{"id":1606,"date":"2020-12-09T14:03:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T14:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=136037"},"modified":"2020-12-09T14:03:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T14:03:21","slug":"caribbean-islanders-environmentalist-billionaire-building-resort-on-protected-wetlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/09\/caribbean-islanders-environmentalist-billionaire-building-resort-on-protected-wetlands\/","title":{"rendered":"Caribbean Islanders: \u201cEnvironmentalist\u201d Billionaire Building Resort on Protected Wetlands"},"content":{"rendered":"
Residents of the<\/u> tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda say a planned luxury resort co-owned by the billionaire philanthropist and self-proclaimed<\/a> environmentalist John Paul DeJoria could destroy the islanders\u2019 way of life. DeJoria\u2019s development company would place a golf course<\/a> and community of seaside vacation homes<\/a> on top of a wetland protected by an international treaty.<\/p>\n Recognized as vital in a future marked by climate crisis, the lagoon\u2019s mangroves, seagrass beds, and coral reefs support a lobster fishery, endangered hawksbill and leatherback turtles, and the largest nesting colony of magnificent frigatebirds in the Western hemisphere. The vegetation also helps protect land from eroding during increasingly severe storms, such as Hurricane Irma, which destroyed the island in 2017.<\/p>\n Locals, who are citizens of the sovereign nation of Antigua and Barbuda, are also raising concerns that the resort constructed by DeJoria\u2019s company Peace, Love and Happiness is playing a role in upending the island\u2019s collective land ownership system, which has survived since slavery\u2019s abolishment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s being done at the expense of people\u2019s lives,\u201d said John Mussington, a Barbudan school principal and marine biologist. The island\u2019s fisheries and its collective land ownership system have been vital to Barbudans\u2019 resilience throughout the coronavirus pandemic, he noted, offering food and housing security in a place where lobster is abundant and eviction tends to be a nonissue. \u201cThe philanthropy these persons hide behind, it\u2019s not real \u2014 it\u2019s just an excuse so they can continue what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n On Wednesday, the Global Legal Action Network filed a complaint to the secretariat that oversees the Ramsar Convention, a treaty that recognizes wetlands of international importance. The complaint, which was filed on behalf of the Barbuda Council, the governing body that oversees internal affairs on the island, alleges that construction has already damaged the Codrington Lagoon. The Barbuda Council and the Global Legal Action Network are demanding that the Ramsar Secretariat, which has little enforcement power, pressure the government of Antigua and Barbuda to stop any construction on the lagoon. (The Antigua and Barbuda national government, which is based on larger, nearby Antigua, did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFailure to stop the project in its current form will result in the destruction of the Codrington Lagoon National Park and Ramsar Site,\u201d the complaint quoted Barbuda Council environmental adviser Adelle Blair as saying in a report to the council. \u201cThis will leave the Barbuda people more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change having decimated all the natural defenses, seriously threatening its livelihood base and survival, to make way for a place for the rich to live and play golf.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement emailed to the The Intercept, the project president for the development, Justin Wilshaw, told The Intercept that the Ramsar complaint had it backward. \u201cThe PLH project has had no impact on the Codrington Lagoon,\u201d he said. Wilshaw claimed, instead, that it is the Barbuda Council that has allowed environmental destruction in the Ramsar-protected area, through sand-mining and other commercial ventures. He told The Intercept that the project developers are restoring, rather than destroying, the wetlands and that the project actually has wide support on the island: \u201cPLH acknowledge that the Barbuda Council are still the process of understanding the benefits of foreign investment, while its general population have been quicker to adapt and benefit from engaging with PLH to open new businesses and take advantage of programs we offer to invest in their homes and future.\u201d<\/p>\n Barbuda Council secretary Paul Nedd said that the local government does mine sand but not on the most sensitive parts of the shoreline.<\/p>\n The project is one of two large developments \u2014 for tiny Barbuda, at least \u2014 to benefit from a series of disaster capitalism-style legal maneuvers advanced in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, as Barbudans fled wholesale destruction. The other project is being led by actor and hotelier Robert De Niro, who plans to build a tony resort called Nobu Beach Inn on a different stretch of sand. Though the Nobu Beach Inn will not be located on the Codrington Lagoon, locals have decried both projects as part of a \u201cland grab<\/a>\u201d \u2014 enabled by a pro-development government in Antigua that lured the resorts in and rammed through a post-hurricane change in land laws that turned the projects into significantly more attractive investments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Barbudan leaders told The Intercept that they had not heard much recently about De Niro\u2019s project, formerly known as Paradise Found, but this month the acclaimed actor again began publicly promoting the development. \u201cI knew that if I were going to build something like this,\u201d he told Town and Country<\/a>, \u201cI would have to find the perfect place.\u201d (De Niro\u2019s Nobu Hospitality, which runs luxury properties across the globe, did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n Although it may be pristine and remote, Barbuda is not a place that\u2019s empty of people. Along with DeJoria, said Mussington, \u201cRobert De Niro is part of the scheme to change Barbuda\u2019s communal land system to facilitate speculative real-estate ventures.\u201d The luxury projects, he added, \u201care designed to convert the people\u2019s land and resources into more billions of dollars for their personal bank accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n