and collapsed in places, according to UNESCO.
“Gambia is a low-lying country with erosion in many parts of the coastline,” says Bubacar Jallow, climate change officer at the Ministry of Environment. “We have interventions in various areas but limited resources.”
The site is also affected by tropical storms, which have damaged fragile ruins including a French colonial warehouse named the Compagnie Francaise d’Afrique Occidentale (CFAO).
“Heavy rains and windstorms in August 2016 affected local communities, historic buildings and the villages of Albreda and Juffureh,” says UNESCO Africa programme specialist David Stehl. “The storms caused the destruction of property, including the loss of part of the roof of the CFAO building on the Albreda waterfront.”
UNESCO is planning to restore the CFAO roof, the latest in a series of measures to protect the site.
Seventy meters of sea defences have been installed off vulnerable parts of the island. Gambia’s government has implemented a public education campaign to emphasise the importance of conservation.
