To many Bermudians, the Tynes Bay incinerator is nothing more than an eyesore, the Island's stop-and-go recycling programme a less than auspicious achievement.

But to Mr. Juan Isidro Pereyra, a vice-principal in the small Dominican Republic town of San Rafael del Yuma, such aspects of Bermudian life represent hope, a vision of the environmental improvements that can someday be achieved in his own Caribbean homeland.

"In general, the Dominican Republic has a lot of environmental problems -- not the least of which is deforestation and garbage disposal,'' the Spanish-speaking Mr. Pereyra, on his first-ever visit to Bermuda and indeed outside of his home country, said through an interpreter last week. The 42-year-old primary school administrator added, who also heads the grassroots Ecological Society of Yuma: "Our main objective is to increase the environmental awareness of the people, especially the children.'' Indeed, the people of San Rafael are in need of enlightening, as many of them, through wantonness, ignorance or long-held local traditions, are contributing to the environmental degradation of their largely agricultural environs.

Located on the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic, in the easternmost province of La Altagracia, San Rafael del Yuma seems a simple, rather unhurried place from Mr. Pereyra's description, although he said it has changed a lot since he was a boy, and looks to have a lot of problems for a town of only 6,000.

"The area suffers from garbage disposal and litter problems, industrial contamination, noise pollution, overgrazing and the general problems that come with poverty,'' said Mr. Pereyra's translator, Ms Virginia DeSilva, a Bermudian-American who spent two years in the Caribbean country as a US Peace Corps volunteer and who engineered Mr. Pereyra's observational visit to the Island under the auspices of USAid, an American international development agency.

"In the Dominican Republic as a whole, 300 rivers have dried up as a result of deforestation. Another problem is a lack of funds to effectively manage the country's national parks.'' The latter issue, of particular importance to a town that sits in the shadow of the 420-square-kilometre National Park of the East, is a current focus of the grassroots Yuma society, said Mr. Pereyra, who is trying to get a group called Volunteer Park Guards off the ground.

"They don't have a tradition of volunteer guards in the Dominican Republic,'' Ms DeSilva said. "At present, there are only about 14 full-time guards, two boats and two motorcycles to monitor a park as huge as the National Park of the East, which also sees drug trafficking. It's not enough, and we're hoping that this youth group will pick up some of the slack.'' It was not surprising, then, to learn that the Bermudian environmental initiative that most impressed Ms DeSilva's former host in the Caribbean was the quality of the youth and children's programmes that are orchestrated by such local institutions as the Bermuda Aquarium, the Botanical Gardens and others.

"I was most impressed by the Nonsuch Island natural history camp for 16-year-olds,'' Mr. Pereyra said. "Such programmes are particularly important because they (youths) are the future, and will be responsible for managing the environment in the future.'' In addition, Mr. Pereyra was also able to meet during his visit with acting Chief Education Officer Dr. Joseph Christopher, who pointed out the inclusion of environmental studies in Bermudian schools' curricula, and observed the activities of such local protectors of the environment as the Bermuda National Trust, Keep Bermuda Beautiful and the Bermuda Audubon Society (which extended the invitation that brought the vice-principal to the Island). In an observation that may surprise many Bermudians, Mr. Pereyra even had kind words for the Island's problem-plagued recycling programme, which has been slightly curtailed since it was introduced in 1992, and its controversial incinerator, a source of many headaches for the Works and Engineering Ministry that oversees it.

"I know we're quick to criticise,'' Ms DeSilva said of her fellow Bermudians, "but when you go out of the country you realise how good we have it here, how good we have managed our waste in Bermuda.

"Of course,'' she added after a slight pause, "we have been at it longer.'' When it comes to environmental degradation, so, it seems, have the people in the Dominican Republic, where it'll be difficult to get them to change old habits, they said.

"The government (of the Dominican Republic) has provided no leadership on the issue, but it is sometimes the people themselves that are up in arms, that we have had to fight against the hardest,'' Ms DeSilva recalled. "Often, they will say: `My cow has been grazing here for 15 years, and now you're asking me to stop it. It's very difficult.'' Even so, the tiny Ecological Society of Yuma has managed to change some attitudes during its brief but productive existence, encouraging area residents to recycle and reuse more, to refrain from dumping garbage in the streets and to compost many of their (largely organic) food waste. During Ms DeSilva's stay in the country, moreover, the activists were also able to clean up both a local dump and several beaches -- all with the help of the local people.

"Our objective was to work at the grassroots level,'' Ms DeSilva said, "to work with the public on ways to improve conditions.'' So what, then, will Mr. Pereyra take home with him from his sojourn in Bermuda? In addition to the youth programmes that so impressed him, he said he has a better understanding of how non-governmental organisations, or NGOs, educate people on the environment, and he will also try to employ some of their fundraising methods. More importantly, though, "he got a lot of motivation to go back to the Dominican Republic and work very hard in his country,'' Ms Desilva said.

Asked if he was optimistic about the possibility of environmental renewal in his homeland, Mr. Pereyra was unhesitant in his response. "I am,'' he said in his typical matter-of-fact way, "because I have to.'' Mr. Juan Isidro Pereyra