Cruise line pushing for pier donates to reef project
Cruise ship in George Town Harbour, Grand Cayman (Photo by Dennie Warren Jr)
(CNS): Carnival Cruises, one of two cruise lines pressing the Cayman Islands government to develop cruise ship berthing in the George Town harbour, which will require significant destruction of coral reefs, has donated cash to Cayman-based reef conservation project. Carnival’s refusal to tender mega ships was cited by the tourism minister recently as justification for the controversial pier proposal on Grand Cayman. The project could see some 35 acres of reef destroyed, both directly from dredging and gradually from silt and turbidity, to make way for the dock.
According to a press release issued Friday, the Carnival Foundation, the corporation’s charitable arm, has given $75,000 to the Central Caribbean Marine Institute, based on Little Cayman, which CCMI said would enable it to continue invaluable research in the Cayman Islands that will double the growth and restoration of ecologically distinct and globally endangered (EDGE) coral species.
The outcome of the research funded by Carnival Foundation will be incorporated into “Raise a Reef”, a science-based programme run by CCMI’s Little Cayman Research Centre, that will engage 200 local school children in activities aimed at improving coral reef conservation in Cayman.
Linda Coll, director of the Carnival Foundation, claimed the cruise line was “passionate about” environmental education.
“We strive to be good global citizens, and working with CCMI enables us to help preserve and restore the beautiful environmentally vital coral reefs that characterize the Cayman Islands,” she said.
However, last month her colleague, Giora Israel, Senior Vice President of Global Port and Destination Development, said that piers were the key to the smooth operation of large ships.
“The itinerary planning executives at our various cruise brands that will operate those ships in the future, will consider the availability of piers / berthing facilities as a key element in considering a port or destination, and are unlikely to consider tender ports for such class of vessels,” he said.
“We are absolutely delighted to receive this donation from Carnival Foundation,” said Carrie Manfrino, president of Central Caribbean Marine Institute. “CCMI’s overarching goal is to increase the sustainability of critically endangered coral species, and Carnival Foundation’s grant will enable us to target and improve the restoration of corals — including those recently impacted by the ‘bleaching effects’ of warm water in the Caribbean — and through our development of coral nurseries and other restoration work.”
Category: Marine Environment, Science & Nature
Dear “Anonymous says:
16/11/2015 at 8:43 am”,
What YOU don’t get is that Pirate’s Week is also a week of national festivities and is an integral part of local Caymanian culture and history.
I enjoyed it as a kid, and now my kids and those of my sibling are doing the same. (Although I know that probably means eff’ all to certain people.)
District days have become holidays for those that choose or have dedicated their culinary and craft-making skills to their respective communities.
The street parade is an exciting time for Caymanian kids; the blasts of the canons, the scraping swords, the make-up, the costumes, the masks and so on.
Our pirate’s week street dance(s) are where many of us eventually had our first dates, first kisses or just hung out with our friends in a unique setting.
The exchange of unique district cultures and even methods of preparing local dishes has become legendary in this country – thanks in large part to Pirate’s Week.
For Caymanians, the economic benefits or tactics are very low on the ladder of importance when it comes to Pirate’s Week.
However, had you taken the time to integrate yourself in this host community you would have recognised all of the above.
Why so many come here and insist on living at an arm’s length is beyond me. Most worrying of all is how people who live this way will raise their kids alongside mine in this tiny island nation.
Some of you better wake up and get over yourselves … or leave.
– Whodatis
The OP is right about why there is a Pirate’s Week and why it is failing. But you do make a valid point. If one is brought up as a child in a cultural vacuum something as convoluted as this is probably a big deal.
…and if that is so then the joke is really on you and your supporters.
For what does that say about you, your culture and and home countries as you had to emigrate to Cayman for a better life?
Just sayin…
– Who
Well the money was easy and you get paid a lot extra for having to living somewhere that is a cultural wasteland. It is like what you would expect taking a job in Saudi or Indiana.
Thank you for exposing the shallow puddle that is your integrity. Typical of certain “cultures” though. Keep talking, this is all very enlightening.
However, please do us all a favour and do not reproduce…at least not here.
Deuces,
– Who
Oh come buddy, you can do better than that. How about we give you a mulligan and you have another go?
I’m just asking two questions here; I don’t have a dog in this race. We currently tender passengers and even with that, George Town is often crowded with visitors. Is the ability to move more people onshore faster a good thing? Shouldn’t we focus on developing resources/businesses in George Town so the visitors actually have something to DO?
If we are talking Carnival passengers then GT is fine. They come off like cheaply dressed over-weight cattle, eat, spend nothing and leave.
Does “thirty pieces of silver” sound familiar?
Does anyone know how our harbour pilots and qualified and regulated? Or even if they are formally qualified or regulated at all?
We know there is at least one that can’t direct a cruise to a safe anchorage (unless he or she was doing preliminary reef relocation work in anticipation of the cruise dock).
The quality of professional we want to be guiding cruise ships into a dock with other ships about and very little “safe water” to play with if things go a bit (insert your favourite expression here). Can’t happen? Already has, just no other ships about and “only” a bit of coral “relocated”.
I’m not against cruise berthing, but have all the angles been covered by CIG?
Lots of obvious PR drafted spin on here. Starting with phrases like “From what I understand. . ” makes it pretty unsubtle. The donation is cynical and the dock plan is purest evil.
Every day the “likes” move ahead of the “dislikes” then oddly overnight it swings the other way in a few minutes.
A Caymanian port captain drops and drags an anchor destroying a reef and nothing is done about it but destroying some reef for a needed infrastructure is a sin? There should be no pier built and no more cruise money for the one reason that Caymanians do not deserve it. Period.
Do something about it might cost wotes and that is not the PPM way.
Hope you are not trying to say the other evil is better because Mac did nothing about this either.
No they are both awful.
A bit off-topic, but a sincere question for the room as I stand and gaze on the waterfront;
Q. How will the CBF’s impact on our Pirate’s Week and now world-famous family event knows as the Pirate’s Landing in Hog Sty Bay?
Will that area be covered by a massive slab of concrete? Will the brown rock be blasted to smithereens in the process? How will a humongous artificial structure tie-in with our national festivities?
I trust someone can shed some clear light on the issue.
– Who
“World-famous”? Hardly.
Pirate’s week is dying. Check out the hotel occupancy rates for next week – several of the more familiar names are having to do deals to try and fill rooms. As a tourist attraction it’s a waste of time and resources.
Ah boy.
Comments like yours truly reveal the shortsighted and non-integrated mindset of some people.
The fact that you have belittled the importance or relevance of Cayman’s Pirate’s Week (our week of national festivities) to how it translates to our tourism industry and revenue speaks volumes.
You just don’t get it – and most likely simply do not want to get it.
I only trust you have no plans to hang around for very long.
– Who
YOU don’t get it. Pirates Week was an attempt to increase hotel occupancy in this lull period. Lots of people copied the Tampa model. So now it is a cliché.
Cliché, maybe, but it still brings in people. If I wasn’t for pirates week, which is the ‘bait’ for the tourists those discounted rooms you discount are hooking the hotels would have to find something else to entice the catch. Three nights for the price of one, maybe? Its called the slow season for a reason. Full hotels every day of the year is not a right, its a job you have to work at.
More Exaggerations. It all started with 15 acres of coral reef then increased by CNS to 35 acres of coral reef and then a second expert opinion was commissioned to actually carry out a true measurement of the coral at risk and it was 6.9 acres which when the coral density coverage was applied using the DOE coral density declaration of 15-18% average of coral coverage it came to 1.0 acre and when the absolute maximum density is applied from the EIA estimates of 14-30% the highest estimates result equates to 2.04 acres. The truth is 1.0 to 2.0 acres or coral reef in the affected area. There is a moral obligation to report the truth CNS.
Agreed. Fed up hearing this over-hyped ‘significant destruction of coral reefs’ nonsense. The area in from of the port is devoid of reefs and not a problem to build piers that should have been built years ago if not for this type of ignorant reporting.
5.30 CNS generally reports the truth. Kirkbots twist and turn any way they can to avoid the truth about their money and other interests gaining any place in the public eye. It’s sad and pathetic and obvious beyond belief. And that they don’t want a democratic referendum speaks more than words, it speaks of spineless dictatorial double standards.
Amen!
And the acceptable amount of coral destruction is? Is it a number any greater than “1”? (Choose your own units..)
What about the continuous damage that will be done every single time these ships come into Port and put their thrusters on to pull up and leave? All that bottom getting churned up day after day will do more damage to the area than that when they are building it.
Your calculations read like that old joke about how many days a year one actually works.
That donation is probably nothing more than a tax write off to undermine environmental opposition to the dock so it sounds liked Carnival are closing in for the kill here. Whatever, if the dock is to be built partnering with them makes a lot more sense than CIG trying to fund the project.
It was never CIG intentions to fund the piers in the first place, I read and listened in dismay of how uninformed people are on this issue with the port. There have been many official, published information on the port and yet we hear so much propaganda BS.
And yet the whole point of building the pier is supposedly to lure in the Royal Caribbean mega ships, and not more of the low end Carnival traffic, which is what so many of the merchants have been complaining about.
You realize if Carnival builds this you won’t see a dime for the next 30yrs right?
SMH. Token gesture from Carnival. Means nothing. Has no bearing on the issues at hand. No amount of money can ever replace 35 acres of coral reef. Nor does it constitute a binding guarantee from Carnival to bring their megaships to Cayman on a long term, or any basis. The risks and costs still exceed the benefits and any ROI by a long margin.
And once again it’s not 35 acres of coral reef. This is a fantasy number created by someone outside of the official channels. It’s more like 2 acres at most when you look at it properly. The EIA never referenced coral reef but marine habitat when it was talking about where the dock was going to go and most of it is hard pan bottom. Carnival have not been required to offer anything because technically and legally the pilot who placed the anchor there was at fault. Anything they have donated has been voluntary and not a requirement.
PROVE IT
Preservation beats restoration every day.
Oh dear, what callous marketing! $2-300million on a pier destroying tons of coral and instead here’s what amounts to, at best, 0.0375% of that sum on a little gifty-poos so they can tick the “social behavior” box of their multi billion dollar company checklist and point out in future how generous they are. Whoopy do. Presume they are featuring as the main pirates this week???
$75,000. A drop in the bucket really. Compared to the $154M it will cost to build (if not more)!
Let me say that I am not against a cruise berthing facility but I am against any Government who doesn’t have their priorities right. This particular administration always ends up with too many capital projects going on at one time and ironically not one is ever completed.
We have the high schools that are not finished (and by the way have turned out to be a complete failure for the children), a dump that needs to be dealt with like yesterday, no mental health facility (oh, soon come), no trade school (long over-due) and the list goes on and on….
Yet, we have CI$500,000 we sent to the Dominica for relief, 3M which was pulled out of no-where for Ebola preparedness when they were saying “we broke”. DART wanted to buy the dump for CI$60M; that 60 million could have been spent WELL. It could have been a great deal for the Country; all that was needed was a sound contract whereby DART does not have complete control of the waste management facility etc. It all comes down to control……so, who is really in control in Cayman?
This is just like a really bad nightmare and you can’t wake-up from it!
For a company with profits in the hundreds of millions this doesn’t even qualify as a “drop in the ocean”.
“The itinerary planning executives at our various cruise brands that will operate those ships in the future, will consider the availability of piers / berthing facilities as a key element in considering a port or destination, and are unlikely to consider tender ports for such class of vessels”
This has to be fairly obvious to anyone paying attention the trends.
If you want to stay in cruise tourism you have to have piers. Period. Full Stop.
If you want to stay in cruise tourism – there are alternatives.
Like what the sky cart joke?
We don’t want to stay in cruise tourism then.
Thanks 1.24. We don’t want a cruise industry.
I am deeply concerned about many negative impacts of the cruise industry, including that caused each week by a massive influx of cruise passengers, and the potential destruction of the reefs if a dock is built. On the other hand, I remember the months following Hurricane Ivan, when our air arrival tourism product was practically wiped out overnight, and took a year or more to recover, while cruise ships resumed their calls within a few weeks. I also remember the eerie silence after 9/11 when air arrivals came to a halt due to terrorism concerns.
It is not always wise to put all your eggs in one basket.
then the more important question is how do we find jobs for the people. there are 500-600 graduating each year. maybe we can feed them coral
Try getting your government to invest its money in educating your children and preparing them for work in the first place, rather than wasting yet more money on futile projects such as this, and subsidizing the Cayman Turtle Farm. Jeezam the pure fact that your government consider these things more important speaks volumes, and the fact that so many locals continue to support them just proves where people’s REAL priorities lie – and that is in GREED and greed alone.
You are obviously unaware that the cruise ship passenger head taxes help fund the schools! If we start to lose cruise ships because we refuse to build piers then our education system will suffer even more!
From what I understand this is in addition to about $100k that was already donated a year or so ago by Carnival towards the Reef restoration in Grand Cayman.
Who-bloody-hoo, all hail flicking Carnival!
For the reef they damaged with their anchor! Nowhere near enough as we all know
So… They’re pushing to dredged and destroy the same reefs they donated money to restore? Make your mind up Carnival! Also, Clean up your act and stop pumping raw sewage into the environment!
Laughable, butter up the Marine Institute on a completely different Island to make yourself feel better with regards to the acres and years of prolonged damage that will be done on this Islands with the current port project. Give it back to Carnival please, 75K doesn’t even come close to paying for previous or the projected damage.
And don’t forget of course denying any and all liability for dropping the Carnival Magic anchor on a previously very nice piece of reef outside the George Town Port Anchorage. I believe with acts like that donations like this are called greenwashing. But good for CCMI for getting some of their money; its got to go somewhere it might as well come here.
But they haven’t paid to repair the reef that their ship damaged?