Ecology Update

Tourists Are Destroying Their Caribbean Paradise

This time of year, North Americans and Europeans flock to the island nations in the Caribbean Sea for carefree moments in the sun and sand. They are contributing to the demise of the region.

Tourism is the fastest-growing industry in much of the Caribbean, but it carries a dear price. On island after island, mangrove swamps have been destroyed to make way for beachfront hotels.

Mangrove trees grow in standing salt water, thus creating an incubator-like habitat for sea life, birds and land creatures. The destruction of this habitat reduces not only the fishery but the region's biodiversity as well.

As cruise liners increase in popularity, the problems intensify. The average liner carrying 1200 passengers creates 3000 tons of garbage during a week-long cruise. It is common practice to dump the refuse overboard, and recent estimates put the cruise-ship waste discharge in the Caribbean at an annual average of 1500 tons. This waste discharge is destroying fish and coral reefs.

Hotels are also pumping sewage into the sea, further destroying coral. Besides serving as another habitat for the area's fisheries, the coral reefs protect the very beaches where the tourists go to sun-worship. The resulting beach erosion will eventually diminish tourism. And in cases where tourism accounts for one-third of the gross national product, as in Barbados, the outlook for the local population is grim indeed.

The locals are creating their own share of problems, too. Industries on some islands are responsible for polluting the environment with a variety of hazardous wastes from distilleries, power stations and textiles plants.

An even greater potential for calamity in the Caribbean stems from shipping practices. An estimated five-million barrels of oil are transported through the region daily. Oil constitutes 62 percent of Venezuela's export earnings and is the major export for Trinidad and Tobago. The refineries in Aruba are important employers.

As is true in all the global seas, the Caribbean suffers from heavily-polluting daily operations of oil transporters, which include draining bilges and washing tanks. Oil spills meanwhile decimate coral reefs, fisheries, water fowl and beaches. The 1979 spill off the coast of Tobago gutted the tourist industry in the surrounding area for two years. But many of the small island nations do not have the appropriate technology for oil spill clean-up. The fish, birds, mammals and shellfish of the region all show signs of exposure to petroleum.

Hazardous waste is regularly shipped into the Caribbean. Poor island governments can make money by agreeing to accept unwanted waste from their larger and wealthier neighbors. Garbage and incinerator ash barges from the U.S. are commonly spotted heading for the Caribbean.

An average month in the Caribbean will see 178 cargo ships passing through, many via the Panama Canal. In 1993, the cargo included 1.7 tons of plutonium traveling from France to Japan.

Nature's Threat-Even if we could successfully stem the tide of human destruction, natural disasters would still prove devastating. The enormous damages caused by hurricanes Gilbert, Hugo and, more recently, Luis and Marilyn have undermined island economies. Unfortunately, as global warming increases, the intensity of the storms will increase as well.

Then, too, as the greenhouse effect raises sea levels, the islands will erode.

Consensus regarding regional management practices is difficult to attain among the Caribbean's patchwork of independent nations, colonies, holdings and unincorporated territories. Yet these small islands in this small sea are grappling with the same problems that are now facing the entire world. In fact, the region's compact size allows it to serve as a magnifying glass for the planet's future.

It was the 41-member organization known as AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States, that led the battle for reduction of carbon dioxide emissions at last year's World Climate Conference. AOSIS recognizes the need to stem global warming in order to insure the survival of its members, as well as of humanity itself.

Meanwhile, some Caribbean states are striving to expand their economies beyond tourism and are working toward environmental solutions. Barbados is spending $50 million for sewage treatment and to repair coral reefs. The Grand Cayman Islands and Bonaire have joined to create protected areas where dumping is banned, and some cruise lines have promised not to discharge in some of these areas.

London, March 8, Admiral Fergus O'Kelley, the Admiral-President of the Government of the Country of Oceanus, today decried the use of the global ocean seas for exercises of war.

"The dangerous war games and posturing between nation-states using our precious oceans is deplorable," O'Kelley told reporters. "The health and safety of the global ocean seas determines the health of the entire planet. When individual nation-states use the seas for nuclear testing, live-ammunition military exercises or even practice maneuvers, they threaten the welfare of our precious atmosphere."

O'Kelley is the third elected Admiral-President of Oceanus Government which manages the common assets of all peoples, the global ocean seas. Established constitutionally in 1970, Oceanus recognizes all people as its citizens with a right to participate in the governing process to protect the global oceans as the common heritage of all.

The press conference was precipitated by two concurring threats to the planet's seas: Chinese and American military activities. It was recently announced that recent American military practice exercises off the coast of Florida appear to have resulted in the death of five whales. The Chinese have been test-detonating weapons off the coast of Taiwan. Last summer the French government used the southern Pacific Ocean to test nuclear weapons.

"The abuses of our sovereign domains by nation-states demonstrates their outdated laissez-faire attitudes toward the seas and blatant disregard of the common heritage of all as constitutionally declared by the Government of the Country of Oceanus," O'Kelley said. He urged all Oceanus citizens to register protests in their resident nation-states. "Continuation of this type of activity will precipitate an environmental crises the likes of which are beyond the imagination," O'Kelley warned. "If we do not act now to protect our seas, the next generation's children will not be able to survive on this planet."

(Find more information about Oceanus on the Internet at http://www.netins.net/showcase/birchbark/oceanus/oceanus.htm.)