Election for the environment
Candy Whicker writes: Cayman truly is a jewel: our beaches, our wetlands, our mangroves, our undisturbed green spaces, our coral reefs, underwater world and our wildlife on land and in the sea – all valuable beyond measure. All of these are perfectly balanced by nature and together they keep our air clean, filter our waters, protect us from flooding and storm surge, provide a habitat for our wildlife and pollinate our plants.
This very necessary biodiversity allows us all to live healthy lives on this island. But all of this is under threat. As the pace of development continues to race upwards, little by little our natural world is slowly being destroyed and is losing this essential balance.
Our beautiful Seven Mile Beach is being eroded, our wetlands are being drained, our land and mangroves are being cleared and as if this self-inflicted damage wasn’t bad enough, sea pollution and climate change are making things worse.
We all need to pay attention to this, because if we don’t stand up and start protecting our island it will become over developed, over populated and our natural spaces and wildlife, which are essential to our existence, will die – and so eventually will we.
I believe that Cayman is truly at a tipping point.
I despair at our poor environmental record and seeming blindness when it comes to our need to protect the natural world. I was very disappointed about how deaf our government was to the electorate on the Port issue, so much so that it took a court challenge from the people to halt the project. I am also truly dismayed by future plans to continue pushing for large-scale development and population growth.
The ever-higher wall of concrete which continues to creep along our beautiful Seven Mile Beach has all but eroded the beach south of the Dart properties. I walked the beach the other day and saw no decent setbacks, very few trees and just towering walls of concrete, nearly all offered as daily/weekly rentals.
None of this development benefits the average Caymanian. The very last part of wild SMB is on the brink of being developed by the Dart group and I know that they often do sympathetic, careful development and that they own the land and have every right to do this, but it just feels so completely wrong.
We should have tried to conserve this last wild bit of our most beautiful beach for future Caymanians. Think how thankful they would have been if we had, how they and their descendants would still be able to race up and down that final mile of natural beach and shelter in the shade of sea grape trees rather than being overshadowed by tower blocks full of wealthy visitors.
Once that is gone, all we will be left with is the rather tawdry Public Beach area which will soon once again be choked by rows of tired loungers, higglers, huge plastic toys in the water and overrun by tourists. Maybe 500ft left out of 5 miles? It breaks my heart.
As a very minimum we need to do the following:
- Implement the National Planning Framework which is a top-down development plan for the island which assesses the effects of all development as a whole, district by district, rather than simply approving individual developments in isolation as is done currently. This framework should adhere to modern planning legislation, allow neighbourhood input and take into account sensible projected population growth and climate change. Some work has been done on this under the Plan Cayman initiative but it must be put into action as soon as possible and no major planning applications should be granted until it is.
- Insist that our Department of the Environment is given the authority to act and enforce the planning and conservation laws. Developers need to be properly controlled so that they stop running roughshod over the rules: ignoring setbacks, clearing flora unnecessarily, destroying mangroves, and polluting surrounding areas with cement dumping, silt and construction trash.
- Remove the power from our CPA Board to greenlight any project that breaches our planning or conservation law, as is currently the case. This power makes a complete mockery of having any laws or regulations at all. In addition, the makeup of the CPA Board should be balanced to include members with relevant qualifications and experience in environmental impact, not just individuals commercially involved in development as is currently the case.
- Extend our natural areas even further and protect them properly, especially our Central Wetlands and Marine zones. Barkers beach is an area loved by many which should be extended and properly protected from any development in the future – not threatened with a tourist beach bar and turtle grass removal. Children need wild green spaces to play and hide in – not just little neighborhood parks. Every district should have access to wild spaces.
- Our coral reefs are struggling and fish stocks are historically low; it is in all our interest to allow these to regenerate. The whole of Little Cayman should be declared a marine zone – it is by far our most valuable underwater asset and should be protected accordingly.
It is wonderful to see so many of our young people standing up and advocating for the Environment and we owe them our full support. It is up to all of us to insist that our elected representatives take action on all this now, before it is too late.
We have a good choice of excellent candidates who have declared that they will stand up for our environment. So please choose a candidate who prioritizes the health of our precious natural world, alongside cost of living, education and healthcare, because these are the people who genuinely care about Cayman and her future generations.
Whoever you choose to vote for and whoever wins, I hope you will join me in keeping up the pressure and letting our MPs know that this continued destruction of the environment must cease if the island is to remain a healthy place for us all to live – with balanced flora, fauna, green space and biodiversity. Only our will, strong laws and planned, sustainable development will achieve this.
Category: Viewpoint & Analysis
The people have spoken – they want skyscrapers and condominiums island wide. Who cares if we have to sit in traffic for 4 hours every day – there is money to be made! Cayman showed its true colors yesterday – it’s all about the money.
Thanks Candy for taking the time to compose such a well written and meaningful article at a privotal time in the history of Cayman.
And on that note, it is great to see this younger generation of Caymanians trying to stand up to the destruction of our environment.
The generation of those in government don’t seem to place much importance on our environment. Why does it always seem like it’s only the “Driftwood” of that generation that cares the most about our environment?
He has bought huge chunks of the most attractive beach land and other oceanfront properties and businesses.
He has done The same on the Brac including a hotel., the Power company and more.
Can’t stand him.
What you call “destruction of the environment” is sadly a necessary aspect of revenue generation and entrepreneurial progress which the next generation will need to feed themselves.
I appreciate the well intentioned preachings of ladies who live in their cushioned thrones of material success, but ask that now that they have theirs, be understanding of others who aspire to the same comforts.
Many thanks for your response.
I do understand that younger generations aspire to acquiring wealth and with hard work there are still many ways that they can, without affecting the environment. The flaw in seeing development as a ‘necessary aspect of revenue generation to feed yourself’ is that once every inch of Cayman has been developed how will people eat? You can’t continue to rely on a limited resource to generate revenue because one day it will run out.
We are far better off protecting the health and beauty of our environment by keeping green spaces and instead putting our energies into creating revenue from things like services, technology and the arts, which do not.
We must educate our young well and send the brightest of them out into the world so that they bring innovation back to Cayman and not rely on old, flawed ways to generate wealth.
Thank you for your reasoned response, the major flaw being that whilst we wait for them to “bring innovation back to Cayman”, they have to have food, shelter and employment…
Thank you for the courtesy of revealing who you are, and as they say in Jamaica…”Stone on river bottom don’t feel sun hot.”
Stand strong young Caymanians. I see you at the polls in numbers. Today is your day
Hear hear! Well said Candy!
It’s time for Alden and his bunch to go they are now destroying the very things that made Cayman unique and attractive.we simply cannot sustain him and Joey hew’s big developers building boom onslaught and war against our environment .Cayman voters the choice is yours ?
While we are at it, can we put forward legislation that will protect the Sister Islands for future Caymanians. There are very few, or no, accessible Caribbean Islands left like Little Cayman, but overdevelopment, overfishing, and over crowding could happen on our little paradise very quickly. The Sister Islands have NO development plan of any kind.
Dart has already started over there
Started what and where?
He has bought huge chunks of the most attractive beach land and other oceanfront properties and businesses.
He has done The same on the Brac including a hotel., the Power company and more.
It’s true. Our overlord has begun the Dartification of the Sister Islands, soon to be made over in his image.
No single entity or company should ever have been allowed to purchase as much property as he has. Do we just allow any superrich person to come here and buy up everything? Yes, apparently so, and while many things Mr. Dart builds are well-constructed, more and more our beautiful islands are becoming his personal playground.
Dont allow yourself to be unduly distracted by Dart. It’s the Cayman government which needs to get a grip, voters need to put pressure on Our new MPs to step up protection of the natural environment. What we have left.
I hope cayman wont be known or tagged as the most traffic country in the Carribean by a leading trip advisor that future visitors might be swayed away with this beautiful islands.
Nicely Done Ms Candy!!!
Hope our future MP read today’s piece.
Cayman isn’t even close to the most congested. Try St. Maarten or Trinidad, just to name two.
Well said Candy! It’s time to ease off the gas and include future Caymanians in the equation. I’m also supporting candidates who truly care about leaving a healthy environment for our descendants to enjoy and profit from. Who will want to visit, let alone live here if we end up like Hong Kong? For one issue, I know we can restore our reef fish if we just find the political and social will. I’m happy to report that, for the first time in my experience we’re hearing similar talk from a whole lot of the candidates regarding not only the perceptibly more glaring issues, but also the natural, renewable (if used sustainably) environment. Wild food is one of God’s wonderful provisions for the benefit of all. Good stewardship is all He asks of us in return. A day may well come when we really, really need it if some cataclysm should ever halt our food shipments. A Reef Fish Restoration Initiative can be one big step toward creating a strategic national food reserve, nearly cost free that would also ensure that Caymanians can continue to catch dinner (more easily than now) and our stay-over tourism product will shine above all others. As they are today, our reefs are a ghost town due primarily to over-fishing. I have a plan posted on my FB page that eliminates expats, limits the number of fish per day and pays for enhanced enforcement. It also provides for the few who still sell fish from our reefs and ensures our fishing charter operators can still guide visitors for hook-and-release reef fishing. What Caymanian would argue against the immense value of this for the better future of Cayman? Many of the candidates are already on board.
“They own the land and have every right to do this.” Constitutional, legal and ethical bounds say this is not so. Turn inalienability on its head – who will accept land that has been deprived of any future value to support life itself.