Allan ‘Kaf’ Smith
Allan’ Kaf’ Smith was well known to all of us working in the environmental conservation field. He was a pioneer of appropriate technologies to survey the state of the coastal marine environment. He built kites rigged with cameras to take aerial photographs of mangroves to assist in determining their state of health and map out changes in extents in response to human-induced pressures and deforestation. He effectively demonstrated how geographic information systems (GIS) could be used at the community level where he got fishers, schools kids and community members in the Laborie community in the south of Saint Lucia to use simple GIS applications to map and describe the world around them, and empower them into action in conserving their environment. I met Allan in the mid 1980s before I went off to university, and worked with him again (from 1992) when we (at the Forestry department) ran the community/extension forestry programme that was initiated under the CIDA-funded Forestry Management Programme. In recent years I collaborated with Allan on use of GIS tools for natural resources mapping and often shared ideas on the subject of making this versatile technology more accessible and usable by managers and resource users. In 2005 we designed and conducted a regional training for the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) for natural resource managers from across the Caribbean on GIS applications for terrestrial and marine environmental assessment. Even while he was ill and in hospital overseas, Allan was exchanging ideas on comparative aerial mapping of the ManKote Mangrove in Saint Lucia for a report he was working on.
Kaf passed away on 24 March 2010 in hospital in the UK after a battle with cancer.
This article was compiled from tributes (some bits extracted verbatim) from the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) and Reef Check, NGOs Kaf worked closely with. These are posted online at http://www.canari.org/news10.asp and http://www.reefcheck.org/news/news_detail.php?id=601. His good friend Yves Renard, one of the founding members and Associate of CANARI also contributed content to this article with photos contributed by family members and close friend Jolien Harmsen (click on the photos to enlarge).
Allan was originally from Zimbabwe, having obtained his BSc in Botany from the University of Aberdeen in 1971. He was awarded an MSc from the Institute of Oceanography, McGill University in 1979, for his thesis entitled ‘Mariculture and polysaccharide chemistry of the red alga Gracilaria tikvahiae‘. He first came to Saint Lucia in the early 1980s to work on an IDRC-sponsored project on seaweed cultivation, and soon after began to offer his services to ECNAMP (Eastern Caribbean Natural Area Management Programme), the forerunner to the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), making his outstanding photographic skills available to the Maria Islands Nature Reserve in Saint Lucia and providing expertise to many field projects.
In 1985, he joined the staff of ECNAMP, and he remained closely associated as a marine research scientist and Associate of CANARI until his death. Allan was a long-term supporter of Reef Check; since 1999, he was a Team Scientist and Coordinator forReef Check St Lucia, organizing and participating in many surveys, and heading an International Reef Check Workshop in 2001. He was an accomplished underwater photographer, and ran his own consulting business Resource Management Technologies Ltd., focusing on the assessment and mapping of coral reef and mangrove systems, and provision of training in participatory mapping and participatory geographic information systems (PGIS).
Based on his initial research work, he pioneered the development of appropriate techniques for seamoss cultivation in St Lucia forging close bonds with fishers and farmers in coastal communities in St. Lucia and across the Caribbean, as he passed on his wealth of knowledge on seamoss cultivation. He was also very involved in promoting the sustainable use of mangroves, assisting in helping communities (example the Aupicon Community in St. Lucia) manage controlled harvest of mangroves for fuelwood. CANARI writes “He was rigorous and focused, always anxious to explore new concepts and use new instruments, always wary of superficial and trendy ideas. In an organisation that has, for most of its existence, focused on the “soft” aspects of natural resource management, such as governance and participation, Kaf was the voice of science and measurement, the advocate of rigour and method, the link between scientific and popular systems of knowledge. Being in the field with him was exhilarating. His enthusiasm for whatever technology he was developing at that time was infectious, he had so much interesting knowledge to share, and bumping along in his trusty Land Rover on the way added to the feeling of adventure.” 
Reef Check reflects “Allan was always happiest in the field whether researching, mapping, working with community groups or teaching (or all four at once). Yet he was equally at home in front of the computer screen generating maps from Mapmaker and writing manuals. He was a humble man, but contributed immeasurably to the development of an environmental consciousness, especially among local fishers and community groups.”
In his honour CANARI has decided to create the Allan Smith memorial participatory mapping course, a training event that will be held periodically and will help disseminate the methods and approaches that Allan Smith believed in and developed. 
Share your memories of Kaf by posting on my blog below.
Thanks a bunch for sharing this with all of us you really
know what you are talking about! Bookmarked. Kindly also
visit my website =). We could have a link exchange arrangement between us!
I would like to know how to reach Kaf’s family… Kaf and I were close friends for many years.. the last post was from England….. where was he laid to rest. MY heart has a big hole in it.. he was so amazing
I had the pleasure to meet Kaf personally back in 1990 while we both attended a Latin American and Caribbean Workshop on seaweed cultivation in Sao Paulo, Brazil sponsored by the swedish International Foundation for Science. We were both involved in the development of seamoss (seaweed) mariculture and utilization in the Caribbean since the mid-80’s.
During many years we exchanged experiences and ideas and were able to write an article together entitled “Seaweed Resources of the Caribbean” in 2006. We were in touch even during his last years and tried to continue our cooperation.
What a great loss to science, to the scientific caribbean community and to all of those who he assisted and gave his never ending wealth of knowledge and ideas.
He will be longtime missed but I am glad that CANARI is working on keep its legacy. I am, from my side, doing the same regarding seamoss cultivation and utilization in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Raúl E. Rincones
agromarina@gmail.com
Caracas, Venezuela
Dear Raúl,
Great to learn of your collaboration with the pioneering spirit who was Kaf. I too have worked with CANARI and is great that they have carried on their support to communities in assisting with management of their local resources, building on the foundations laid by the likes of Kaf. I remember Kaf working tirelessly to perfect the art of low-cost aerial photography of mangroves and coastal features using kites…he would have certainly taken to use of drones to advance his work if he were still around.
Saludos!
Kaf was an enigma, a nerd, a bit of a loner but also a warm friend. He would love to have been able to bring mapping and aerial photography to a whole new level if he’d had a shot at drone technology. And no doubt he would have been at the heart of our current challenges with sargassum – and, perhaps, finding opportunities to turn that challenge into an opportunity. It wasn’t to be. It will always be a regret to us all, his friends in St Lucia. Meanwhile, I still putter around in his old Landy, with Kaf’s bird-watching hat, vehicle notebook and the little Zimbabwe toy elephant peeping out from the glove compartment. And if I ever crunch the gears, I still mutter “Sorry Kaf!”
Rest in peace, good man.
Hi Jolien,
Very nice reflection!
Cheers, Chris
I have never met Dr. Allan, but I have heard many wonderful stories about how he helped seaweed farmers in Belize from the late 1990s. I was only 10 years old when he conducted cultivation workshops in 2005. Last summer (2023), I conducted four workshops with seaweed farmers across Belize as part of my PhD social research on seaweed mariculture as a climate change adaptation and blue economy growth strategy.
One of the seaweed farmers, Mr. Cleveland Davis, who recently passed away, mentioned that when he worked at National Coop in Belize City as a maintenance person, he would pop into the workshop sessions at Birds Isle and engage with the fishers there. Mr. Cleveland showed me all the workshop documents that Dr. Allan gave him because he was eager to learn about seaweed cultivation.
As for the older traditional fishers in Placencia Village who transitioned to tourism but still farm seaweed, Mr. Kurt Godfrey, Mr. Louis Godfrey (brothers of the late Mr. Lowell “Japs” Godfrey, who dedicated his life to farming seaweed after meeting and being trained by Dr. Allan), and Mr. Leonel “Randy” Tucker all spoke of Dr. Allan very fondly. They described how Dr. Allan took a piece of Euchuema spp. wrapped up in a wet newspaper and placed it into a ziplock bag for 2-3 days to start a whole new healthy strain in St. Lucia, where the seaweed mariculture industry is now thriving. Before Japs passed away in 2021, he often spoke about Dr. Allan. During COVID-19, I spent a week with Japs at Little Water Caye, where he showed me the ‘anaconda’ farming technique. This netting bag method, which Dr. Allan taught them in 2005, was superior to the ‘tie-tie’ technique used under the COMPACT/SEA/PPCSL collaboration in 2009. Japs spoke highly of Dr. Allan’s expertise and was able to replicate these techniques with a seaweed species, Kappaphycus alvarezii, that he found around Little Harvest Caye in Big Creek Port vicinity when he was storing his Eucheuma spp. and Gracilaria spp. seeds in preparation for Hurricane Earl in 2016. Thanks to Dr. Allan’s initiatives, Japs was able to teach many people about seaweed farming, using Kappaphycus alvarezii during training in Calabash Caye, as it grew bigger and faster. This training was done in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Belize in the Turneffe Atoll area.
When I visited St. Lucia last year, I asked around for Dr. Allan Smith but discovered he had passed away. Deep down, I wish I had met him because I witnessed the Placencia folks starting their seaweed farms on Little Water Caye around 2010. I have old photos of myself goofing around the anchors holding the ropes with Eucheuma spp. and Gracilaria spp. Little Water Caye is very special to me, as it’s where my name came from—my dad was working there when I was born in Independence Village. My family had recently moved there from Mango Walk, Monkey River Village.
All my life, I have been inspired by the efforts of these sea people, who made ends meet not for money, but for friendship and love for the sea. Dr. Allan made a positive mark on Belize, and now the younger generation, including myself, recognizes his work. Now that I have found this website during the final stages of my PhD on islands and small states studies, I can post about the social cohesion aspects of the pioneers who came to Belize,, including Mr. Raul Recinos!
Rest in peace, Dr. Allan Smith. You are one of my giants!