CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE CARIBBEAN

Newspaper: Diario Libre.

Web page: http://www.diariolibre.com/app/article.aspx?id=114687


July 29th, 2007, 6:51 P.M.

Tourist conspiracy against the Caribbean.

In the Caribbean they are getting together against protected zones.

Bahía de las Águilas (Bay of Eagles): an appraised booty for tourism.

Santo Domingo. The Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (SCSCB), the greatest regional organization dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity, concluded its 16th meeting in Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico. The conference lasted 5 days, and it discussed the impact of the Climatic Change in the towns and birds of the Caribbean, and on the increasing threat of tourist development to the biodiversity of the region. Representative organizations of 19 countries described as critic the situation in the Caribbean islands.

The delegates became perplexed when listening to the report of which it seems to be a campaign without precedents of Caribbean governments to change the legal status of areas previously protected for being important sites of conservation, and to take step to a devastating tourist development. Two of the denounced cases involve the chain of hotels Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts Group. The government of Grenada has plans of selling to this partnership the Mount Hartman National Park, which was created in 1996 to save the Dove of Grenada, its national bird, which is in critical danger of extinction. Studies show that almost a 25% of the hardly counted 80 individuals of this species live in the small coastal restricted zone of Mount Hartman. The area is, then, vital for their survival.


In Puerto Rico, the Corredor Ecológico del Norte (Ecological Strip of the North), habitat of the threatened species of Yaguasa of the Caribbean, endemic duck of the region, the migratory Playero Silbador (Singing Beach Bird), and an important place of nesting of the Tinglar turtle, is objective of tourist development by the group Four Seasons, that has become a threat for the exclusive biodiversity of the insular Caribbean. This ecological zone is a natural area located in the already degraded Reserva Nacional de El Yunque (El Yunque National Reserve), one of the first forest reserves of the Western Hemisphere, that is the main habitat of the Cotorra of Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Parrot), the most threatened of its sort.


In the Dominican Republic.

In the Dominican Republic, a law in 2002 was promulgated that changes the limits and categories of several protected areas, in order to build hotels in sites of great ecological value like Bahía de las Águilas (Bay of Eagles), a coastal area of the Parque Nacional Jaragua (Jaragua National Park), that is part of the Reserve of Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo Biosphere areas, which includes three parks, and it is considered to be one of the areas with more biodiversity in the island. As always, the strategy consists of altering the legal status of the protected area to facilitate the construction of hotels. Local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) objected the constitutionality of this law before the Supreme Court of Justice, but the Court did not pay due attention to the demand. The Secretary of State of Environment and Natural Resources has denounced the plot to new modifications of this law.



Andrew Dobson, President of the SCSCB, considers that it is an unjustifiable backward movement at a time at which the coastal conservation of the forests and areas is essential to mitigate the impacts of the climatic change. According to him, this type of development will only be able to damage the reputation of the Caribbean as an atmosphere-friendly tourist destiny. It adds that this type of tourist projects without future vision will accelerate the effects of climatic change on the Antillean forests, and the singular biodiversity that they lodge will be the main victim, since 85% of the natural forests of the Caribbean has already been destroyed. According to the last report of the United Nations on Climatic Change, the Antilles run an enormous short term risk of being struck by these changes.

Impact

85% of the Antillean forests has already been destroyed.

The climatic change will strike harder if we continue destroying the forests.


A tourist company glides to construct hotels in protected areas.

guerrero.simon@gmail.com

- Simón Guerrero

Freddy Miranda,
Translated by Orlando Alcántara