Little Cayman is ‘national treasure’, says Premier
(CNS): Premier and Minister of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency Wayne Panton, who has officially endorsed the community-led nomination for Little Cayman to become a UNESCO World Heritage site, described the island as a national treasure. Thanking everyone involved in the bid, the premier said the existing protections on the island had helped in getting the island onto the UK’s nomination list.
In 2021, following many years of research and public consultation, the Cayman Islands
expanded its Marine Protected Areas around all three Cayman Islands to take account of
current and emerging threats to the country’s marine resources. Little Cayman now has 74.2% of its shallow shelf protected, from the water’s edge to 45 metres deep.
The protected areas also include the marine-associated coastal ponds, the Booby Pond Nature Reserve and Rookery RAMSAR site, the East Interior and the unique Tarpon Lake ecosystem.
“Visitors to Little Cayman, the smallest and most undeveloped of our three islands, often
remark that arriving on its pristine shores is like stepping back in time,” Paton said this week as he commented on the successful effort to have Little Cayman nominated for the prestigious status. “Birdwatchers visit the hemisphere’s largest breeding populations of red-footed boobies at the Booby Pond Nature Reserve and Rookery RAMSAR site, while divers and snorkelers admire coral reefs teeming with life.”
Panton said that Little Cayman holds special significance for him personally and he was proud of the part the government, the ministry and colleagues in the Department of Environment have played in establishing and managing these marine protected areas that qualify Little Cayman’s extraordinary Marine Protected Areas for consideration for World Heritage Status.
“Ensuring the continued protection of the coral reefs, marine-associated coastal ponds and other marine ecosystems around Little Cayman benefit all who call the Cayman Islands home and those who travel from around the world to visit our country,” the premier said.
“I would like to thank the community of Little Cayman, particularly Peter Hillenbrand who championed this nomination, as well as the UK Government and the World Heritage Committee for their strong consideration of this application for World Heritage status for Little Cayman’s Marine Protected Areas, which I fully support.”
Panton added, “Having our Marine Protected Areas in Little Cayman ratified through international recognition as prestigious as a World Heritage designation, even on the Tentative List, is something everyone in the Cayman Islands can be extremely proud of. Little Cayman is a national treasure that will only continue to thrive under such a positive international spotlight, particularly as it identifies conservation of sites with special significance to all of humanity.”
From a tourism perspective, the process will increase the profile of Little Cayman and attract more visitors, especially divers. But securing the UNESCO tag will secure the island’s future free of inappropriate development.
DoE Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie reflected on how Cayman’s Marine Protected Areas laid the foundations for current and future conservation efforts and the role local people played in securing them.
“The UNESCO announcement highlights decades of conservation work across all three of our islands,” she said. “Marine Protected Areas were first explored in the mid-eighties because fishers noticed changes in their catch, so it’s really the public who initiated and helped steer the original protections into what we have today.
“It is only with the public’s support of conservation measures, and the care and respect shown for all of nature, that Cayman’s unique species and ecosystems may continue to flourish,” she added.
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Category: Marine Environment, Science & Nature
On my last visit to Little Cayman I visited the Public Dump. It is a total disgrace to what we all perceive is a “Paradise”. I have pictures that I sent to the Cayman Compass that were never published. Perhaps, CNS can visit and see for themselves. Something must be done immediately or in 20 years time we will have a “Little Mount Trashmore”!
Throw it all on Owen Island I say.
Telling us what we already know mr Panton is exactly what ? Questions is when you have the Minister and his chief officer who are basically environmental pirates doing as they like and undermining their own people who employ and elected them for their own benefit and that of their political and financial sponsors . What exactly are you going to do about it ?? if what is going here in Grand Cayman is any example Your “Little Cayman” is DOOMED !! Take pictures now because the destructive and drastic changes and transformation is inevitable and will be irreversible .
Speaking of national treasure: why has the PACT “transparency” regime taken down the gazettes.gov.ky legislation server? All our laws, regulations, amendments and LA business pointing to dead hyperlinks and effectively vanished.
https://legislation.gov.ky/cms/#
We didnt have to wait for this nomination to protect Little Cayman Wayne! You have the power buddy, you cold have issued new regulations and laws all on your own, but clearly you do not have the political power to do it because your Cabinet is a shambles and as told to me by several ministers, you are merely a fighre head, chosen because of your status in high society and sadly skin colour. Yes I said it and yes they said it too me and many others. Sad Sad state of affairs, we are still living on the plantation.
Just sell the place to Carnival and move on.
Sadly, it’s inevitable that Little will be chewed up and changed forever. Genuinely the only part of Cayman that is truly picture postcard.
The one thing I suggest that might preserve some of its soul and character, is if the CIG get their act together and install planning zones so it can’t be unfettered rampant destruction. But what does this Expat know. God speed.
Mr Premier please tell the public how much property you own there.
Tooting you’re horn when it’s convenient whilst destroying grand cayman for the highest developer. Cayman is no longer the place where time has been forgotten, it has become a little Miami, New York with a dash Cuba and Jamaica mixed in. So many asphalt laid in 10 years that only allowed for more development and longer congestions both mornings and evenings. No alternatives but to sit in traffic wasting time and life in a car. Sustainability Premier Panton? Lets make it right, place a moratorium on development, limit the population to the now 80,000 to allow for the island to catch up including the natural resources, sort the dump out, give Caymanian opportunities in the work place (every PR approved takes bread out of Caymanian mouth) and for God’s sake provide some reasonable housing for Caymanians.
Jay Ebanks is the minister responsible for PLANNING and the decisions made (some people gotta go for the changes you lookin for), also responsible for ROADS + TRANSPORT (lots projects happening same time and the peeps cryin for public transport) and yup he does HOUSING too (planned gotta build it). Da chief officer is Eric Bush, maybe start your moaning there!
Enjoy your time, you are a 4 year Premier. Disappointing to say the least. Try get us to an election so we can place someone there that cares about Caymnaians.
3 years max.
The contrast between soaring property sales and community discontent has become a point of national conversation, recognized by Premier Wayne Panton. In brief, colloquial terms, “Cayman gone,” Panton told Parliament in late November, parroting a common local lament.
“The warning signs have been there and we chose to balm it over with temporary relief. Too many of our people are facing a growing crisis. Too many cannot cope, let alone adapt. Too many are getting left behind,” Panton said.
“Housing and land prices have soared out of reach for most Caymanians, including our well-educated, young professionals … A growing number of Caymanians feel anxious and marginalized and at times unwelcome in their own homeland,” Panton added.
https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2022/01/cayman-foreign-investors-identity-crisis/
Solid posting until the entitlement ending. Change the culture and improve the education systems to create a sustainable workforce.
The only problem with Dart is he should of built Camana Bay in the middle of the Central Mangrove. If he had done that we would be having any traffic issues. He could of made all the beaches for a mile into private beaches for tourists.
There are many problems with Dart and similar vulture capitalists as social infrastructure partners. It never works.
8:14 am…wa ya jealous o wa? you ga be a caymanian…lol…boy i love ridin in tha boat…he worked hard all life…why not enjoy!
Plenty of people work hard all their life.
A National Treasure being circled by local developer vultures.
Don’t let it happen?
How?
This is what the EPF was created for.
EPF paper tiger.
Fantasy Island soon come
A national treasure owned by others.
dart owns most of it….sad!
Caymanians sold it.
The PPM government gifted Dart hundreds of acres of crown land. For what?!?
No they didn’t.
Yes they did. Read the NRA Agreements. Dart was gift-wrapped hundreds of acres of crown land including Safehaven for less than $50k per full acre, even as neighboring Crystal Harbour was selling at $250k per 0.25 acre. The Soto lands and other parcels allowed them to e circle public beach. For their part they had to loosely supervise construction of ETH with our own money. Cayman lost on every line item.
They must have been pinching themselves in disbelief. I guess that’s what happens when business people (dodgy or not) come up against amateurs in CIG.
Not a gift by any definition.
So they weren’t gifted anything then. Appreciate the clarification.
Yo, we’re not allowed to talk about that.
We prefer to blame others. It’s definitely not the Caymanian families that have made millions from selling land to the devil furriners nor is it the corrupt Caymanian MLAs we vote in. No sah!
More waffle from Waiver Wayne. Empty words!
In 10 years time, LC will be just another ruined part of the Cayman Islands. The ONLY thing that matters is the mighty dollar.
Once the island’s biggest most powerful developer decides he wants to do something their, the government will just say – “yes my boss”. All this is showboating and election talk, money rules all in Cayman Islands.
Agreed. The land there is not protected & greedy developers seek to build monstrosities wrecking the very nature of LC.
Shacks in the sea!
And sharks on land!
Wayne, it’s such a National Treasure that Peppercorn Investments (Matthew Wight, Naul Bodden and another environmental liability-fleeing USA Billionnaire, William Maines) were able to successfully submit plans for a KYD$34 million resort on stilts in Kingston Bight, a DOE Marine Reserve where there is no anchoring or taking of marine life. Permission was granted by the Sister Islands DCB early last year only to be overturned at Planning Appeals Tribunal, by heroic intervening petitioners. Instead of accepting that October 2022 decision and/or doing the right thing, the CPA have weighed-in to recommend that the DCB do the opposite and appeal this reasonable PAT decision for the benefit of these three determined National Treasure destroyers. They can’t even spell UNESCO.
sooner or later the developers will get their way just like on Grand Cayman. What a shame.
Why should they?
Money, money, money, money, MONEY!
Spread around the money and lots of strange things happen!
Well done for misleading the general public when you clearly either didn’t read or didn’t understand that the PAT were only able to send this back to DCB because they didn’t include a couple of inconsequential and nonsensical DoE conditions that make no valid difference to the application being approved (there being no LEGAL reasons in the Planning Regulations to refuse it – UNFORTUNATELY).
People need to ask the Premier when there will be some much needed changes to the Planning Regulations. Until then, the CPA and DCB Boards have limited legal power to curtail this unnecessary pace of development. He’s had over 2 years under this new ‘Sustainability’ ministry to stop talking the talk and back it up with action.
Since the 1990s, a proportion of departure taxes has been set aside for the creation of a segregated Environmental Protection Fund. From 2013 until mid 2020, the PPM refused to activate the NCC and used this as their off-balance sheet regime cookie jar. Today’s National Conservation Council has not published Annual Reports for 2020 and 2022, and in the best years does not publish full Balance Sheet or Income Statement financials, including the material status of the carried forward balance in our Environmental Protection Fund. This is not “Transparency” Wayne – it sows distrust. The public deserves better than this.
https://conservation.ky/annual-reports-2/
Use some of those funds to plant trees and landscape our roadways rather than leaving weed infested scars across the island with much wider than necessary road right-of-ways. South Sound road used to be a beautiful and quaint 2 lane, 30mph road. Now it’s an ugly gash of a 100’+ ROW and still 2 lanes and 30mph. Why? Bigger is not always better. 2 lanes is still 2 lanes. If you are going to clear and destroy nature, at least have the intelligence to do the last 5 % of the job and landscape it.
You missed the point, but go off…
Singapore has impressive landscaping. Something to aspire for.
He says as he cruises over on his 65′ diesel guzzling Hatteras.
#sustainabilitycaymanstyle
LOL. So true!!
Someone is jealous.
Someone is very wrong.
Hmmm, somehow me thinks you really nah give a damn about the environment with your comment