Live on Martha’s Vineyard long enough and you might pick up some strong opinions about the Island. For every other island out there, we imagine there are plenty of locals with equally strong opinions about their home. So, we decided to call them up and ask them.
THE ISLAND: Aruba
THE ISLANDER: Rosie Slayter
THE STORY IN BRIEF: Slayter is an islander twice over. She grew up on Saint Martin at her parents’ butterfly farm, a sanctuary that served as home to hundreds of butterflies in a garden enclosure. But when hurricanes – four of them in total – kept damaging the farm, they opened a new one on Aruba, a nearly seventy-square-mile island twenty miles north of Venezuela. Slayter now lives on Aruba and works at the new butterfly farm.
RESORT LIFE: The family business is located in the city of Noord on the northwestern coast of the island and, sure, you could call it a farm. “We like to call it an all-inclusive resort for the butterflies and caterpillars,” Slayter said. “It’s a tropical garden and it caters to over thirty-five species.” Although her job is as a communications manager, it’s her time with the insects she most values.
ECO CHIC: Islands are a story of supply and demand: visitors want a piece of paradise but it’s a finite resource. Aruba is no different, but it’s all about balance. “Of course, Aruba’s main source of income is tourism,” she said, “but too much of anything is too much, right?” One of the main concerns of mass tourism is the destruction of Aruba’s natural environment, so Slayter, a born and bred nature lover, is heartened by the interest in eco-tourism. Many companies on the island “try to make it a priority to work toward being as sustainable as possible.”
SHOCO MANIA: What species in particular are locals working to protect? At this question, Slayter lit up. “The shoco!” Aruba is home to an endangered, eight-inch-tall, endemic subspecies of burrowing owl believed to have lived on the island for at least one and a half million years. The prevalence of off-roading, along with general habitat loss, has threatened the birds, which have become a national symbol.
FIELD NOTES: The mission continues at The Butterfly Farm, where workers educate visitors on how they can support their local Lepidoptera no matter where they live. “If you want to help them with their entire life cycle, then the question is: ‘What can I grow here that their caterpillars can eat?’” Like the ecosystems of Aruba, the butterfly is fragile and worth protecting. “Anything and everything can go wrong,” Slayter said. “It’s amazing they’re even still around with how vulnerable they are.”
