By Fay Simmons
jsimmons@tribunemedia.net
A former Bahamas National Trust (BNT) executive director yesterday voiced concerns that Royal Caribbean’s Paradise Island project “cannot bear the environmental pressures of what is being proposed”.
Eric Carey, who will review the cruise giant’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on behalf of Atlantis, another critic of its $100m Royal Beach Club proposal, suggested the 17-acre site in the vicinity of Colonial Beach will struggle to cope with the daily average of 2,750 passengers it will host.
“We’re standing on a narrow strip of land that really cannot, it should not and it cannot bear the environmental pressures of what is being proposed. So we want to see how anybody is going to work environmental magic to make that possible and, more importantly, sustainable,” Mr Carey said. “And even if you propose a gold environmental standard, how are you going to make that work on this tiny little narrow strip of the last little piece of Crown land on Paradise Island?
Voicing concern over the volume of visitors that will frequent the site, he added: “Their EIA says they’re building a facility that can take nearly 8,000 passengers. The deputy prime minister said that they’d negotiated down to 1,000. Last week, on one of the shows that they were on, they talked about 2,500 to 3,000.
“So they have the capacity to bring lots of people to the small space and, trust me, you go to any of the private islands they put as many people as they can on those islands and there’s no reason to suspect or to believe that if they build it for 8,000 that 8,000 will not come.”
Mr Carey said he and other environmentalists are not against foreign investment, but are concerned with ensuring that developments are site and place appropriate.
He added: “Our country is the beneficiary. We’ve developed our country with foreign direct investment, right. And it has given us a high standard of living. We’ve had some mistakes. I mean, we’ve made some mistakes, and we’ve had some environmental disasters. But generally, I think the Government in the last couple of years have created pretty good environmental legislation, the Environmental Planning and Protection Act, and its associated regulations are very robust.
“They have the ability to effectively review and monitor any development that comes. Look, most of us in this field are not opposed to foreign direct investment. We understand that, you know, we have to live and we have to co-exist. What we don’t want is the type of foreign direct investment that is out of scale and out of place. We need to think of things that are site appropriate… and that whenever it’s placed in a particular area, it does not irreversibly impact the area that you’re putting it”
Mr Carey maintained that the project bypasses downtown Nassau businesses and insisted that visitors should be taking part in Bahamian tours. He went on to state that the responsibility of developing tourism lies with Bahamians and the Ministry of Tourism, and not foreign conglomerates.
He said: “This project proposes a downtown bypass. I mean, that’s what this does. This basically takes thousands of people who otherwise would have gone on tours… the restaurants at Arawak Cay, the vendors on Junkanoo Beach, etc. The Downtown Nassau Partnership, hopefully, you know, they will eventually get some legs and certainly get east of East Street ready to accept visitors.
“So these people should not be coming here and spending all the money with Royal Caribbean, these thousands of visitors should be taking part in Bahamian tours. I heard the president of Royal Caribbean or one of the executives perhaps speak to the fact that they’re helping to define the tourism product and improve the tourism product. I’m sorry, that’s not their job. That is my deputy prime minister’s job and the people in the Ministry of Tourism, and Ian Ferguson’s job at the Tourism Development Authority to create our tourism product.
“And I believe that as Bahamians we can create more tourism product. Let’s improve our national parks, let’s fix the Botanical Garden, let’s create more authentic Bahamian experiences and products for the visitors to enjoy. We don’t need to bring them over here for them to have a Bahamian experience because, guess what, they will not have a Bahamian experience at a Royal Caribbean or any other private island facility.”
Mr Carey, along with other members of the environmental community, penned an open letter on April 13 in response to Royal Caribbean pledging to maintain a “gold environment standard”. On the tour, he called for the cruise line to be transparent about its plans for the development.
He said: “That letter basically outlined our demands or requests for full public discourse, transparency. You know, we want to know what’s happening with this development. Businesses have posed questions to the Government and to the developer nearly a year ago, or more than a year ago, and have gotten no responses. We saw the media tour last week, we saw the hype, we’re going to do this, we’re going to have a gold standard. But, you know, mouth can say anything, I mean, we want to see exactly what is proposed.”
Mr Carey said the coral reefs and coastline could be irreparably damaged from a development of this scale. He added: “Just offshore of the lighthouse is Colonial Reef. It’s a wonderful little reef, very healthy reef, 17 species of coral have been observed. And coral reefs are under stress. Coral doesn’t need help going south, you know, it needs help getting better and so we’re also concerned about that.
“They have talked about altering some little pocket beaches on this side of the of the island on that rocky shore. What does that mean for the natural coastline? Altering the coastline is not a good thing to do. You don’t interfere and alter the coastline without serious, longtime and often irreversible impacts.”
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