South Caicos with Heidi Hertler: Prioritizing Community Needs
By Leah Shamlian
Heidi Hertler has spent the majority of her career in the Caribbean. In addition to conducting coral research, she’s also the Center Director of The School for Field Studies’ Center for Marine Resource Studies (SFS CMRS) in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI). CMRS, also known as the Center, plays a unique role on the island: every year, it brings undergraduate students into the community of about 1,200 people, both to study the local ecology and to contribute to community programs.
Photo by: Clarence Stringer
How are you involved in the local community?
Being involved with the community here was really a decision maker [for me to take this job in 2011]. SFS is very vested in the community. We meet with the District Commissioner two or three times a year to talk about what projects we might be involved with.
On Wednesdays, SFS volunteers in local schools. Activities include music lessons, sports, reading, and teaching about the local ecosystems – all very fun. Because of the pandemic, it’s been a while since we've done Saturday Outreach – a themed event with arts and crafts and active and quiet games – but we're just starting it up again. We're not able to restart the swim lessons yet, but definitely in the fall we’ll have swim lessons back on the menu.
Many children can't afford to buy books. So, we came up with this program where we raise funds to support books in the local school by painting murals on the walls of the Center: for example, if you wanted to provide sponsorship by putting a huge mural up, it would cost you $1,000. Our fall program last year raised nearly $4,000, and they wanted, in addition to putting money toward books, to rebuild the playground. Our students purchased all the equipment, and then [local company] Sailrock shipped the equipment in. No sooner was that slide up but the kids were using it, which was really exciting to see.
We also work with the Soroptimists here on South Caicos for special events in the community. And we've been asked by processing plants to do adult education on conch and lobster; and we do lionfish tournaments, which are a great data collection source.
Photo by: Clarence Stringer
Was there already communication between the Center and the community, or did you find yourself navigating new territory?
When I first showed up, Saturday Outreach was the only big event that we did. Once we got to talking with staff at the local schools, we realized that there were other needs. Because we're so small of an island, I think that makes communication easy.
Is there anything you wish someone had told you earlier in your career?
While you're on South, it's always work, no matter what. I wish that I had come in with that knowledge and just been more prepared. There's no downtime. But our work habits have evolved, and now we do really try to take those intercessions [between student groups] as downtime.
How do you manage to do your research in addition to running the Center?
My position is an administrative position, really. However, I've always been drawn to the research portion of a job.
I would never take more than one group [of students], whereas other faculty here may be working with two or three groups as part of Directed Research. We recently had stony coral tissue loss come to this area; now, we're looking at the effects after it’s moved through. Last semester, I took a small group and worked on coral recruits, looking at fish diversity to see if this change in reef structure affected fish populations.
Photo by: Clarence Stringer
Any words of advice for early career scientists?
Community relations take time and effort and patience. You can't come into an area and say, I'm going to do community outreach, I'm going to go into the schools, I'm going to talk about turtles and sharks and tell you why we need to conserve this population.
You need to really get buy-in from the community. You need to understand that the community… they do catch turtles and they do catch bonefish and they do collect undersized conch because those are what's accessible to them. And sometimes that's their option. I think it's hard for folks to come in and not impose their values on the community. You need to start out slowly, and don't put your agenda first.
What has your experience as a woman in marine science been like?
I've worked for organizations where I felt as though, being a woman, I wasn't getting the opportunities that some of my colleagues were, and then I've worked at other organizations where it's been an amazing experience. SFS is an amazing place to work. The team atmosphere and the communication that we have is surprising, considering that we're all around the world. As I've progressed and become more confident in my role, it's become easier. And I think it's important for women, for anybody, to have confidence in what they do.
Photo by: Clarence Stringer
How do you hope your work and your voice will influence others?
I think that you have to be positive. We're not going to solve global climate change, but we can do a lot locally. We can work on recycling programs. We can do coastal education programs. We can help preserve our reefs. When stony coral tissue loss disease goes through – everybody is saying it's terrible. But now, we're seeing recruits out there, which is exciting.
I think that being positive about what we do and what you can do is my voice. I recently had my one thousandth student come through SFS, through just our program (SFS TCI has had quite a few more, operating here for nearly 30 years). What an amazing thing! One thousand people have gone through this program, and if each one of them does one tiny, amazing thing to curb climate change – isn’t that great. And maybe they'll each influence 500 to 1000 people in their lives. That's a lot of people.