ISLAND RESOURCES FOUNDATION Caribbean H ead:tjuarters 6296 ESTATE NAZARETH NO. II, ST. THOMAS U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS 00802-1104 TEL: (809) 775-6225 • FAX: (809) 779-2022 THE ISLAND MICROCOSM BY EDWARD L. TOWLE PRESIDENT ISLAND RESOURCES FOUNDATION Prepared Under Contract To The U.S. National Park Service . Washington, D. C. Office 1718 P STREET. N.W .. SUITE T4 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20036 (202) 265·9712 (For the U.S. Agency for Int~rnat;onal Development) Contract No. CX-OOOl-3-0048 Order No. PX-OOOl-3-0499 April 1984 EXTRACT "THE ISLAND MICROCOSM" By: Dr. Edward L. Towle, President Island Resources Foundation 6296 Estate Nazareth No. 11 St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 00802-1104 Originally Published In: COASTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: DEVELOPMENT CASE STUDIES Renewable Resources Information Series Coastal Management Publication No.3 John R. Clark, Editor Prepared By: Research Planning Institute, Inc. Columbia, South Carolina For: U.S. National Park Service and U.S. Agency for International Development March 1985 ISLA,NDS:·FUTURE AND PAST In the event of a nuclear Armageddon, islands may well be mankind's only hope for a future as the continents will be uninhabitable. (Anonymous, 1984) The sea has long dominated the history of the Virgin Islands. It has, until the advent of the air age, been the only route to the outside. It has also been a constant source of food and recreation. The threshold to the sea that surrounds us is the shore- line. The shorelines of the Virgin Islands have in the past been used freely by all residents and visi- tors alike. The seashore has been a place of recre- ~tion, of meditation, of physical therapy and of rest to Virgin Islanders, past and present. To fish- ermen the sea and its shores are a way of life. The second· half of the twentieth century has brought ad- verse changes to the Virgin Islands shorelines. There has been uncontrolled and uncoordinated development of this area. (Open Shorelines Act, Title 12 of the U.S. Virgin Islands . Code, 1972) The tidal wave devours the shore There are no islands any more. (Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1940) In everything, respect the genius of the place. (Alexander Pope, Essays ~~, 1733) CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Continental Perspectives on.Islands 1.2 Contemporary Pressures on Islands Systems: An Overview 1.3 Study Objectives 1.4 Antecedent Methodological Considerations 1.5 Case Study Methodological Design 2 • STATEME NT OF THE PROBLEM 2.1 Dimensional Considerations: The.Universe of Islands 2.2 Definitional and Conceptual Considerations 2.3 The "Island System" Concept 2.4 Understanding the Difference ·3. INSULAR SYSTEMS; CLASSIFICATION AND CHARACTERISTICS 3.1 The Taxonomy Problem .. 3.2 Classification Appro~ches 3.3 Classifying Islands as Laboratories: The Ecosystem Model 3.4 Changes in Focus: Islands As A "Special Case" ' 4. THE CARIBBEAN REGION: EXAMPLES AND LESSONS 4.1 Rodney Bay Development~ St~ L~cia (1968-1984) 4.2 Virgin Islands Mangrove Lagoon (1967-1984) 4.3 ECNAMP: A Regional NGO/PVO Parti~ipatory Planning Approach 5. THE PACIFIC ISLAND REALM: EXAMPLES AND LESSONS 5.1 Regional Overview . 5.2 Fiji: The Regional Center 5.3 Fiji and the Coastal Zone 5.4 Center-Periphery Questions (The U~SCO/MAB Fiji Project) 5.5 The CCOP/SOPAC Regional Coastal Zone Strategy for Islands 6. TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS 6.1 Island Vulnerability: The Search for A Model 6.2 Coastal and Marine Resources: An Island Dilemma 6.3 The Economic Significance of Island Coastal/Marine Resources 6.4 Island Coastal Resource Planning 7. SYNTHESIS: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE 7.1 The Island Puzzle 7.2 The Island Ecosystem Paradigm 7.3 Towards A New Paradigm 8. LESSONS LEARNED 8.1 Islands As Unique 8.2 Limitations to the Island Microcosm Concept 8.3 Limitations to the Insular Coastal Zone Concept 8.4 Technical Limits and Options 9. GUIDELINES LITERATURE CITED SUMMARY This study is concerned with the coastal resources of smaller, offshore developing island systems. Perspectives on the nature, con- straints, and implications of "insularity" are interwoven within an analysis of the extensive literature on islands of all types. Classi- fication strategies regarding the island universe are reviewed, as is the possible instructional use of detailed studies of "island microcosms" as models for comprehension of larger, more complex continental eco- systems. A major conclusion is that smaller oceanic islands are suffi- ciently different from continental areas to require customized, carefully adapted, and more participatory kinds of resource assessment, planning, development and management strategies, especially since islands tend to . be far more dependent on coastal and marine resour~es than continental . . ' .. . . .. countries. Examples of island system gains and losses from the environ- mental impacts of poorly planned, externally initiated development projects are presented. Summaries are given of successful "model" approaches to island coastal resource assessment, planning and manage- mente The analysis examines the vulnerability, dependency, stability, and ecological integrity of islands, principally within the context of ex- ternally induced, rapidly implemented, and sometimes inappropriately scaled and designed development initiatives that are often stimulated by outside interests and factors. The significance of island coastal zones and the use of their marine resources~ along with the evolving theories . and practices of resource management, are reviewed. An attempt is made to analyze and document the way in which insular systems respond to stress and their .customarily very short list of 'true options. Study findings suggest the need for serious modifications of stan- dard continental approaches to coastal resource management if they are to be applied to tropical islands. CONTENTS l. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Continental Perspectives on Islands 1.2 Contemporary Pressures on Islands Systems: An Overview 1.3 Study Objectives 1.4 Antecedent Methodological Considerations 1.5 Case Study Methodological Design 2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 2.1 Dimensional Considerations: The Universe of Islands 2.2 Definitional and Conceptual Considerations 2.3 The "Island System" Concept 2.4 Understanding the Difference 3. INSULAR SYSTEMS: CLASSIFICATION AND CHARACTERISTICS 3.1 The Taxonomy Problem 3.2 Classification Approaches 3.3 Classifying Islands as Laboratories: The Ecosystem Model 3.4 Changes in Focus: Islands As A "Special Case" 4. THE CARIBBEAN REGION: EXAMPLES AND LESSONS 4.1 Rodney Bay Development, St. Lucia (1968-1984) 4.2 Virgin Islands Mangrove Lagoon (1967-1984) 4.3 ECNAMP: A Regional NGO/PVO Participatory Planning Approach 5. THE PACIFIC ISLAND REALM: EXAMPLES AND LESSONS 5.1 Regional Overview 5.2 Fiji: The Regional Center 5.3 Fiji and the Coastal Zone 5.4 Center-Periphery Questions (The UNE'SCO/MAB Fiji Project) 5.5 The CCOP/SOPAC Regional Coastal Zone Strategy for Islands 6. TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS 6.1 Island Vulnerability: The Search for A Model 6.2 Coastal and Marine Resources: An Island Dilemma 6.3 The Economic Significance of Island Coastal/Marine Resources 6.4 Island Coastal Resource Planning 7. SYNTHESIS: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE 7.1 The Island Puzzle 7.2 The Island Ecosystem Paradigm 7.3 Towards ANew Paradigm 8. LESSONS LEARNED 8.1 Islands As Unique 8.2 Limitations to the Island Microcosm Concept 8.3 Limitations to the Insular Coastal Zone Concept 8.4 Technical Limits and Options 9. GUIDELINES LITERATURE CITED 1 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Continental Perspectives on Islands In man's imagination, islands have always been lands of promise--prom- ises of escape from the mundane to 'high adventure or an unknown delight. . . Sir Thomas More located Utopia on an island in mythical seas. For those .. .. . . '. . ... who live on continents, the greatest attraction ~f the world's oceanic islands is their detachment~ both from the mainland and from mainland routines. Crossing water to reach an island becomes a symbolic act of . .. leaving behind too familiar activities and unsolved problems. Islands can be fun. They tickle the imagination; they conjure up fantasies and dreams. They are wonderful places to visit, to study, to . . '. . . poke about, and to write about. They are also fun to read about (remem- . . . . . ~ ber Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Fatili1yRobinson by Wyss, . . Goldings' Lord of the Flies, Hemingway's Islands in the·Stream and . . Melville's Typee, among others). Tourists by the tens of millions search for them and artists and writers retreat to them, while ocean-going . . - . . ~ .. . . . . ~ yachtsmen and cruise ship passengers collect them as log or diary entries, and natural scientists and anthropologists find them ideal "mini-labora- . . . . . tories"--neat, clean, comprehensible and Eden-like, with endemic, symbolic "apples" ripe for academic picking from the insular tree of .. knowledge! A genuine discovery perhaps awaits the intrepid island investigator. However, not everyone cares for islands. There are at least two that Napoleon was not happy with (recall his: " ••• able was I ere I saw .. Elba"!), and Papillon could have done without his private room on that . . . . special green island in the sun off the coast of South America. Columbus, too, was displeased when he found that islands had an annoying habit of getting in his way en route to Cathay. . . Similarly, larger, continental nations do not really appreciate them because they are so small and "clutter up" the United Nations and other international fora; the UN, in turn, has often found islands a trouble- . . some lot, pleading special case circumstances, isolation factors, and smallness as a disadvantage and arguing they are "different"~ . . . Nevertheless, with a few exceptions, islands remain a source of en- 2 joyment available to everyone, especially since there are so many of them --500,000 "islands, isles and islets" according to the U.S~ Department of State (Hodgson, 1973)--seemingly enough to go around to meet every- . '" . . one's fantasies and dreams of paradise, for exploration, studYj or escape. But things are not quite that simple--ask any islander about these continental perspectives on his or her insular home for a contrary point of view! The flippancy of the above paragraphs is deliberate because it . '" . . . reflects the often equally flippant, if not frivolous and ~ong-headed perspective of many continental people regarding the nature of islands. . . . .. . How, they question in a condescending manner, can a small vacation spot in the middle of the ocean or even along a coastline be a "country"? A Club Med, yes; exotic, idyllic~ nostalgic, backward~ traditional~ remote, . . yes. But a real country, a full-fledged nation--impossible! To a large degree, smaller oceanic and coastal islands have been traditionally perceived by continental peoples as interesting but only .. .. '" . - .' satellite appendages, frontier outposts~ or recreational sites. Whether colonial, territorial, or even politically independent, most smaller . . .. . islands are viewed by continental powers as marginally valuable and . . marginally viable--as difficult, but exploitable geographical hybrids. Islands of all types (coastal, oceanic or grouped as an archipelago) have, therefore, historically been treated in,a cavalier, even callous, . . . manner and have frequently been administered with general disregard for . . .. . the "niceties" of prevalent democratic theory, political morality, social ',.. . .. ethics, and--more recently--environmental principles or standards. There is~ unfortunately~ in the mind's eye of many "mainlanders" . . . . . only a fuzzy, artificial island construct--part metaphor, part myth, part fiction, part caricature that obscures, ~istorts and even, on occa- sion~ blinds the observer about what an island (or insularity) really is and how it "fits" into the rest of the world. For this reason alone, islanders are always at risk. The conti- nental's skewed perception or island expectation model constitutes a one- sided~ conceptual barrier which further skews any transactional process linking or involving the islan4 system and the larger continental system. J There are other dysfunctional imbalances that characterize the large vs. small or continental vs. insular relationship (which will be dis- cussed later in this study). Yet this particular problem is sufficiently . .. .... . pervasive and on occasion ~ernicious enough, when development planning and resource management ar~ addre~s~d: to req~ire a~ early cautionary note for the reader. It may account for why island systems literature and documentation, in the aggregate, is so divers~ a~d inconsistent and . .. .. .. lacks both a unified theoretical and empirical base. There has been little consensus. 1.2 Contemporary Pressures on Island Systems: An Overview . . At the present time, thousands of islands are experiencing strong develop- ment thrusts based chiefly on tourism, on extractive enterprises, on their use as nodes for international air transportatio~ a~d sat~llite tracki~g networks, and on the increased demands for and upon local resources gen- . . . erated by rising affluence and expectations among rapidly growing island .. populations. Additional driving forces include continentally based ini- . . tiatives seeking waste disposal sites, deep-water petroleum transhipment . . . sites, cruise ship ports, offshore banking centers, low-cost labor for . . . . . . materials processing and assembly, and expanded supplies of harvestable . . high-value marine species (like tuna, lobster, conch, and certain sea- . . . weeds). The availability of multinational and bilateral aid programs has also contributed to accelerated development activities. .. .' . . . . . . One by-product of this current development phenomenon has been a dramatic deterioration of island coastal environments, accompanied ~y a decline in the quality of life on islands, as measured by means other than such traditional economic indicators as gross national product (GNP) and average per capita income. On islands, a~ elsewhere, progress has its price. As insular smallness confronts continental bigness in its various manifestations, what are the prospects for islands and island people? The pessimist well may say there is no hope, for island cul- tures, environments, and ecosystems will be overwhelmed and fundamentally changed 1f not destroyed. But for those who can say of an island (as . . once did Rupert Brooke), "This is my home, my native land," the values of 4 smallness, isolation, self-sufficiency, and the insular condition have a .. '.. .. . special meaning and promise. If islanders are uneasy, it is understand- able. And if the process of change is to be managed and sustainable island ecodevelopment is to become a reality, then the skills,. expertise and accrued learning of islanders, continental scholars and development specialists need to be applied in the search for island growth, resource management and survival strategies. How urgent is the task? "Maybe you can afford to make a mistake on a continent," warned Ray Fosberg. "The thing you damage or destroy probably exists in two or three other places but almost every island has something unique on it. Anything you do on an island makes a difference. You just can't always tell what the difference is going to be" (Gosnell~ 1976). Aldo Leopold once reflected, "One of the penalities of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is invi~ible to laYmen~" Unfortunately, in the special case of the world's oceanic and coastal islands, much of the damage being inflicted is invisible to almost everybody involved--ex- cept the islanders themselves. As in the case of the old saying, "out of . . . . .. sight, out of mind," insular remoteness obscures· from all but a few per- sons the burgeoning impact of contemporary continental pressures and well-meaning but often ill-designed international development strategies . . ... on small insular systems, their associated terrestrial and coastal en- . . . ... . . vironments and their human production systems. Twelve years ago, an island biogeographer, Sherwin Carlquist, obser- ved (1972), "Access to islands is far easier than it has ever been, and • island biotas, many relatively intact now, are going to be devastated soon to the point where all we will have to study are shreds of the marvelous fabrics of evolution that inspired Darwin and Wallace~.~~" "There is plenty of evidence," according to Bill Newman, Professor of . . Oceanography at Scripps, "that almost anything we do on islands makes them worse" (Gosnell, 1976). The stresses and pressures of rapid population growth, unrestrained development~ and modern technology are partly responsible for the decline of the environmental quality of island systems and their littoral zones 5 and for coastal zone competition and conflict among traditional and pro- spective users. Another increasingly apparent cause of the decline is a serious me thodological f,ailure in the omission of environmental resource values in planning and development strategies~ The principal question now is how to incorporate environmental criteria to a far greater degree in the modernization of island communities" as they are shaped by local forces, transnational corporations, external market factors and by devel- opment agencies involved in or responsible for external financial and technical assistance in islands. A derivative of this has been the procedural and technical failure of the development planning process to comprehend or deal specifically with island coastal zone or marine re- . .. .. .. . sources, use opportunities, conflicts, trade-offs, and externalities (see Section 6.3). 1.3 Study Objectives " The primary objectives of this extended case study are to address the " " " questions of the verifiability and utility of the island microcosm concept, to explore the theoretical and empirical underpinnings to the . . . . '. . ' . concept of both island ecosystems and an island model or paradigm, and to develop from the extensive literature and from several site spe- cific ~nalyses an updated set of rules for the design and implementation of development projects in small island systems. 1.4 Antecedent Methodological Considerations A "microcosm" is a diminutive representative world or system analogQus to a much larger system. It is not so much dwarf-like as it is a min- iaturized replicate in substance, structure, and process. Assuming for . . . . . the sake of argument that islands are in fact. a microcosm, a number of questions arise. The most important one is, microcosms of what? Are .. . . . they microcosms of continents? Of man-environment interaction on conti- nents? Can a smaller island be seen as a microcosm of other larger is- lands? Are they microcosms of closed systems or open systems (most is~ lands are viewed as closed systems but are they in fact open systems)? '" Are they only microcosms of smaller, continental microstates, as Dommen 6 (1980b) and Jones-Hendrickson (1979) have argued? Or are they microcosm models of the development and resource management process and therefore to be seen as artificial or genuinely real laboratories of one or both processes? Is the whole idea of microcosm simply an analog, a.way to describe the target area, a vehicle for analysis and evaluation, or is it the result of a standard (perhaps naive) continental view of i~lands as smaller, discrete systems that are more manageable for the resource planner, the conservationist, or the development change agent? Alterna- tively, are islands a true archetypal form of global real estate that is only artificially and perhaps inaccurately assumed to be a microcosm of other systems, whatever those systems might be? . . . If one assumes that, for whatever definitional, hypothetical or strategic reason, some kinds of islands are a microcosm of something lar- . . . .' ger (insular or continental), then one also has to address the question of how then to classify islands as microcosms. This immediately raises the issue of an island taxonomy; and matters of size, of levels of de- . . . . .. vel opment , of economic structure, culture, ethnicity, dependency, com- plexity (a 'single island vs. a m~ltiple island grouping)~ linkages to . .. adjacent islands, archipelagic status, population, GNP, and other par- ameters become important in some yet to be determined fashion. This in turn raises other questions. Are islands really different? What makes them so? Are the differences significant or secondary con- straints regarding model transfer? Does the existing literature which suggests they are scientifically and ecologically "different" (especially when considered within that portion 'of the ecological framework called . . . biogeography) constitute a sufficient differentiation to require differ- . . . . ent approaches in development strategies, different approaches in conser- vation strategies and different approaches in. coastal resource management within such island systems? If there is an argument for substantive differences, then how does one conceptualize the development paradigm for islands? Do we have one --or more? Should it focus on structural factors, on process, or on intervention strategies to address the problems that have arisen from the applications of continental development paradigms (like the market 7 system, central planning, free trade, or protectionism) to island areas? Are the larger continental systems development models and practices truly applic'able to the insular microcosm? Is the relationship symmetri- , ' calor not? If not, can we assume that the assymetry is disadvantageous . . . . to islands (for example, through the one-way "brain drain" factor or tilted terms of trade in commodities, technology transfer or economies . . . . . . . " of scale and capital-intensive resource development, which all tend to favor the more developed and/or larger system or country)? Regarding islands' vulnerability or victimization, are these derived solely from insular status? Is there a way to document (as per Hamnett , ' et al., 1981) a unique insular system vulnerability factor and to , - , ' document island victimization, dependency, and exogenously imposed limits on options? The island "coastal" model is obviously unlike all continental "coastal" models (considered holistically). All islands have circumfer- ential (surrounding) sea-land boundaries or coastal zones, whereas conti- . . .. .. ... . . . . nental microstates do not. Is this "surrounding sea" an important or vital variable? What does a surrounding sea or marine environment do to an insular microstate model that it cannot do to a continental coastal , , model? Lastly, how does the microstate model for an island affect the treatment of satellite mini-islands on the periphery? This litany of queries is not a checklist of what follows but il- , , , lustrates some of the complexities of what appears to be a simple assump- tion--that islands are microcosms (of something) and that, by implica- tion, some lessons learned in one or more islands are transferable to someplace else. Since paradigms as approaches are less rigid than models . ... . . . .. (and therefore less island-type specific), we put forward the a priori , , assumption that the microcosm concept may lead to more effective custom- , , , ized models (for analysis or management), but that only the currently , ' emerging, more holistic, still transitional island paradigm can put the "microcosm" hypothesis to a proper test regarding both its validity and utili ty. 1.5 Case Study Methodological Design Behind the ti tIe of this case study, "The Island Microcosm," there are two hidden assumptions. The first is that islands are microcosms of some larger system (whether insular or co~tine~tal is neither ~xplicit or proven) • The second assumption is that any "microcosm" studied in detail might offer some lessons that could be applied to islands~ presumably larger~ or part or all of a continental system~ There is some question about whether or not islands can be models, in a microcosmic sense, for continental areas (at least it has not been proven yet and is only an . . . . . hypothesis). It seems more likely that small islands might be microcosms . . .... of larger islands. These in turn might be microcosms of continental areas. . . We have elected to focus on islands that exhibit characteristics of true insularity in the form of isolation and smallness: smaller oceanic islands. We choose this focus, recog~izing that if the hypothesis that . . islands are microcosms of continents proves invalid, there may still be a high probability that the findings from the smaller island microcosm . . . universe could provide a model for larger island systems that are, in turn, closely linked to continental systems. We have elected to study . . . . . the problem from the bottom up since medium to large size islands could only be microcosms of continents, but small islands could be microcosms . . . . . of both larger islands and continents. Our principal focus is on de- veloping oceanic islands smaller than about lO~OOO km2~ approximately 4~OOO mi2 (the size of Jamaica)~ We ha~e excluded all the developed . . . coastal islands, like Great Britain or Japan, all very large island~ like New Guinea and Cuba and the larger conglomerates of multi-island systems, like Indonesia and the Philippines. A second rationale for selecting smaller islands is that the per- ceived environment is totally insular, since there is no "interior." In an island of approximately lO~OOO km2 there is no point that is more than approximately an hour's drive from the sea. The entire island and the sea are closely linked under these conditions. There are four separate elements involved in the following case study analysis and report, the first of which is an historical overview 9 that examines the universe of islands, their characteristics, attempts to classify them and conceptual problems in studying them. The second element is to extract from site-specific examples what has been learned . . from experience. The third is an overview of technical problems and advances in insular resourc~ assessm~nt and coastal zon~·management. The final element explores and evaluates the evolving experimental approaches . . . . . . that have emerged over the past decade, leading toward a new island paradigm (or a theory of insular systems development) that could be empirically tested in the future. This case study utilizes a variety of data sets: . the existing published literature on islands and island systems, only a small portion of which has been cited and included in the bibliography; reports and . . . counsel from various expert consultants; direct site visits to St. Lucia, the Virgin Islands and Fiji; and the extensive island reference files . . (documents, reports, correspondence, maps, photos) maintained by the Island Resources Foundation. The principal sources for literature reviewed were the U.S. Virgin Islands (Island Resources Foundation Library), St. Lucia (the St. Lucia National Trust and the St. Lucia Central Planning Unit), Hawaii (the East-West Center), Fiji (the University of the South Pacific~ UNDP/CCOP/ SOPAC, and the National Trust), and Washington, D.C. (the Library of Con- gress and the headquarters of the U.S. Man and the Biosphere Program). . . . . It should be noted that although the literature available on islands, . . published and unpublished, is rather voluminous, it is heavily biased on . ' . . the side of science and natural history material, and is more or less deficient in areas of the social sciences. The author would like to take this opportunity to make special acknowledgment of contributions made by the following persons: Mr. . . . . Robert Devaux of the St. Lucia National Trust (an engineer), Mr. Steven Koester (an anthropologist), Dr. Jerome McElroy, (an economist from St. Mary's Co11ege~ formerly of the College of the Virgin Islands and the Department of Commerce~ U.S. Virgin Is1ands)~ Dr. Michael Hamnett from the East-West Center~ Mr. William Bell~r (engineer and chairman of the U.S. Man and the Biosphere Directorate on "Islands and the Rational Use ]0 of Island Ecosystems"), Mr. Cruz Matos (engineer and present director of the CCOP/SOPAC group based in Fiji), Dr. Uday Raj (director of the Marine Resources Institute, the University of the South Pacific, Fji), Mr •. Birendra Singh (environmental planner, Fiji National Trust), Mr. Allen . . D. Putney (principal investigator of the Eastern Caribbean Natural Area Management Program, St. Croix,), Ms. Judith Towle (public adminis- tration specialist on international development, Island Resources Foun- dation), Ms. Fran Roberts (who handled the onerous task of manipulating the word processor to produce this report), and the World Wildlife Fund-U.S. for its logistic support. II 2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 2.1 Dimensional Considerations: The Universe of Islands In the normal scheme of world politics, islands--especially small is- . .. lands--have traditionally lacked sufficient area, population, ~esources and geopolitical leverage to count for very much. Although all of the world's islands taken together have a combined land area of about three million square miles (not including Greenland with 840,000 square miles), they constitute only about five percent of the earth's total land area. However, forty three, or approximately one-quarter, of the world's in- dependent states (with membership in the United Nations and other inter- national bodies) are wholly insular. Most of these (Table 1) are devel- . . oping countries, with thirteen concentrated in the Caribbean, ten in the Pacific, and seven in the Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf. Table 1. Independent island countries. 1- An Ugua-Barbuda 16. Iceland 30. Sao Tome and Principe 2. Bahamas 17. Indonesia 31- Seychelles 3. Bahrain 18. Ireland 32. Singapore 4. Barbados 19~ Jamaica 33. Solomon Islands 5. Brunei 20~ Japan 34. Sri Lanka 6. Cape Verde 21- Kiribati 35. St. Christopher & Nevis 7. China, Republic of 22. Madagascar 36. St. Lucia 8. Comoros 23. Maldives 37. St. Vincent 9. Cuba 24. Malta 38. Tonga 10. Cyprus 25. Mauritius 39. Trinidad and Tobago 11. Dominica 26. Nauru 40. Tuvalu 12. Dominican Republic 27~ New Zealand 41~ United Kingdom 13. Fiji 28. Papua New 42. Vanuatu 14. Grenada Guinea 43. Western Samoa • 15. Haiti 29. Philippines There are sixty two islands with areas greater than 4,000 square miles, and 126 islands with areal dimensions larger than 1,000 square miles. . . However, some very important islands are much, much smaller, and many of these smaller, formerly colonial island territories and associated states have over the past decade or so opted for independence or are moving in this direction and thus represent new factors on the international scene. 12 There are very few island countries that are essentially single is~ , . lands like Barbados, Sri Lanka, St. Lucia and Nauru. Some come in major pairs like Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda. Some occur in single country' clusters or arcs or archipelagos like Fiji with 322 islands or Tonga with 150~ , . . Others, as in the case of the Lesser Antilles in the Eastern Caribbean, represent a multi-state cluster with eight independent island nations in an area abo~t the same size and with .. ... . the same number of individual islands as Fiji. The Seychelles in the Indi~n Ocean has a hundred volcanic and coralline islands spread over a distance of l~OOO km~ The Maldives has a thousand islands~ sub-clusters of 19 atolls spanning an arc of 800 km, while Kiribati has 33 islands . . . . ..... but they are spread over five million square miles of the Central . . . . . Pacific. The Marshall Islands in the Pacific Trust Territories, with 1,156 islets~ have a combined land area of only 70 sq~are mi~es "(smaller . . than St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands), each averaging only 39 acres~ . . .. By way of comparison, some continental countries also have extensive . . insular resources. The United States has 29,000 islands, of which 6,000 . - .. . . are in Alaska and 2,000 in the Pacific Trust Territories. Panama has 700 (about the same number as the Bahamas); New Zealand has 500. , . But for all of these and others, this is a time of change and tran- . . . . sition. Within just the past two decades, the advent of jet air service, • • • • • & ••• • • •• • containerized cargo technologies, mass tourism, satellite communication . " . links, television, multinational corporations, and geopolitical consid- . . . . . . . erations have each contributed to a rising level of interest in islands . . among continental business circles, bilateral and international develop- ment agencies. 2.2 Definitional and Conceptual 'Considerations The dictionary definition of an island as being a body of land entirely surrounded by water is not of much use. Australia and Funafuti in Tuvalu both meet the definitional requirement. As a consequence, island group- ings originated for convenience' sake by the user lack precision (for ex- . . . . .. .. .. . ample, wet, dry, high, low, tropical, arctic, small, 'poor, French, Aegean, remote, atoll). In addition, there is a similar lack of preci- 13 sion which derives from a conceptual dualism; Fiji, for example, is both a discrete point on a map and a country with 322 distinct islands spread over 600 miles of ocean. The "point" approach is convenient but obscures the reality not only of internal distances separating sub-unit~ but cultural and economic "distance" or differences as well. Secondly, the discrete-point perspective tends to emphasize the center or core island and downplay the periphery or satellite isla~ds and how things are seen from the "out island" vantage points. In effect, the "view" of the city from the suburbs is very different from the reverse view. Two very different perspectives are involved. Another conceptual problem arises out of the natural scientist's . . .. tendency to construct a more or less closed system model for isolated islands because of the sea barrier. Unfortunately, from the perspective . " . . . . of economists, planners, humanists, and other social scientists, islands are highly open systems (Brookfield~ 1980; Hamnett~ 1981; McElroy, 1978b; . . ' MAB, 1977; Villamil, 1971) and the,refore vulnerable to numerous external factors which limit and often override internal preferences~ decisions~ , . traditional resource use practices, and strategic planning assumptions, rendering facile projections invalid. As early as 1971 it was noted that insular open systems planning should be structured around the concept of contingency planning (Villa- mil, 1971). Demas (1965) in The Economic:s'of'Development'irtSmall Countries, now considered a classic, noted the importance of modifying , , , development planning every year to consider changes in the external sector or in the sytem's environment. This practice of course rarely, • happens, and there is a tendency o~ many small islands to consider deve- lopment plans as static entities to ,be modified every five to ten years -whenever external aid funding is available. The strong identity or sense of insular place which most islanders , . have for their homeland, surrounded by water as it is, tends to produce a collective inclination to see the island as a "closed" and secure system like the scientist's insular ecosystem, but the realities of developing islands as open systems induces an internal conceptual conflict often reflected in island politics and life. 14 2.3 The "Island System" Concept Although some islands are more "open" than others, all are bounded by the sea, and the smaller they are, the shorter the time frame for inter- actions between human and natural ecosystems (and component te!restrial and marine ecosystems)~ especially when external forces induce change. .'. . .. . . . For this study, development and its associated impacts are consid- ered within the framework of an "island system" construct~ a flexible label that applies principally to islands or island groups and their as- sociated natural, social, economic, and political systems. The "island system" concept calls attention to the following facts. • It affirms that an island~ even though it is small, is not . . . an homogenous, discrete entity, but rather an assemblage . . . . . . of diverse subaerial and subaqueous ecosystems in upland, . . littoral, sublittoral, and outer-shelf zones; most of these, . ..' .. in the case of small islands, are included in the coastal zone. • It stresses the importance of the interdependent linkages .. among island ecosystems: impacts in one ecosystem will have repercussions in another. Further, their areal extent will .. ... .. .. . . . not conform to convenient geographical or political boundaries, like "land" or "sea". The concept also requires perception of . . each island's relationship to and within associated island groups, wherein artificial international boundaries and the . . . . downstream pollution effect create resource management pro- blems. • It suggests the need for a "biocybernetic" view of island . . . . . growth and development, wherein multiple feedback, effect- to-cause "transformational" phenomena ,can be added to the more linear, more "transactional" cause-to-effect phenomena usually considered, especially in the linkages between the human and natural ecosystems. • While technically interchangeable with the more flexible . . term "ecosystem," it suggests the value of seeing an island . . as an assemblage of ecosystems, preferring to consider multiple 15 island groups as clusters of island systems with a central core and peripheral satellite islands, which may differ appreciably within the cluster. 2.4 Understanding the Difference Failure to understand distinctive differences between island and conti- nental systems has often had unanticipated and undesireable results for both private developers and public sector funding agencies engaged in " . . island development activities. Evidence of mistaken, ill-advised, in- appropriate, sometimes naive development schemes abound in the island world. Most failed, even though similar approaches had worked well in continental systems, because of insufficient adaptation to insular con- ditions and constraints, and reflect an antecedent conceptual failure to see islands as different--and then to define those differences. Several examples are illustrative of this point. " " • Costly groin, pier, dock and jetty facilities have been literally washed away by "unanticipated" seasonal storms (not even hurricanes). They were simply sited or de- signed wrong for an island environment. • Costly sewage treatment plants, desalination plants, and diesel/electric power plants not designed for island environ- ments have deteriorated and failed prematurely. • Costly enclave-type tourism efforts, especially those designed . . ' . . as sequestered, centralized, high-rise, "Miami Beach-style" facili ties, have failed to me"et island development needs. They overlook local employment, ownership, cultural exchange and integration with other island economic development possi- " " " bilities, and many are under increasing pressure to "decentralize" and become more integrated into island development planning strategies. • Costly coastal zone management programs extrapolated from continental models have simply not measured up to island expectations or requirements. • Costly beach improvement/nourishmept strategies have failed ]6 for design reasons, based on an assumption that what worked elsewhere would work in islands. • Standard sand and coral mining efforts have seriously damaged .. adjacent beaches, coral reefs, and coastal environments and adversely affected other sectors like fisheries and tourism. • Natural disaster relief activities~ because of poor planning and inappropriate scales and styles of intervention vis a vis island areas, have often had a greater negative long-term im- pact on the island system and its capacity for survival than . . the cyclone, hurricane, flood or drought itself. Most of these "failures" will resurface in more detail in later sections of this report. 3. INSULAR SYSTEMS: CLASSIFICATION AND CHARACTERISTICS 3.1 The Taxonomy Problem The literature on islands abounds with partially completed or failed at- temps to classify islands. The simpler approaches which distin~ish be- tween continental and oceanic islands, or between developed and unde- veloped islands, or between wet and dry, or high and low, or large and small tend to be essentially academic exercises that are of little use to a development planner. More sophisticated approaches, which have gener- ally dealt experimentally with island regional groupings or types focus- ing on various small sets of characteristics like rainfall levels~ soil types, floral and faunal diversity and endemicity, population levels or densities, and ethnicity, have not been of much help either and tend to be equally academic. However, although they differ considerably, they do perhaps represent the first step in the development of a full-fledged taxonomy or classification system for islands as a unique geomorphic type and a unique reso~rce development and management problem~ Any attempt to classify the characteristics of small developing island countries is not without its problems, especially in view of their heterogeneity and the serious shortcomings in many of the more basic statistics. But even leaving aside the statistical and descriptive information availability problems regarding islands, there still remains the separate issue of how to classify existing information about islands into some taxonomic or even tabular format that will have utilitarian value to the resource planner/manager. As early as 1973, a thoughtful UNESCO document dealing with isl~nds as an element in the Man and the Biosphere Program (MAB) suggested that 1 "an elaborate land classification (evaluating fluvial and coastal geo- morphology~ soil and water resources: etc.) wO,uld contribute to ••• planning future development of islands ••• with a view to rational land use •••• " (UNESCO/MAB~ 1973). The report, entitled "Islands and the Ra- tional Use of Island Ecosystems," went on to suggest four options for classification: 18 1) Structural types a) Continental islands (geologically defined) b} Volcanic islands c} Elevated coral/limestone islands d) Low coralline islands and reefs 2) Climatic types by temp~rature zones~ precipi~ation, wind effects 3} 'Geomorphic types a} The degree of preservation of flat structural or erosional surfaces on the divides b} The formation of foothills and foot slop~s as well as coastal lowlands c} The existence of re~f and lagoonal systems (in tropical zones) 4) Biological types a} Islands situated ona continental shelf (with biota similar to the adjacent continent) b) High oceanic islands with unique ecological communi~ ties usually limited and vulnerable c} Atolls and raised limestone islands. In the same UNESCO/MAD doc~ment (1973)~.an attempt was made to . . ... use a three-tier breakdown of more developed, less developed, and unin- habitated islands, but this was of limited use. Best (1968), of the University of the West Indies, separates is- lands into "metropolitan and hinterland (marginal) economies"; the United Nations distinguishes between less developed and more developed island areas; some scholars separate the "core" or central islands from . . .. "peripheral" islands; and the United States government in an inventory of its 29,000 islands makes a fuzzy distinction between coastal, barrier . . . , . , and offshore islands (U.S. Department of Interior, 1970). For the deveiopment planner, there is no 'master list or inventory of islands displaying and categorizing the comparative characteristics of . ' island systems. There is, in effect, no universal system of classifying islands -- no taxonomy of islands. Only the 1974 UNCTAD document on "Developing Island Countries" is useful in this regard but it has not been kept up to date. 19 3.2 Classification Approaches . . Since there is no general island paradigm, i.e., a theory embracing the nature of all insular systems, this has left the field wide open for experimentation with classification frameworks. Natural scientists (Fosberg, 1963; Dorst, 1972; Douglas, 1969; MacArthur and Wilson, 1967; Wace, 1978; and Simberloff, 1974) generally are in agreement that all true islands, as ecosystems, are character- ized by the following: • • • • • • • relative isolation limitation in size restricted natural resources limitation in organic biological diversity reduced interspecies competition natural protection from external competition and conse- . . . . . , quent preservation of numerous bizarre endemic species tendency toward climatic standardization • high vulnerability and a tendency toward equally high instability when isolation is broken down • ecological fragility. Similar investigations by social scientists (mostly economists and . . geographers) (Dommen, 1980b; Dolman,1982; Wace, 1980; UNESCO/MAB, 1973; . . ... UNCTAD, 1974) collectively suggests the following socio-economic charac- teristics of smaller island countries: • • • • • . . . more dependent on foreign trade than large countries and have less influence on the terms in which that trade. is carried on a narrow range of resources and, hence, specialized economies heavily dependent on one or more large foreign company; . . . dependent for key services on external institutions such as universities, regional training facilities, . . banking and marketing arrangements a narrow range of local skills and specific difficulty in matching local skills with jobs 20 • difficulty in providing some infrastructure . . ... services as there may be costly diseconomies of scale in the provision of such services . . . a small Gross Domestic Product and, hence, import • substitution industries may face special aifficulties. All small countries face most of these problems, but they appear . .. .... in an extreme form on small islands. Collectively, the characteristics . . . .. can be best summarized as economic dependence, whereby external circum- stances and decisions have a far greater impact on the internal system . . . than do internal circumstances and decisions on the external system. Little attention has been given to the following important and unique characteristics of islands--as compared to continental countries: I (1) Islands (and only islands) have a completely circ~mferential . . . . . coastal zone and, therefore, a sea frontier and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which totally surround the entire country or territory and no . . . land frontier. The only exceptions to this rule are occasional islands divided into political units such as Hispaniola, Borneo, St. Martin. . ... . . . . . . . . or New Guinea. In this special case, the coastal zone per.imeter bound- ary is always longer than the inland land boundary or frontier (the . ... ..... . reverse being generally true for continental countries). Islands also have a disproportionate ratio--favorable to islands--of the size of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to the island land mass itself (as compared to continental countries). (2) Island clusters (not continents) have no internal land transport option to link the parts of the country and are restricted to sea tr~ns­ port and air links. (3) Small islands (unlike continental countries) do not have an in- terior hinterland or central terrestrial core ~rea that is essentially . . . distant from the sea. Therefore, for island states, coastal resource planning and management is essentially synonymous with national resource planning and management. (See Sections 3 and 8 of the Coastal Manage- ment Case Study.) In the above examples,~islands are different in kind, not just de- gree, from all continental countries. Furthermore, the facts that island 2] ecology differs from continental ecology and ecological principles de- rived from continental ecosystems are insufficient to explain the eco- logical relationships in islands have been well described by Fosberg (1963)t Carlquist (1965 and 1974)~ MaCArthur and Wilson (1967)~ Dorst . . . .. (1972), and Mueller-Dombois (1973). Three important factors--insular isolationt size and age (geologically islands are relatively recent in origin)--in combination have biological consequences that are most , , clearly developed on islands because they result in many unique ecological relationships. One unanswered question, however, is whether the island character- istics discussed above diminish or limit the prospective utility of the microcosm model. This remains to be tested. 3.3 Classifying Islands as Laboratories: ' The Ecosystem Model In the world of the natural scientist~ islands'have long been considered ideal laboratories--microcosms of larger continental situations or sys- . .. ' " . '" . . terns. Within the framework of an island, "the parameters of variables , , can be, readily defined, the behavior of variables measured t and external- ities either controlled or disregarded" (Brookfield, 1980). It was the , , , more remote islands in the Pacific and Indi~n Oceans that t in the 19th century, had an enormous and fateful impact on the minds of Charles . .. . . . .. Darwin and Alfred Wallace t the fathers of modern evolutionary theory. . . ' . For nearly a hundred years after Darwin, however, investigations of ..... islands remained a descriptive science t accumulating a "wealth of infor- mation on patterns of species distributions~ on the composition of island . . . . .. . floras and faunas, on the taxonomic description of insular species and subspecies and on the adaptations, often bizarre, of island creatures" (Gorman~ 1979)~ During the decade of the 1960's, however, island studies underwent a transformation, perhaps triggered by the role islands played in World War II but more likely the result of emerging paradigms for ecosystem analysis within the natural science disciplines. . . . . Institutionalized cooperative island study projects were mounted by UNESCO (Natural Science Division), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution. In 1961, F. Ray Fosberg took the first 22 step in generating a new synthesis by organizing a Pacific Science Congress symposium on "Man's Place in the Island Ecosystem" and, in 1963, by publishing the papers in book form under the same title. This seminal symposium and book (reprinted in 1965 and again in 1967) launched a whole " .. '" new way of looking at islands, not only as "ecosystems" but as ecosystems perceived, studied~ used and modified by man~ It was the first step in the direction of seeing the island ecosystem as a laboratory, serving both science and man. Island ecology was transformed into a predictive science by the publication of MacArthur and Wilson's Theory of IslandBiogeograph~ (1979), which argued that the number of species on an island is distinct- ly correlated and is a direct function' of the island area and its dis- tance from the nearest island or continent and that on very small islands .. the process of natural extinction is accelerated. More relevant to this . . study is their assertion that "by studying clusters of islands, b.iolo- ( gists view a simpler microcosm of the seemingly infinite complexity of . " '. continental and oceanic biogeography. Islands offer an additional advan- .. ... . . . . . tage of being more numerous than continents and oceans. By their very .. multiplicity, and variation in shape, size, degree of isolation, and ..... ecology, islands' provide the necessary replications and natural 'experi- ments' by which evolutionary hypotheses can be tested." . . The "laboratory" notion and the "microcosm" concept, wherein is- lands are seen as models of a wider complexity (continents, oceans, and . . .. even the whole biosphere), are implicit or explicit in the work of MacArthur and Wilson and became recurring themes in following years • . Carlquist (1974) observed that islands were both "great museums for the biologist and remain the marvelous laboratories of evolution that Darwin and Wallace found. them to be more than a century ago. These laborato- . . ries, however, have hardly been used, in comparison to what they offer." When a UNESCO project on islands emerged the following year it presumed that "islands could have an important laboratory function as places where different theories of resource management are developed and tested for subsequent application elsewhere" (UNESCO/MAB~ 1973). By the early 1980's~ the "continentally perceived" purpose of the laboratory had 23 changed somewhat, but Dolman (1982) suggested that small islands, for all .. . .. the problems and constraints which confront them, could become the labor- atory in which alternative development strategies~ shaped by the notion . .. . . . . . of self-reliance, first see the light of day. The longevity o~ this island "laboratory" notion confirms the point made above about how many outsiders have and continue to view islands. 3.4 Changes inFocus:.IslandsAs A "Special· Case" International concern regarding developing island countries, as a kind of "special case" of the development process, also first surfaced in a serious way in the mid-1960's when a number of international institutions .. began a search for a theory and a prescription for certain types of .. "special circumstances" (within the international organizational frame- work) to improve technical assistance programs to various kinds of "spe- . . . .. . - . . cial problem areas." For example, international organizations began to separate out least developed or land-locked countries as needing special attention, and strategic distinctions began to appear regarding least . . . . developed, less developed and more developed countries. The concept of Third World countries came into vogue as a classification, and eventually some attention was paid to islands as a special case. Only within the past two decades or so have most of the world's is- land populations begun to emerge as subjects of specialized, systematic . . resource analysis and of planning and management strategies, rather than adaptations of traditional~ continentally focused models (Fosberg~ 1963)~ This has involved an evolutionary- process. As early as 1966 scienti~ts working with the International Biological Program (IBP), the Interna- . . tional Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and the Pacific Science Congress articulated a concern for the conserva- . . tion of, certain Pacific islands through a series of conferences, sym- posia, and resolutions Which launched the "islands for science" program (Nicholson and Douglas, 1970). Subsequent IUCN initiatives at a "Sym- . . posium on Conservation of Nature--Reefs and Lagoons," held in Noumea, New Caledonia (August 1971)~ stressed the need for specialized ecological guidelines in island development project planning, and noted the vulner- '2./, ability of island ecosystems to disturbances arising out of human activi~ ties. The specific environmental impacts of tourism development on the resources of coastal zones of cert.ain Pacific islands were also given attention. Shortly thereafter, one of the priority study projects listed by UNESCO's International Coordinating Council for the Man and the Biosphere Program (a follow-up to the IBP) was design~ted "ecology and rational use . . . . of island ecosystems" and resulted in publication of the MAB "Green Book No. 11 on Islands," published by UNESCO in 1973. About the same time a . . special "Group of Experts" was assembled by the Secretary-General of UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) to "identify .. and study the particular problems of the developing island countries and to make recommendations thereon" (UNCTAD, 1974). This was the first ... full-scale attempt to examine the economic problems of developing island countries within an international forum. Islands surveyed ranged in size from a large archipelago like Indonesia: with about 100 million inhabitants, to very small islands with only a few thousand inhabitants. An attempt was made to classify the island countries and territories according to various significant characteristics, and a further attempt . . was made to identify certain key problems and the implications for development policy. The report from the group of experts was published by UNCTAD in 1974 "Developing Island Countries" and was followed shortly by a UNDP spon- sored study of coastal development problems in the Caribbean (Towle and . . . McEachern, 1974) and by two IUCN initiatives, first a booklet on "Eco- logical Guidelines for Island Development" (McEachern and Towle, 1974a) - ... , and then an environmental .managementcase study of the British Virgin Is- lands (Howell and Towle, 1976). Since 1974 the available specialized literature on island resource development and management has expanded rapidly as is reflected in the bibliography section of this study. Of particular note is a UNESCO/ MAB/UNFPA sponsored carrying capacity case study of the Lau sub-island group in Fiji (MAB~ 1977)~ Th~ study's multidisciplinary team. was headed by Dr. Harold Brookfield, formerly of McGill University, and included 25 such eminent scholars as R.D. Bedford, T.P. Bayliss-Smith, Bernard Salvat, Anne Whyte, J.B. Hardaker, R.F. McLean and other island special- ists. The seven volumes of reports from this project, dealing with population-environment relations, resources, and development, ~ere pub- lished between 1977 and 1980 (the last as MAB Technical Notes No. 13; see Brookfield, 1980). They constitute a major point of departure for any proposed insular resource management strategy in the future. 20 4. THE CARIBBEAN REGION: EXAMPLES AND LESSONS Development projects, resource planning efforts and environmental manage- ment strategies have, in recent decades~ had an uneven history in island systems~ with fewer real successes than disappointments~ The reasons be- . . ". . hind this pattern of development and technical assistance failures lie . .... ' " . . buried in the experiences of those involved and in the historical web of . . changing circumstances, options, constraints, events, choices, and im- pacts. Post-audits can be helpful. Two examples of coastal resource management problems have been . . . selected from St. Lucia and from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands group for detailed investigation. Each covers about the same span of time--1960 to 1983. One (Rodney Bay~ St~ L~cia) involves a large-scale development project and the effects of its induced environmental changes . . on people. The other (the Mangrove Lagoon, St. Thomas) involves the effects of incremental growth and people on an ecosystem. A non- ...... governmental, regional approach to Eastern Caribbean resource "eco- develoment" 4s also reviewed in some detail. All three offer instructive .. lessons within the Caribbean context. Stretching between the atypical, oil-rich coastal island of Trinidad . . . (adjacent to the Venezuelan coastline) and the island of Puerto Rico (the easternmost and smallest of the Greater Antilles group), there exists an . . ... ' . extended chain of smaller islands known generally as the Leeward and ; Windward Islands or, collectively, as the Lesser Antilles. Within this . . . . . 600-mile arcuate-shaped linear assemblage of islands, islets, and cays, there are approximately 300 insular entities of varying types, dimen~ . . sions, shapes, and levels of development. T~e largest is Guadeloupe at " .. . , 710 square miles, but most are much smaller. Some are emergent volcanic, high and wet; and some are raised carbonate, ~ow and dry~ A few are combinations of both geomorphic types, and many are simply cays or rocks. . . ,... Within the archipelago, there are seven independent island countries (Antigua-Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Christopher-Nevis, St. Lucia, and St~ Vincent)~ Most of these have significant satellite or peripheral islands and cays, some of which are habited but most are not, at least on a permanent basis. Interspersed among the seven island 27 nations are eight other non-independent islands or clusters politically, linked to France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. . . , Taken together, their cultural, linguistic, historical, ecological, 'developmental, and human and natural resource endowment characteristics · . ' " vary enormously. All of the Lesser Antillean islands, however, are small, have lost a disproportion~te share of endemic species~ and most have been greatly modified by external influences (i.e., the colonial . , experience, the plantation system, contemporary tourism, and imported technologies). As vestigial colonial ties began to weaken in the 1950's and island . . political systems gradually became more self-governing, local govern- mental bodies were faced with the difficult task of balancing competing . . pressures for change. On the one hand, expanding populations, growing unemployment, and rising social, economic, and nationalistic expecta- . . . tions created demands for development, employment, and services. On the other hand, a marginal natural resource base,weak monocultural export · . . . ' . . " . earnings, and a primitive infrastructure suggested other torms of in- . . . tervention and growth were needed. Some islands, like Barbados, I sought a . . . .. . .. '" . way out of the dilemma by opting early on for independence. Others waited, seeking time and external multilateral and bilateral assistance · .... . . . as a "holding action." Still others took the opposite route altogether by strengthening ties with parent countries in order to obtain needed . . . . ' . investment capital, grants~in-aid and technical assistance. Regardless of the strategy selected, when the pace of development • activity quickened ~rkedly in the 1960's~ critical land and coastal resource allocation questions arose regarding the landscape -- what and where to develop or to preserve (and how), what constraints to apply, and . . how to optimize growth in employment, income, exports, and earnings using the indigenous resource base in company with external involvement and capital, both public and private. As a result, the period from 1960 to 1984 has been one of dynamic change in the LeIser Ant111es--w1tnessing several new oil refineries and transshipment terminals, a dozen new seaports and airports, scores of 28 new marinas, hundreds of new hotels, thousands of new cruise ship calls,- .. . hoards of tourists in the millions, tourism receipts in hundreds of mil- lions of dollars, and petroleum production, refining, and transship- ment of roughly a billion dollars. Since these are all coastal. water- .. dependent activities and all island cities and urban centers are sea- ports, it is obvious that the coastal zone is the primary nexus of eco- nomic growth in the Lesser Antilles. Less obvious is the environmental price being externalized or deferred. 4.1 Rodney Bay Development, St. Lucia (1968-1984) 4.1.1 The Setting An independent island state since 1977, St. Lucia is situated in the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles (between Martinique and St. Vincent). It has a total land area of 238 square miles (616 km2); a . - population of approximately 124,000 persons, and in 1980 it had a gross domestic product of US$80 million or $210 million Eastern Caribbean - . . . ... . . .. . currency (EC$2.6 = US$l). Over 30 percent of these revenues were de- rived from the marine sector (sand mining, tourism) (Mitchell and Gold, 1982). It is steep mountains, mainly volcanic in origin • . . . . fishing, transportation, and . . .. . a rugged, lush island with Relief is broken only by a small plain in the south, eroded hills in the north, and several deep embayments and harbors on the central leeward (westerly) coast. A new .... international jet airport occupies the extreme southern tip at Vieux Fort and a second older, lesser air facility is located at Vigie, adjacent to the capital city of Castries. The island possesses a relatively narrow nearshore, submerged shelf . . I area and several coastal islets. Maria Island (12 ha), a nature reserve on the southern coast; and the former Pigeon I~land (20 ha) off the northwestern coast opposite the Village of Gros Islet~ some seven miles north of the capital, are especially noteworthy. Since St. Lucia was formerly settled by the French and was cap- tured, lost and recaptured several times by the British during the eight- eenth and early nineteenth century colonial period, a French "patois" is . . spoken widely (although the official language is English), and customary 29 place names are mostly French. Traditionally, the people of St. Lucia have depended heavily upon agriculture (mostly bananas), forestry and fisheries for a livelihood. . . In more recent times there has been rapid growth in other sectors which draw heavily upon various marine resources, especially port-related in- . . dustry, sand mining, shipping, and tourism. Growth in tourism since about 1970 has brought it from a relatively non-existent sector to one contributing approximately 18 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. St. Lucia has approximately 2,000 fishermen, although some are only part-time participants, with over 400 boats producing an artisanal catch valued at EC$45 million in 1981 and virtually all of which is consumed locally. Village units of artisanal fishermen are common along the . . . . leeward and southerly, more protected coastlines (Figure 1). In the early 1960's, when the Government of St. Lucia sought to de- . . . . fine a share of the Eastern Caribbean tourism traffic for itself, one of the areas selected for resort hotel development was the Bay of Gros Islet . . on the northwestern coast opposite Pigeon Island. At the time, the islet and its associated shallow reef at the northern end of the Bay created a superior, semi-enclosed and prote~ted an~horage of considerable ecolog- . . ical diversity, historical significance, and importance as a net, lobster . . and conch fishing area used by fishermen of the nearby Village of Gros .. . Islet. Pigeon Island, the namesake of the village, was studded with . . . historical forts, batteries, and buildings dating back to the era of Admiral George Rodn~y. Reduit Beach, approximately one mile long, forms the southern half .. , . . of the Gros Islet Bay coastline with the fishing village of Gros Islet . . located at the northern beach limit. North of the village, the rugged . . coastline is formed by low cliffs and pebble beaches. Between Reduit Beach and the volcanic peaks well to the east, a flat swampy area of about 250 acres was maintained by surface water drainage from the surrounding hills. Natural drainage to the sea was restricted by .. .... Reduit Beach and its associated berm (Figure 2). During World War II the United States leased and occupied the area as a seaplane base for anti~submarine patrols~ and some construction and CARIBBEAN SEA It.tut. Mil •• A '* N o 1 I 3 4 • I A A I \ ATLANTIC OCEAN ST. LUCIA • MARINE RESOURCE USE Fisheries: Conch Lobster Fin fish N~t • Lme Pot Sind mining Coral haMllt NA Silt production Tourism: * * Source: Marina Anchorage Williams, 1979 Worthy, 197&. Figure 1. St. Lucia marine resource use. (Adapted from Eastern Caribbean Natural Area Management Program Resource Data Maps, 1980.) Figure 2. 31 Pigeon Island_~~ ______ ,. ~-. '-------' GROS ISLET BAY "\ \ , \ , , , . , , Lagoon Entrance-- POINTE Ou CAP :.,:.;.,. .... 0·- Gros Is1 et Vi 11 age ....... :.::-Swamp/La goon " .•.. . Redu it Beac h-i: : .: . ~ ... . : .. -.- . frPo._. Ho 11 day Inn ............ St. Luci a Beach Hotel + To N + Castries o 1/4 1/.2 3,4 1 mile I... ",,!n(;,;Jmm'l Location map: Rodney Bay development project at Gros Islet Bay/Pigeon Island·area, St. Lucia. 32 considerable dredging were carried out at the site. The U.S. Navy at- . tempted to fill the swamp with about 200,000 cubic yards of sand hydrau- lically dredged from an area immediately offshore at the southern end of . . ,. Reduit Beach. The deep borrow pits are still visible forty years later. Because qf the amount of soft silt that had built up over the years in .. the swamp bed, the dredging strategy did not work as the heavy sandy fill material compressed the underlying silt and grad~ally sank~ By 1960, the area was once again a swamp. 4.1.2 The Rodney Bay Development Project The attractiveness and development potential of Gros Islet Bay (later unofficia~ly renamed Rodney Bay) captured the attention of a group of Canadian investors. In 1961, with government blessing, they commenced .. construction of the St. Lucia Beach Hotel on the palm fringed extreme southern end of Reduit Beach, as far from the Village of Gros Islet and as near to Castries and the airport as possible. The new facility was ready to open by 1962~ Six years later a second Canadian-owned resort hotel (Holiday Inn) was planned for Reduit Beach--even larger than the first--just north of the existing St~ L~cia Beach Hotel (Figure 2). However, there was a problem that delayed construction of this sec- . . . . ond facility: tiny but bothersome, bloodfeeding insects known locally as sand flies or "no-see-ums." Both the St. Lucia Beach Ho·tel management . . . . and the prospective Holiday Inn developers complained to Government that something had to be done about the swamp to the east, thought to be the source of the sand flies. Their bites plag~ed visiting tourists in .the early morning and late afternoon to early evening hours, causing occu- pancy rates to suffer. The option of draining breeding habitat of the files; Devaux, 1983). . . Insecticide fogging and spraying had not worked. the swamp was raised i~ order to eliminate the . . . pesty "no-see-ums" (Island Resources Foundation The Government gave firm assurance to the hoteliers that something .. . . would be done to alleviate the problem. But what and how and who would pay for it remained to be established. ., . Nature may abhor a vacuum, but so, apparently, do engineering con- JJ tractors. By a mysterious process akin to osmosis a well-known Jamaican entrepreneur, who owned a large marine dredging and construction firm, appeared on the scene with an offer that "could not be refused." He proposed a private sector solution to the government's "bug" pr.oblem at Reduit Beach, one that would generate profits but only if his grandiose scheme was accepted in its totality (Devaux~ personal communication~ 1983). That plan evolved as the Rodney Bay Development Corporation with a projected investment capital requirement of EC$17,089,000. It included the following development components: • • • • To dredge the core of the swamp, filling border areas with sea sand and open up the new "lagoon" to the sea with a channel for yachts through Reduit Beach. To create 88 acres of new flat land with a new mile- long beach for additional tourist facilit~es by dredging seabed sand from Gros Islet Bay and emplacing it'as a "causeway" on top of the shallow reef between Pigeon Island and the main island, thereby doubling the linear dimensions of Reduit Beach available for "devel- opment. " To create and sell or lease marinas, residential and condominium units on the newly filled "waterfront" lots on the filled areas in the new lagoon (i.e., ex-swamp) • To accomplish the above through a three-way partner- .' . ." ship between the Government of St. Lucia, the [British] Commonwealth Development Corporation (which would cover . . . the up-front capital costs as an "investment"), and the Jamaican.entrepreneur, who would provide the expertise . . . and dredging, road building, and other services (for which he would be paid). • The project would comprise 1,311 acres (1,243 of which had to be purchased), consisting of 650 acres of single residential vacation/retirement housing units, S2 acres of hotels~ 80 acres of condominium/apartment Units~ • 7 acres of commercial tourist "boutiques," 10 acres of yacht club/marina facilities~ 440 acres of green land, lagoon, public beaches and roads, and 72 acres for "extension" of the Village of Gros Islet • The project would require two years of site modifica- tion and five to seven years of lot sales and develop- mente The Government of St. Lucia accepted the proposed scheme; engineer- . . . ing studies and plans were completed by June of 1969; shortly thereafter work commenced, i.e., temporarily surcharging or covering the swamp with . .... .. .., . . sea sand to compress the silty bottom, installing a rock/boulder barrier from the mainland to Pigeon Island (behind which dredged sand could later be safely deposited), opening up the swamp/lagoon by a channel cut through Reduit Be~ch'and re-routing the existing north-south road system. But not everything went according to plan. . .. In 11970, as part of the attempt to create access from the sea to the . .... . swamp behind the beach berm at Reduit, an effort was made to excavate the entrance channel between the former St. Lucia Beach Hotel and the new . ~ . . Holiday Inn. This, however, had to be abandoned when it was discovered a ...... ridge of hard rock extended underneath the beach berm. Blasting was unfortunately ruled out, and in 1971 an alternative strategy was selected which involved the dredging of a channel immediately south of the Gros Islet Village. The siting of the channel south of the Village ended up requiring the elimination of the bridge over the old swamp drainage outlet between the Village and its cemetery, thereby cutting the Vi1~age off from both its traditional burial ground and from direct access to the existing hotels and the new "development area." The initial rock barrier . . placed between Pigeon Island and the main1and~ as an antecedent protec- tive mechanism for the causeway dredge and fill activity, caused the beachfront at the Village to collapse, thus requiring "nourishment" with additional dredged materia1--a remedial strategy which, it will be . . demonstrated below, failed over time (Stevenson and Hardtke Associates, 1973; Devaux, 1983). However, the final phases of the site preparation, including the 35 dredging of over 2.5 million cubic yards of Gras Islet (Rodney) Bay sea~ .. bed coral sand to construct the SS-acre causeway, were completed by the end of 1972. All that remained for the project to succeed was to sellar lease the newly created or "enhanced" waterfront properties to amortize . .. . . the investment and generate new revenue. But, some fourteen ye'ars later, .. this has not yet occurred. Not one sale, lease or option has been finalized for the causeway area. Not one new hotel has been built. There has been no deluge of buyers or leaseholders for the residential sites in the new "lagoon", which is fairly attractive. Additional capital investment (for f~rther site improvement and remedial environ- . . mental interventions), development, and marketing costs have mounted, . . . . . '" . . and the total is close to three times the original estimate. There has been no appreciable return on invested capital, and carrying costs are . . estimated at about U8$2,OOO per day. There were other recurring costs of a different nature accruing to .. " . the project and its environs. From an environmental impact perspective, the development scheme for Rodney Bay is a rather classic case of both good intentions gone astray and of "Murphy's Law" ("If anything can go , wrong, it will"). The following section summarizes a sequence of unan- o . • • , • • • ticipated environmental impacts that help explain the failure. 4.1.3 The Short-Term Impacts As part of a larger series of Eastern Caribbean investigations focusing . . on coastal processes, erosion, sand mining, and regional beach control, Deane et a1. (1973) undertook a detailed study of the Reduit Beach a.rea in St. Lucia from 1970-1973~ In the subsequent report documents, Deane reported that the most signficant event that had occurred in this area was the closure of the Pigeon Island passage ~hich had resulted in the following major changes in the littoral climate: 1) almost no new sedi- . . . . ment is supplied to Reduit Beach; 2) there has been a significant reduc- tion in the wave climate along the stretch of coastline between St. Lucia Beach Hotel and the lagoon entrance near Gros Islet Village; and 3) waves now approach the beach at almost right angles and consequently southerly littoral transport, formerly driven by waves passing through the Pigeon Island passage, has ceased. "One result of the first change is that in the long term, erosion will be experienced over the entire stretch of beach. As a result of significant changes in the ... direction of wave approach in the medium term major losses wil~ be experienced in the southern half of the beach during periods of severe wave attack" (Deane et al., 1973)~ In 1.973 the consulting firm which had prepared the original engi- neering and design study for the Rodney Bay project was employed by Rodney Bay, Ltd., of St. Lucia to examine the post-construction beach .. stability situation at Rodney Bay. The study was prompted by various complaints about modifications that were occurring to beaches and other .. marine features in the area. The report by Stevenson and Hardtke Assoc- iates (1973) noted that the causeway beach will "tend to change to some .. degree over the next five to ten years, but this is not likely to create a problem, provided the change is allowed for in planning." Concurrent- . . ly, they indicated that "regular surveys of all Rodney Bay beaches are .- .. recommended in order to insure that unexpected changes are noticed." Shore erosion problems at the southern end of Reduit Beach, according to the consultants, were solely the result of the offshore dredging carried . . out in 1941 and the mining of sand from the beach during the 1960's for aggregate and the removal of the sheet piling (installed by the U.S. . . . '" . Navy in 1941) from in front of the southern part of the Holiday Inn in 1970. The report concluded that any existing erosional problems were . . . .. . . "not caused by the Rodney Bay construction, ••• although it has markedly influenced conditions in the area" (Stevenson and Hardtke Associates; 1973~ emphasis added)~ What the consultants were saying, in effect, was that the previous extraction of perhaps a total of 200-400~OOO cUbic yards of sand and the removal of a forty-year-old sheet pile wall had more influence than the .. closure of the Bay entrance, the removal of 2.5 million cubic yards of sand for the causeway fill, plus the removal of more than a million cubic . . yards for the surcharge and fill strategies for the swamp area. The most interesting part of the study is its endorsement of the need for costly remedial actions, involving the installation of a gabion 37 blanke t near the St. Lucia Beach Hotel costing EC$100,000, the i·nstal- . lation of an offshore breakwater near the southern end of the Bay costing EC$300,000, possible installation of two stone groins at the point where the causeway beach and Pigeon Island connect in order to attemp.t the res- toration of the former Pigeon Island natural beach. The study also sup- ported the need (given the modific~tions in Bay circulation caused by the installation of the causeway) for any new sewer outfall serving future . . .. tourist facilities to extend at least 2,000 feet from the nearest shore- line. The outfall recommendation was deemed necessary to take account of . , the new flow conditions, new bathymetry, and new wave regime--yet no cost estimates were cited (Stevenson and Hardtke Associates, 1973). By 1975 the beach at the Village of Gros Islet had deteriorated, causing the village council to protest to the Town and Country Planning . . . .. .' Unit, suggesting that the existing lagoon entrance south of the Village . . . .. was "an eyesore." The Council complained that the encroachment of the sea on the bay front created a hazard, and that the sandy beach which was expected had not materialized. In the opinion of the council, these problems were a direct result of the works carried out in the creation of the causeway (Devaux, 1983). Changes were not limited to the main island. For more than three hundred years the westerly side of Pigeon Island had a rather beautiful 1,000-foot-Iong, 40-foot-wide yellow sand beach. The foundations for a .., . . rock pier constructed by military engineers in 1782 still survive and, , . until the causeway was built, produced a minor widening of the beach . , area at the point where'the 1782 stone dock was constructed. In 1969, two years after a new timber-pile jetty was constructed on the eastern side of Pigeon Island as a dock. for visiting boats~ the rapid build-up of sand to the south rendered the je~ty more or less unuseable. Rapid shoaling occurred at the extreme outer edge, indicating a sand deposition phenomenon and slow littoral sand transport from south to , north in the area. By 1970 when construction activity began for the causeway~ Reduit Beach began experiencing serious erosion problems. . . Pigeon Island was not affected by these events until the closure of the gap. However, when the gap was closed in 1971, the sand on Pigeon Island 3B beach began to shift noticeably toward the east. At that time, accurate measurement profiles of the Pigeon Island beach were taken for the first time (Devaux, 1983). By 1972, when the causeway was completed (almost a .. year later), a yellow sand strip or streak began to appear along the . . . .. - ,. white coral sand on the artificial causeway beach, matching the color of . . . . the sand at Pigeon Island. Within six months it had traveled 1,000 feet along the causeway toward the mainland; Pigeon Island was apparently losing its only beach to the causeway beach. The St. Lucia National Trust, a quasi-governmental body responsible for developing Pigeon Island as an historic site and national park~ was properly concerned. By 1976, however, the beach had virtually disap- . . . . peared and, despite sequential protective and remedial engineering . . . . . strategies (e.g., gabion baskets, groins, and armor stone emplacements), . .. .. . all at great expense to the National Trust, only the northerly segment of the former beach had.stabilized (Devaux, 1983). In the meanwhile, the causeway itself has been "stabilizing" (to use the consultant's term)--or eroding (to use the disinterested observer's term)--at a loss rate of 14 feet per year since 1974~ The original 88 acres are now down to perhaps 75 acres. When and if it will truly "stab- . . .. ilize" is an unknown. Whether investors can be attracted to build hotels or condominiums on a dynamic, not yet stabilized, artificial tropical ". . .. island beach is also an unknown. What has happened as a result of the causeway and associated Rodney Bay dredging activity to the adjacent .... artisanal fishing Village of Gros Islet, however, is not an unknown. It is a matter of record and a cause for concern. 4.1.4 Impacts on the Coastal Fishing Community at Rodney Bay Gros Islet, St. Lucia, is a small fishing village for which there are dozens of replicates within St. Lucia and hundreds in the Caribbean re- gion. Before the Rodney Bay project, Gros Islet bore a resemblance to . . . coastal fishing villages on all inhabited oceanic islands, such as those in the Lau group of Fiji described in detail by Brookfield and . . . others (MAB~ 1977)~ To illustrate how this has all been changed, we have elected to explore in some detail the metamorphosis of the village-based 39 fishery at Gros Islet. Prior to the Rodney Bay project, Gros Islet had three seine nets exploiting the resources of the nearby reef and coastal environment. Each seine had a full-time crew of four to six men responsible for cast- ing t~e net and maintaining it~ In addition~ between 15 and 20 people regularly accompanied the crew to pull~ Another shifting group of . .. . . .. approximately 15 to 20 villagers would pull on a given day in ex- change for at least a substantial portion of their families' daily food requirements. A crew member's share served as his daily wage, and the shares distributed to the regular pullers were also essential sources . . of income. In theory, the distribution of a day's catch was: 1/4 to 1/3 to the net owner, 1/4 to 1/3 to the permanent crew and 1/2 to 1/3 distri- . _. . .. buted among those who pulled. In all, each net had between 40 to 50 people working on it daily in exchange for varying amounts of income and . . - ... subsistence. The size of the work force fluctuated with the seasons, the quality of the previous day's catch, and weather and sea conditions (principally wind and swell)~ With the advent of Rodney Bay Development, this fairly stable system . . . . . was undermined and destabilized. Dredging the Bay, digging the lagoon . . channel, and building the causeway destroyed the usefulness of the seine ... '" fishermen's two principal beaches. The causeway cut the Gros Islet Beach . " .. . area in half. The dredging left borrow pit edges or underwater cliffs that would snare large beach seines when cast. It also released mud and sediments into the water, destroying sea grass and coral fish habitats. . . . .. . The causeway also blocked off the current and, according to the fisher- - men, a main "path" for schools of jacks and mackerel which they pre- viously caught. All three seine owners abandoned fishing as a result of this drastic . . . . environmental alteration, and their cotton nets all spoiled. Eventually, one of the three experienced seine fishermen bought a nylon net and began . . ... casting at the Cariblue Beach some distance to the south. He was follow- ed by two net owners from Anse La Raye (south of Castries) who also began fishing there. This new arrangement left three nets (from two villages) sharing one 40 beach and resulted in a reduced daily catch from the seines and a reduced demand for labor. Instead of three separate groups of people pulling each seine daily, only one group was needed. In addition, because the " " " Cariblue Beach is located outside the village, a large portion of the catch no longer comes thro~gh Gros Islet b~t is instead shipped directly to Castries by van. Before, with three nets being used close to the " " village, fish were more plentiful and, with over 100 people (sometimes 150) getting a share daily, the catch was efficiently and widely distri- buted to meet local needs. Gros Islet's seine fishing was also an important source of fresh bait for fishermen trolling the banks northeast of the island, especially during the bottom fishing seasons, July to November. It was common . .. .. before the development to sell bait to over 20 canoes a day during the bottom season. As seine fishing has diminished in Gros Islet, these fishermen had to find more direct alternative sources for bait~ A still unfolding further development illustrates the current pre- . . . . . dicament of Gros Islet's seine industry. Until recently, one local fishermen with a "ti-seine," (small [pe~te] seine) had been casting his net on beaches that the larger seines cannot use, including the remaining part of the Gros Islet Beach and along part of the causeway. But even he , . . . has emphasized that net fishing was much better before. "Before we were a fishing village, everyday we were taking kawang (carang) and jacks . . . . especially in this season now but the barricade blocks off the fish" (Koester, 1983). Rodney Bay development destroyed or eliminated the most productive parts of the seine fishermen's environment~ cutting their daily proc!uc~ tion by two-thirds and diminishing the daily work force" requirements by " " about the same amount. According to one of the net owners, "From the time of the causeway I haven't had a really good year. Before if I had a son I would encourage him ~o come and help me with my seine. Now I wouldn't do that. There is no future in it" (Koester, 1983). The use of both wire and the more traditional bamboo fish pots was the second major fishing method employed by Gros Islet fishermen at the time of the Rodney Bay Development project. Some men specialized in this single technique, others combined it with additional methods and others. (like farmers, craftsmen and day laborers) set fishpots as a part-time occupational pursuit. Before the development about 30 Gros Islet fisher- men relied principally on setting pots inside Reduit Bay, in tge area of the causeway and north of the causeway up to Cap. Setting pots on the nearby reef area and in the bay provided all fishermen with a secure . . inshore component to their overall strategy, thereby spreading the risk~ It involved the least effort and provided sustenance and income when the sea was too rough or the weather too bad for other kinds of fishing. . ..' The Rodney Bay Development Project adversely affected pot fishing by destroying nearby areas previously used by fishermen and by impeding . . . their access to more distant areas they previously used and continue to use, but now at a greater cost. Dredging de~troyed fish habitats where " - . . . men had set pots, and the mud and fine sand particles released while dredging the bay and swamp continue to hinder the efforts of pot fisher- men. The causeway itself obstructed their access to fishing areas north of the village. "The causeway kept me back a lot, I used to set pots .. . . , . there. Before I rowed my boat and used a sail, now I have to buy a machine to go around Pigeon Island. And its not just me, its kept back a . . . . . lot of fishermen," reports one village resident (Koester, 1983)~ The Rodney Bay project has therefore raised the cost and effort re- 0_. . . . quired for Gros Islet pot fishermen, and many pot fishe~en have left , . ' fishing altogether. Some sold their boats to Frenchmen, a lot left the sea and went on shore for a job. Another concludes, "Before the cause- way, I never left the sea but after 'that I can't depend on the sea alone." The Rodney Bay project occurred at a time when several new fishing technologies were being introduced in St. Lucia. At Gros Islet only two men had engines; the rest were still rowing and sailing. The three .. " .. seines were all cotton. There were only two bottom gill nets and no trammel nets. Only one man was diving with a tank, and the use of dyna- . . . . mite was infrequent. Since the completion of Rodney Bay the old tech- nologies have given way to more modern ones. Engines are used on both canoes and chal~upes~ the seines are nylon, there are more botto~ nets, 42 and diving with tanks is widespread (Koester, 1983). When the Rodney Bay project began, some Gros Islet fishermen were able to secure jobs in its construction. For example, it was reported, . - . . "A lot of fishermen quit to work on the causeway, the whole area was white with mud~ there were no fish so there was nothing else t~ do~" This alternative, however, was short-lived. Before the Rodney Bay project over 100 Gros Islet men earned their living from the sea. Estimates of . . . the number of active fishermen now range from 30 to 50 (and many of these are part-time). The adverse effects of Rodney Bay Development for fish- . . ... . . . . ing, combined with the options it offered in construction, changed the occupational focus of many Gros Islet men. . . Up until the time of the development project, lobster and conch were both present in the area of the causeway and also around Pigeon Island. The Bay itself had extensive sea grass beds. The fishermen of Gros Islet and the St. Lucia fisheries office agree on this. But all three--lob- ster, conch~ and sea grasses~~have now virtually "disappeared." Before the Rodney Bay project, tourism seems to have played a more .. .. visible and reliable role in the livelihoods of Gros Islet fishermen. Tourists were able to walk from the Reduit Beach hotels to the Village '. . . . . and arrange for boat tours. Somewhat nostalgically, one fisherman recalled, "We used to take tourists to Pigeon Island. We didn't have . . . engines then so we'd row them or take them by sail. a few dollars from it. Now the tourists catch big buses] and drive right around us" (Koester ~ 1983). We could always make transports [tourist Fishermen also claimed it was possible, before the project, to • catch lobster nearby and sell directly to the St. Lucia Beach Hotel and the Holiday Inn. Since the development, the nearby hotels' buy from all ... over the island because the local supply is now "unreliable." . . Frequently, when discussing the causeway, the fishermen of Gros . " Islet Village will use the term "barricade." One fisherman reports, "Gros Islet was the net fishing center. Since after they put up the . . . barricade the place is dead." From the perspective of the village, its cemetery has been destroyed and the channel was made in o~der to separate the people of Gros Islet f~om the tourists. "I believe they didn't want 43 much black people to meddle with the white people. Now we can walk to Pigeon Island but before we could walk over the bridge to the cemetery but now they've built the marina there. They didn't want the people in the midst of the whites" (Koester~ 1983)~ 4.1.5 Retrospective Conclusions The central idea of developing the Rodney Bay area as a mUlti-purpose (hotel~ condominium~ marina) site had merit. But the development plan was fundamentally flawed and produced serious problems when implemented. .. ... . The project scheme did attract external investment capital, expand the tourism industry's infrastructure base in St. Lucia, provide some new employment opportunities (although primarily short-term), and is probably economically viable for the owners or investors over time. But as de- signed and implemented, and in the absence of any serious impact assess- ment or mitigation planning (even by 1970 standards), it produced a num- ber of serious negative effects. Far too many unanticipated social, . '" economic, and environmental costs resulted, and the project, in retro- . . . spect, was a failure, especially since the full accounting of environmen- tal disbenefits (losses) is not yet finished. Three fairly obvious categories of failures overwhelmed the original scheme and placed it at risk. These failures are summarized below, not to be retroactively . . . critical but because experience is still the best teacher and there are positive lessons to be learned. 1) Conceptual Failures. There was a general conceptual failure to appreciate the magnitude and complexity of the project and its aggregate consequences if done in one "fell swoop" instead of in stages. The evidence now s~ggests (after th~ fact) that the Rodney Bay tourist facility and land development project could have been accomplished without installation of th~ ca~Seway and would have produced a better outcome. The causeway "component" of the scheme was costly, has re- turned no revenue and has ind~ced numerous unanticipated~ negative environmental effects on the natural and human ecosystems. The Gros . . . Islet bay, beach, Swamp, and village "system" was subjected to several . . sequential devastating modifications, almost simultaneously, with no 44 attempt to'assess the impact of the first stage before moving ahead on ' later stages. Three distinct and major ecosystem disruptions were involved: • • • conversion of the fresh water swamp to a saline system by cutting a deep channel (it would have been better to cut not one but two) for enhanced flushing and to reduce the sand flies dredging of Gros Islet Bay sand for surcharging the swamp and then converting the core of the swamp to . , a lagoon marina system with filled shoreline areas and road access for residential and commercial use closure of the Pigeon Island passage and massive dredging in Gros Islet Bay for causeway fill emplace- ment which has had (and co~ld hav~ been predicted'to , , have) fairly dramatic oceanographic, biological, and socia-economic impacts--mostly negative--on the ecosystem. Had the swamp/lagoon modifications been followed by an even brief period to allow the system to stabilize and to allow for an assessment of impacts (providing feedback), it is likely that a decision would have . ., . . been made to abandon the final "causeway stage". New market conditions . . and problems, community concerns, and environmental lessons learned in . .. ... .' . the first phases would have been evident, arguing against proceeding as , " planned with the causeway. Grand and complex schemes, hurriedly modify- - ing equally complex island coastal ecosystems, are often pre-programmed routes to an economic failure, if not an environmental disaster. The rule of .thumb sho~ld be "when in doubt'~ stretch it out~" even though this involves resisting the "can do" inclination of getting the . .. . job finished, producing immediate results, and moving the money--all very efficient and legitimate concerns under smaller, less risky coastal resource development circumstances. A second conceptual failure by those who originated and sanctioned the project was their inability to perceive the marine biological system at Gros Islet Bay, the artisanal fishery, and the Village itself as "resources" which were unofficially committed to the project and which . . . ... would be modified by it. The traditional users of the area became in- " . voluntary, reluctant partners in the venture because they fell within the . , "natural boundaries" of the project, although not within its official or legal boundaries as shown on planning documents. , , , In the absence of any integrated development planning protocol, this narrow perception of the project led to a failure to assess the nature and , , value of the resources being allocated--perhaps inadvertently and irre~ vocably--as an investment in the Rodney Bay development scheme. For . . . ... example, the former coral reef at the Pigeon Island passage, now buried under the causeway, was taken out of the St. Lucia natural resource ~ . . . "bank" and invested in the pro~ct. It can only be recovered in kind, . . . . . .. . . and even that prospect of re-payment is in doubt -- in part, because, , ' , after the fact, one can only i.nfer what it was worth in terms of pounds . " . . . of fish, lobster, or conch, in employment, and'in natural shoreline protection (i.e~~ as an annually renewable free input to the economy of the Village of Gros Islet and of St. Lucia). , , . There were also a variety of other failures, some systemic (and those can be avoided in the future only by external compensatory actions) , , . and some technical (that can be eliminated by modifying or applying higher or different standards or using alternative methods). . . . . . .. . . ... . . 2) Systemic Failures. The political decision-making process, i.e., the political system, as an ongoing process of interactions between elec- . .. . .. .. torates, institutions, and leaders, is inexorably inclined to optimize short-term, sectoral development aimed at generating employment, invest- ment and income in a problem solving mode within the shortest possible time frame. This is a simple fact of life, but especially risky when the developmental "quick fix" involves the allocation of small island coastal resources, usually involving complex, closely coupled dynamic natural ecosystems with an overlay of an equally closely coupled human ecosystem, constrained by both the' insular vulnerability and limited opt:f.on factors characteristic of smaller islands. There is, however, another aspect of this systemic failure of the governance process. Insular dependency on externalities, like invest- ment capital, technical assistance, grants-in-aid, and specialized en- gineering expertise (particularly marine) means that political leader- ship must also listen to a variety of different~ exogenous drummers. The conjuries of development planning schemes and tempos (generally . . .. faster in the private sector, slower to funereal in the public) resulted in a Janus syndrome of trying to look inward and outward at the same time for signals or velopment planning strained, planning guidelines. In the process, coastal ecosystem de- . . . . . .. " .. . . gets short shrift--project boundaries are too con- is both hasty and narrow, schedules are too tight to .. ... .. . " . . . allow for feedback adjustments, resources are damaged, and costly sur- prises are endemic. Rodney Bay presents a classic example of this . . particular dilemma of "getting on with it" vs. "getting it right" (i.e., minimizing losses and optimizing gains); it is a problem that can only be ameliorated, not eliminated. 3) Technical Failures. Relying on engineers and economists to de- . . .. sign a project like Rodney Bay was akin to planning a hospital without consulting with either the medical staff or user groups. In effect, a narrow engineering/marketing solution was sought and applied to a de- . . . . . velopment task that had other equally important, non-engineering dimen- . . .. sions, namely, severe modifications to the natural and human ecosystems. Missing was the design perspective and technical expertise of natural and social scientists who, collectively, could and should have dealt with the " .. . . . . unfortunately unaddressed matters of natural and huma~ resource assess- . mente Issues deserving attention included documentation of traditional . . . local uses and their economic and social significance, ecosystem charac- teristics, and project environmental impacts. Other technical failures or omissions included cutting the Village off from its cemetery and its customers for tours and boat trips, dredging too close to the shoreline, not fairing the edges of the dredge borrow pits, not maintaining a beach profile monitoring program (although . . . the engineering consultant recommended one in 1973), not working out an employment strategy for the Gros Islet villagers (who were prevented from fishing during the project), not including a proper sanitary waste. water sewage outfall disposal strategy for projected tourism facilities in the planning, not anticipating the causeway erosion phenomenon, and . . . . not being responsive to obvious negative feedback signals from the dis- . . . . turbed ecosystem. These all were project design failures more than performance failures. The final failure, perhaps the most significant, is really a by- . . product of all the conceptual, systemic and technical lacunae discussed above. Over historical time, the Gros Islet community had struck a balance with nature. It had learned how to survive the vicissitudes of isolated , ' island living, not just by fishing (which it did well) but also by learn- . . . .' . . . . . ". ing to spread risk and adjust to seasonal catch cycles for various species. The community had developed ways to reduce vulnerability by internal diversification (mixing farming and fishing) and to limit depen- dencies on external markets by "substitution." It had developed an unwritten but proven and practical "optimum sustainable yield" resource management strategy for harvesting living marine species, which were . . . . within economic range. It embodied two or more centuries of experien- tially derived, collective information about the dynamics and stock of nearby coastal resources. As a West Indian community, it had come to terms with insular constraints, natural hazards (especially hurricanes , ' and drought), and the vagaries of exogenous factors such as fish hook and . . net pricing, energy costs, spare parts availability,and "outside" . . - .. markets for fish catch. When the Sf. Lucia Beach Hotel was built on the -, .southern end of Gros Islet Bay, the community (wholly without assistance from tourism planners or commercial operators) adapted what it knew well to develop a new ~conomic activity requiring no new capital investment, , i.e., transporting tourists to historic Pigeon Island or to visit other local marine "things" within the area like the adjacent reef. Fishermen built their own boats and wove their own fish pots out of local material. In short, the Gros Islet community was a viable, fairly self-sufficient, productive fishing unit with low-level requirements for input from the state and from the external cash/market economy of St. Lucia and beyond. Villagers had few requirements for energy, capital, and technological imports from off the island; their "dependency index" was low. It is clear that Gros Islet was a village community which possessed .. its own technically autonomous culture while maintaining itself as a . . . marine-oriented coastal society with a fairly "complex" production system. This is true, even though in a classical sense, Gros Islet was and still is a marginal and "peripheral" community' vis a vis the more advanced dominant core systems in Castries or beyond. Even as a marginal or peripheral (albeit archaic) social unit, the Village was economically . . . . important (like other villages along St. Lucia's coastline) both to the national center and to other marginal units and production systems. It . . . . . .' .' knew how to produce, to nourish, to sustain, to survive, and even to grow. It had established its own definition of the "rational use" of insular resources. What the people of Gros Islet had not learned and did not know was ... .. . . . how to deal with a Rodney Bay development intrusion. Not that they saw it as intrinsically "bad" or "go~d"~~onlY that it represented a totally . . . . ~ threat and opportunity, frightening and promising all at once. Island villages like Gros Islet, even in the face of development . . schemes like the Rodney Bay project, are not, of course, totally help- less. They may survive on their own adaptive terms as villages and as . . . . . . . . "less" productive, less efficient (more marginal) communities within the terms of national planning and development activity, but in either case they and we confront the same two questions: what of value is there already that could be lost in the pr'ocess of modernization and growth, • and how can the production system be sustained and losses minimized? Failure to address these questions more often than not leads to later costly losses requiring remedial strategies and interventions. In this instance, there is no known remedial action that will recover what . . . was lost. What was will never be again; no engineer can "fix it" or make it right. St. Lucia inadvertently sacrificed a liv~ng coastal village on the altar of tourism to exorcise a small, pesty bug. Unfortunately, there are still sand flies lurking in the bush at Rodney Bay, and the .. ' causeway re~ins an empty, unused expanse of sand. 4.2 Virgin Islands Mangrove Lagoon (1967-1984) 4.2.1 Introduction The southeastern coast of St. Thomas is endowed with a large, singu- larly attractive mangrove lagoon and bay of exceptional natural value. . . . Its water, mangrove and grass bed systems traditionally provided a rich nursery area for fish and a productive habitat for benthic biota. Its mangrove fringed shores are a natural buffer against shore erosion, . . floods and hurricane waves. The coast's configuration provides a protec- tive anchorage for boats and its adjoining hillsides are popular residen- . . . tia1 areas for Virgin Islanders. The area is filled with scenic con- trasts, mang1ar islands, rocky cliffs, ponds and panoramic ridge1ines. . . . . . . Its diverse complex of natural communities provides a recreational opportunity for Virgin Islanders. Yet these very attributes have at- tracted so many people in recent years that the same elements which first attracted them to the area are now being degraded. Traditional uses of the "Mangrove Lagoon" (its official and generic . . names are the same) have included fishing, crabbing, clamming, the cut- . . . ting of mangrove wood for charcoal and boat timbers, and serving as a protected anchorage for local boats, particularly as a hurricane refuge. . . . . . . Since the 1960's, however, development of the watershed and shores has proceeded virtually unchecked. Upland slopes, valleys and flood plains . .. . . were bulldozed for two shopping centers, thousands of residential sites, .. and roads. Mangroves were cut and buried by backfill to create marinas, docks, a sewage treatment plant, roads and a racetrack. Coastal salt ponds were also filled. MOre people and more boats (Figure 3) created a . . .. , .. .. . .... need for new service facilities, i.e., more fresh water, more power, . . more ·roads, more parking, more docks, sewage treatment plants, and septic tanks. These, in turn, have reduc~d hillside ~egetation and created higher residential and commercial densities resulting in more runoff, erosion and pollution. As pressures for development mounted, a series of environmental problems were created, and the Lagoon's tradi- tional ecological values and functions were threatened. The following are some of the stresses and impacts currently im- pinging on or present in the "~ngrove Lagoon." ~ 7°OE ! soo 30111- I lOll ~ UJ t:Q ~ :::l Z mtW~l 1947 1958 1965 1972 1976 1983 a. Boats in Hangrove Lagoon-Benner Bay. en Cl z and IMPACT m if /1 LAGOON USES [-;-3 WATER RECREATION E;J RESIDENTIAL 1$:::1 MARINA .......... BERTHING m ANCHORAGE 'il NAVIGATION lON E E&'lI STORM REFUGE II1lD RACETRACK Figure 4. Sche~atic summary of stresses and impacts on the Mangrove Lagoon and Jersey Bay area, St. Thomas, 1983. (Modified from Nichols and Towle, 1977b.) ;"..-: 53 What went wrong? What can be learned from the labyrinth of emergirtg interactions between the users, the planners, the managers, the off- island exogenous factors and forces, and the natural ecosystem? It would appear that the management system was overwhelmed. Was it for internal or external reasons? What follows is a fairly detailed description of the metamorphosis of an island lagoon/watershed system und~rgoing rapid 'change. It sug- gests that we can learn from experience, and it demonstrates that good intentions and local legislation, research and planning are not always . - " . . . enough to prevent the degradation of an island ecosystem in the face of externally generated and funded development pressures. It also stands as . " . .. . . a kind of biography of an insular ecosystem that has inadvertently been pushed beyond its natural carrying capacity thr~shold into a n~w b~havioral . .' . .. . ~. mode of a highly stressed, man-modified system requiring continous human management inputs of a costly and. remedial nature. 4.2.2 Description of the Lagoon System The Mangrove L~goon with its contiguous passages, bays and backwaters forms a triangular estuarine system 2 km (1.2 miles) long and about 1.3 km (0.6 miles) wide overall. Because the shores are very irregular the average width is less than 0.5 km. The system lies in a northeast- southeast trending fault zone of sedimentary fill at the mouth of Turpenti~e Run, the largest perennial stream on St. Thomas. Mangrove fringed islands and shallow waters form an embayment in the coast which ... contrasts with the pattern of steep, rocky headlands and narrow sand or • cobble beaches along the rest of the south coast of St. Thomas • . - Together with Cas Cay and Patricia Cay, Bovoni Cay separates the Lagoon from Jersey Bay and the sea creating t~e quiet water necessary for extensive mangrove growth and the development of a safe harbor for small boats. Table 2 summarizes the geographic and hydrographic dimensions of the Mangrove Lagoon and Benner Bay. Since the Lagoon is linked to the sea and to the watershed, contig- uous upland drainage basins or "~atersheds" and the waters of Jersey Bay are also considered. The standard. geographic element is the ecosystem, Table 2. Summary of geographic and hydrographic dimensions for the Mangrove Lagoon and Benner Bay systems. (Source: Nichols and Towle, 1977b.) Parameter Length Width Water Area (Mean Low Water) Water Area (Mean High Water) Water Volume (below MLW) Mean Depth Overall Maximum Depth Mean Tide Range Tidal Prism Shoreline Length (MLW) Watersheds (total surface) Mangrove Lagoon (including passages) 1.6km 0.35 - 1.0 km 6l4~339 m2 809~4 71 m2 805,675 m3 1.3m 3.2 m 0.27 m 19l~238 m3 1,374,641 m 12.7 km2 Benner Bay 0.4 km o. 15 - o. 30 km l28~89l m~ 135,607 m 160,394 m3 1.3 m 2.2 m 0.27 m 35,713 m3 13,201 m 0.8 km2 embracing all the biologic and physical components in the Lagoon which act together as independently. is that defined an ecological unit; no single part of the system operates The concept of a "coastal ecosystem" employed herein by Clark (1977) as including ".~~ (1) a defined water basin (or series of interconnected basins), (2) all marginal (shoreline . . . transition areas, and (3) all shoreland watersheds that drain into the coastal basin." The lagoonal complex involves a series of ten ecological zones or units. These units are all linked by the flow of water and other human use. Table 3 summarizes attributes of these zones and their relative . . . position with respect to each other, to water depth, and to qistance seaward. Proceeding from greatest elevation,.they are: the upland Tutu Valley area, a primary drainage basin called Turpentine Run with cactus and secondary scrub growth, the high tidal flats and salterns which are dominated by the black mangrove, the several ponds and inner lagoons which are edged by the red mangrove forest and swamp. There is also an open-water lagoon which contains turtle grass flats and manglar (barrier) cays. Between Bovoni Cay and Patricia Cay and between Patricia Cay and Table 3. Ecological zones of the Mangrove lagoon (from Nichols and Towle, 1977b). ECOLOGICAL ZONES SEA. REO RED MANGROVE -'- MeW BLACK MANGROVE •. - ___ ... ~ UPLAND MAN~GROVE._ ()M'l." f;~ ••. ~ __ '"~ '"" _.p.!iir-~W1~._.n __ n._. __ ~._ . ., - ••. J ~~_......,... ........ ~ . . . , J. . J . :j ... - , - ,;--- .1 .. .L .. _ AT TIt WUTl S DRAINAGl urr.U TIDAL PONOS II INN[It MAIlGlmV[ OI'IN WAHR. GRASS UIDS MANGLAR BARRIER PASSAGES. BACK BASIN FlATS LAGOOIlS rOIl! <,T & LACOON II (LAGUUflj CAYS ISLAND ENTRANCE RHr FLATS "SALTERNS" SWAMI' BENNER BAY TUALASSIA CHANNELS I '-" \...,."l AR[A IN , ACRES 3,334 10.7 14.34 49.9 IH3.0 11.0 4.5 15.3 14.8 lOA WATER DEPTH Range Range I Rdn'Je' Ran'll' Mean Mean Range Range Ranqe Range OR o to 260 O.Z to OA 0.1 to 0.3 o to 0.3 1-3 0.8 o to 0.3 0.3 to 2.6 0.2 to 3.2 0.1 to 0.3 [LEVATIO. DRAINAGE OR Partly Covered IIp,1 Mdnr]rove. flUS/WIG Intermi ttent on Spri nr] & Slow Lovered wi th Slow to Slow to Covered by I Rapid Drai nage I Moderate Rapid Stonn Tide w,lter most of Moderdte Moderate Normal Tides vedr ,)UBSTI!ATE OR I Gravelly Clay I Clay & Silt Orqanic Mud. flEO SEDIMENT loam Muck Peat Sdndy Mud, Muddy Sand Ipeat, Sandy Mud I Sand Sand I Rubble. Sand Muddy Sand Sandy Mud DISTINCTIVE I Dry Fores t Barren or 8i'td dnd Fores t Cover. Plankton Confinelllent, Nutrient Pro- I Stonn Barrier" lIa ter Exchange '/ S ton11 Barrier, ECOLOGICAL with factus. Algal Wildl ife Nutrient Habitat. Nur\ery /ldbitat, duction. Shore Sand Storage Feeding Area Sediment Trap, CHARACTfR & Seconaary Snrub Covered Habi tat Produc t i on. Feeding and Production, Stabi I ization, Feeding Area FUNCTION growth Shore Nursery Area Nutrient Storage Sediment Trap Stabilization 56 the mainland are entrance passages that lead to the back reef flats at . the several "false entrances" (open but too shallow for boat traffic due to coral reefs). Much of the circulation for the Lagoon comes across these shallow reef systems in the form of wind driven currents • . The lagoon system acquires some of its water and much of its sedi- ment from the upland watershed or drainage basin. Because the Lagoon is. linked to the watershed, changes in topographic and flow characteristics of the watershed affect many functions in the Lagoon itself. Fresh water inflow governs the salinity of lagoon water which~ in turn~ affects the . ..... . . . types of organisms in the Lagoon, their distribution and abundance. Ad- . . ditionally, the amount of sediment, nutrients, organic debris and some . ... ~ pollutants carried into the Lagoon is determined by stream runoff. These materials affect lagoon water quality, sedimentation rates, and plant production. The drainage basin receives an average of about 40 inches of rain- fall annually, but as much as eight inches has been recorded from a sin- gle 24 hour storm. Annually runoff amounts to only two to eight percent .. . . . . . . of the rainfall. The drainage system of the Mangrove Lagoon and Benner Bay consists of four sub-basins (Figure 5). MOst stream channels are dry .. and carry only intermittent storm runoff. The Lagoon receives drainage conveyed through small guts or washes, through local culverts, and through a major stream channel--Turpentine Run. Most runoff in Turpen- tine Run infiltrates the soil and alluvium (Jordan and Cosner, 1973). . . Only major storm runoff, resulting from infrequent rainfalls totaling more than four inches, reaches the Lagoon as surface flow. . . - Intense development in the upper drainage basin of Turpentine Run (the Tutu area) has increased the potential for flash flooding into the Lagoon. By destroying the naturally absorptive soil and vegetation cover with construction of roadways, parking lots and roofs, and by lining . . stream beds with concrete, flood water from torrential rains is delivered to the Lagoon quickly (Nichols et al., 1979a). MOst watershed sediment so supplied to the Bay is fine-grained silt and clay, and by remaining suspended in Bay waters the fines degrade water transparency. Prior to 1968~ flood drainage from Turpentine Run entered the La- 57 DRAINAGE BASIN DENSE DEVELOPMENT -- ROAD Figure 5. Drainage basins of the Mangrove Lagoon and Benner Bay, with areasof dense residence. (Source: Nichols and Towle, 1977b.) 58 goon through two or more vegetated distributary channels across an allu~ via delta with mangroves. These shallow channels and the mangroves acted like a filter to cleanse the runoff of sediments and debris. When fill . . . for a potential horse racetrack was dumped on the delta in 1968, drainage was short-circuited through a single channel directly to the L~goon (Figure 6). Thus, the cleansing action of the distributaries was lost. Some lagoonal circulation is wave driven. As waves enter Jersey Bay, they "feel bottom" and are refracted into gently curved patterns with crests more or less parallel to the bottom contours (Figure 7) • . . . Because of the narrowness of the west entrance channel and protection provided by Manglar Island and adjacent shoals, waves do not enter Benner . . . . .. Bay under normal conditions. Bovoni Cay excludes waves from the Mangrove Lagoon proper. Although tidal forces are small compared to wind and wave transport over the reef, they are the most persistent force over the long term. They are also the main force during periods of light weather, a time when . . . . -'. . "worst case" conditions for exchange and flushing of pollutants develop. 4.2.3 Historical Development The narrative begins in 1961 when the territory of the U.S. Virgin Is- lands entered into a dynamic period of rapid expansion and economic growth (stimulated almost exclusively by external factors) in three . . . sectors--government operations, light manufacturing (assembly) exports, and tourism. In the case of tourism, growth rates were exponential, . ... . . measured in tourist arrivals and accommodations. Massive U.S. govern- . . ment funding was also made available for public housing, roads, educa~ tional facilities~ sewage treatment ,plants, health care arid other human services. Additionally, U.S. tax incentives favored external invest- ment in the Virgin Islands. As a resu1t~ between 1960 and 1980 the population of the Virgin Islands doubled, and the employed labor force tripled. Electricity demand increased at an average of 20 percent per year. Thousands of new " individual housing units were built. Public housing for 20,000 residents was constructed utilizing federal funding. A new 750 thousand barrel a , •... ~-~.~. ~ "".; .. ""rr.~j.':.- .-~ 0", -;co ,""!~. . , Figure 6. Aerial photogr~ph of the Mangrove Lagoon and Benner Bay taken by the National Ocean Survey, November 23, 1972. (Source: Nichols and Towle. 1977b.) V1 \0 • J LA .... ... 4lD o tOO 200 SOO 400 800 II( T£ltS I I I __ ~ .. _t • , .. i : --=1 o 01 02 0.5 04 _UT .'LIS ISLAND tll:SOURC(S ,~, ... ~'.: ... - ~~t::'.~ ---z;.:-::~ WAVE REFRACTION ,-. 1, ..... :. , ... , 11 6' '" ......... , , ····1 .' \ /, I ! , • ~i} ) ::",.1-.. -' PATTERN Figure 7. Wave refraction pattern for easterly swells reproduced from NOS aerial photographs of 1958 and 1974 (from Nichols and Towle, 1977b). :J' o day oil refinery was sited on St. Croix (one of the three major islands. within the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands), adjacent to a new bauxite processing plant. Most standard indices for the Virgin Islands' economy had literally taken off, and the territory became incr~asing1y dependent upon the mainland. As McElroy and Albuquerque (1983) have noted, " ••• the tourism base became pervasive ••• , new ties were forged . . with national travel, financial, and transport interests.~~: federal . . social service and regulatory programs were institutionalized ••• [and] manufacturing activity (petroleum and aluminum refining) tied the terri- tory inextricably into the global energy and raw materials mclrkets~" Although attenuated by the mild world-wide economic recession of the early 1970's, the process of accelerated growth has been sustained at only a slightly reduced level through the present time. Sometime in 1967 the Governor of the Virgin Islands determined that the existing St. Thomas airport at Lindbergh Bay, on the island's south- . . . . ern coast near to the capital of Charlotte Amalie but removed from most .. major beaches and resort hotels, was unsafe and unsatisfactory and that a . . . . . . . new international airport that could accommodate larger jet aircraft should be constructed at some alternative location. Engineering studies . . . by off-island firms recommended that a new airport be constructed on the south shore of the Mangrove Lagoon on the easterly end of St. Thomas' shoreline. This would be accomplished by leveling Patricia and Cas Cays and Long Point and filling in intermediate reefs and the false entrances . . .. .. , . to build a runway which would have a more or less east-west axis, extend- ing into 50 feet of water in Sta11ey' Bay (Figure 8). It was a major . engineering undertaking. At the time no attempt had been made to assess the environmental . . . impact of the proposed jet airport constructi~n, and a bitter controversy in the community emerged which lasted the better part of two years. The . . resulting public debate evolved into rancorous polarization between the so-called growth vs. no-growth factions, between the environmental . .. - . purists and the developers concerned with jobs, the economy, and human resource development. Local opposition to the proposed airport resulted in the letting of Mangrova tJ _'\. ,-- / ',-_../ /' /' ~ 159.0 CE~ JERSEY NB. BAY (] t The acreage shown is for the minimum land, in the govern- ment's estimation, re- quired for airport con- struction. ~ 1!jOO :JqOO feet Figure 8. Mangrove Lagoon runway orientation for proposed St. Thomas jet airport, 1968. (Source: Tabb and Michel, 1968.) c h; a contract by the Governor's Office to the University of Miami in Feb- ruary of 1968 for a preliminary environmental assessment which resulted in a survey of the floral, faunal and hydrographic features of the Man- " " grove Lagoon. The consultants' report (Tabb and Michel, 1968) can be summarized as follows. 1) Turbidity from the silty clay component in the hill masses sche- duled to be excavated and used for runway site fill would affect the entire bay area and, if prolonged, could have serious ecological conse- quences. 2) The construction of the airport would require paving over massive portions of the adjacent hillside areas, resulting in accelerated fresh- water runoff in times of heavy rainfall, which would further aggravate pollution problems and result in nutrient enrichment (including sewage)~ . . . . .. . . . . 3) High water clarity and the natural seawater circulation were " " absolutely vital to the continued biological well-being of the Bay. 4) To conclude that conditions within the Bays might be improved by the addition of nutrient materials such as sewage was an unwise assump- tion." 5) The circulation pattern of the Mangrove Lagoon and the western " " " part of Jersey Bay was dominated by the water transport induced by break- ers on the shoals between the mainland and Patricia Cay and Patricia and Cas Cays. Transport from these breakers flows into Jersey Bay and the Mangrove Lagoon, overcoming the normal tidal flows and owing its exis- . . . . tence to a rare combination of topography and wave characteristics coupled with a diurnal tide of a very small amplitude. It is understandable that the Virgin Isl~nds Governor's Office was unhappy with this report. An effort was made to seek a technological solution to the problem posed by the closure of circulation along Patricia and Cas Cays by the proposed airport project. An engineering consultant suggested the possibility of establishing an artificial wave run-up ramp and empondment on the seaward side of the projected runway, with a tunnel or sluiceway to be constructed under the airport runway itself. Such a scheme would theoretically maintain the pattern of water . .. . .. . . flow into the Lagoon and thereby maintain the normal circulation regime within the Lagoon itself (Michel, 1970). At the same time~ as the public debate continued, a worried voice was heard from a new direction, namely, from the island of St. John which .. lies immediately to the east of St. Thomas and directly under the path of . . . the projected take-off patterns for the larger jets which would use any new airport at the Mangrove Lagoon. The U.S. National Park on St. John . . . . . - . . and a luxury resort hotel at Canee1 Bay, St. John, were uneasy and . . . . . quietly requested a U.S. Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Ser- · . vice study team to visit the Lagoon to provide further documentation on its ecological value. The study team reported that "the Mangrove Lagoon is easily the most . . .. . . . ." significant [mangrove] area remaining and is, in fact, very near the only stand of appreciable size that remains in the American Virgin Is1ands~" They also found that "the Mangrove Lagoon is in fact the major remaining habitat in the northern U.s. Virgin Islands for about twenty species of · .' .. herons, egrets, and other waterbirds and an equal number of wintering and migratory species." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey experts expressed concern for the loss of habitat for waterbirds that live on Cas Cay and . . . the adjoining waters of the Mangrove Lagoon, noting that encroachment on . . . . . . . .. . their habitat had already brought the population of many of these birds to extremely low levels (McNulty et a1., 1968) • . . The administration was sufficiently confident with its position on building an airport in the Mangrove Lagoon that it purchased the land at · . . Long Point, the focal point of the proposed facility. It also estab- lished a Port Authority so that it would be in a position to build and manage the new airport. However, the Governor was to discover that it was easier to decide to build a new airport than to find the money to . .. construct it. Du+ing the ensuing, rather extended, delay yet another study of the Mangrove Lagoon, involving nine months of field work, was . . . . carried out by the research arm of the local college, the Caribbean Research Institute. The final report from this survey (Grigg et a1., 1971) more or less coincided with a year long down-turn in tourist air arrivals and with acknowledgment by the administration that it had not been able to identify the necessary funds for airport construction. 65 The environmentalists and most residents of the Lagoon area were . .. elated, assuming the Mangrove Lagoon was now out of "danger" since no new airport would be located there. But the government purchase of a key . . . . . " - parcel of land at the Lagoon was a harbinger of other things to come . . --other incremental kinds of change and new pressures to "use" the now government-owned land in the Lagoon, if not for an airport then for . . . . . ... whatever was convenient. Further, the territory-wide accelerated growth pattern, especially for the island of St. Thomas~ was rapidly s~bsUming . . . the Mangrove Lagoon and its watershed. Local planning, resource manage- .. ". .. ment, and environmental protection agencies were simply overwhelmed by the process of change. They were unable to deal with the pace and mag- . . nitude of growth, landscape alteration, and resultant environmental impacts generated by outside, off-island factors and funding. Between 1970 and 1971 the number of boats in the Lagoon had doubled, and a new full service marina (Antilles Yachting Services) and thr~e new bare-boat chartering operations had started up in the Benner Bay area, . . with construction just beginning at another marina at Compass Point. . . . . At the northern end of the Lagoon, a fair-sized residential community was developing, serviced by a 70,000.gallon-per-day sewage treatment plant . . . . operated by the Virgin Islands Public Works Department, with its al- legedly treated effluent draining into "polishing" ponds near the . . . - Lagoon's edge. At the other end of the watershed, in the Tutu Valley area, a massive residential and commercial building boom was under way~ The population of the had doubled by 1971. .... . . . drainage basin, which had been about 4,000 in 1960, No one foresaw that it would almost double again • by 1980, reaching 15,000 persons (nearl~ one-third the population of St. Thomas). This substantial growth would also eventually spur demand for . , .. . . . several new sewage treatment plants (funded largely by the U.S. govern- ment) and thousands of septic tank installations in both the coastal and more remote watershed housing units and smaller commercial establish- ments. Local environmental agencies had been concerned for some time about the problem of how to handle domestic and commercial sewage and waste water from burgeoning new "point sources" in the Lagoon watershed area. Signals from the Washington-based federal agency concerned with terri- torial "sewage problems" favored a "treatment" instead of a "disposal" strategy. Unfortunately, the former strategy was inappropriate for . . . island systems. Therefore, instead of opting for a low-cost ocean out- fall disposal strategy (appropriate for offshore islands) for raw mac- . . erated sewage, local government authorities were forced to accept the federally "approved~" standard continentally based approach of a fairly sophisticated system of complex aerobic/ mechanical sewage treatment plants, which are costly and energy intensive. Unfortunately, isolated, . . . . upland units require polishing ponds which use up limited land area, and larger "downstream" coastal treatment facilities still require short ocean outfalls for final disposal of the ·partially treated effluent. . . Most of the subsequently built sewage treatment plant systems were . . . . not designed for tropical environments, rarely performing to design . " .. '.. . . . specifications and with a fairly high rate of breakdown. Furthermore, they require a high degree of operator skill if they are to be maintained . . . . . and remain functional. As a consequence of periodic, often extended . . . electrical power outages, a not uncommon phenomenon in island areas, raw .. untreated sewage often passes directly into associated polishing ponds or the coastal littoral environment. Many of these problems were anticipated locally, but because the . . . . . . . ... external funding sources pressed for use of standard continental criteria and preferred technology, the island got what it did not need . . . . ' " --a high cost, high technology, breakdown prone, decentralized management nightmare of a system. The Virgin Islands could and probably should have • opted for the World Health Organization (WHO) strategy which encourages island areas to avoid elaborate treatment systems and use well deSigned, long ocean outfalls for disposing of macerated and chlorinated raw . . sewage, preferably below the coastal thermocline (as, for example, in . . . ' . the case of the Cook Islands [RaratongaJ, Western Samoa [ApiaJ, and Papua New Guinea [LaeJ). The Virgin Islands did not, however, choose to reject the "inappro- priate" sewage treatment strategies imposed from outside (to do so would have reduced funding levels), and the Mangrove Lagoon watershed was to eventually have a total of five government operated systems--all disas-o ter prone and difficult, if not impossible~ to run efficiently~ In the meanwhile~ within the Mangrove Lagoon itself (more than half of which was bounded by privately owned land)~ development activities were expanding~ stimulated by various U~S. (off~island) tax poiicies favoring "charter boat" operations~ By 1975: Antilles Yachting Services~ a large marina operation based in the Lagoon at Benner Bay: applied for a permit for expanded facilities~ The environmental assessment report accompanying the permit application emphasized that because there were o o. so many other large-scale pollutants entering the Lagoon area from the watershed runoff and from the malfunctional, government-operated . . . . . . . . sewage treatment plant at Bovoni and from the government's solid waste . . . . . disposal facility at Long Point, the pollution contribution from their own modest proposal of a few docks and a little bulkheading was very . . .. . small by comparison and would not make a substantial difference (Insular Environments~ 1975b)~ They were in fact saying: "Why single us out?" The implication was that the larger pollution sources in the area, . . . . resulting from ongoing government activity, should be dealt with first in coping with the general deterioration of the ecosystem. o 0 But even as these events were occurring, there seemed to be new hope for the Lagoon from a different direction. Stimulated by the passage of o .0 the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, the local territorial government elected in 1974 to apply for the necessary planning grants to . . . . . . . implement a Virgin Islands Coastal Zone Management Program. Under the aegis of the local Planning Office, °a team was assembled and contracts let for specialized planning studies. The first of these, completed in o 0 1975 (Towle, Grigg, Rainey et al., 1976), suggested that the "Mangrove .. Lagoon" be consid.ered as an "area of particular concern" (APC) ~ By June of 1977 the Virgin Islands had completed its preliminary . . . . . Coastal Zone Management Program Plan (VI Government Planning Office, 1977) which, after extensive public hearings and extended legislative . . . . ' . debate, was approved in October 1978. The program consolidated and centralized the local permitting process for development projects, officially identified so-called "areas of particular concern" (including 68 the Mangrove Lagoon), laid out the requirements for more elaborate environmental impact review documents to accompany permit applications for development activities, and provided criteria for restricting de- velopment in the coastal zone to water-dependent uses~ Once the planning phase was completed, the administration of the program was turned over to the Virgin Islands' environmental agency, the Department of Conservation and Cultural Affairs (DCCA)~ Many observers believed that with the advent of the Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Program, piecemeal development and mismanagement of the Lagoon watershed would be a thing of the past. The future of the eco- " " system, however, remained at risk without remedial action to reduce pollution loading. " " The u.s. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (through the Virgi~ Islands Department of Conservation and CultUral Affairs) funded two studies to address the problem of pollution loading (Nichols et al., - . . . 1979a and 1979b), but neither had any observable effect on either the expanding operation of the solid waste disposal facility or on the in- creasing volume of sewage and nutrients discharged into the watershed by the government-operated sewage treatment plants. These plants con- ... . tinued to be hydraulically overloaded and to malfunction and, in some cases, to not function at all for extended periods~ . . . . - Finally, the Department of Public Works, which was officially charged with responsibility for managing both the solid waste disposal " " " site at the Lagoon head and the five sewage treatment plants in the watershed (at that time), continued "to have problems. The Department was ~ hard pressed to find man-power, funds, and facilities to address the " " dramatic increase in solid waste generated on St. Thomas. Volumes rose from 100 tons per day in 1971 to over 150 tons per day in 1981 and up to 200 tons per day by 1984. The burdens imposed by the continual operation " " of sewage plants running at 120 to 150 percent capacity and by the frequent power outages due to mechanical failures at the power plant also proved difficult~ Furthermore~ because local hotels were required under the Virgin Islands Environmental Protection Act to install package sewage treatment plants, the Public Works Department was continually training 69 sewage plant operators, ~nly to lose them to the private sector. . . . . .. . Lastly, it must be remembered that the Mangrove Lagoon was only one of many stressed areas in the Virgin Islands through this entire rapid growth period, causing the agencies involved to divide their interests, . . forces, and finances between the three major islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. The foregoing discussion presents the context for the next series of impacts on the Lagoon which brings the current case study to what we call the remedial phase. In the early 1980's, the territorial government obtained funding for a new hospital to be located on the outskirts of the capital city of Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. The site was then oc- . .. . . cupied by the island's only horse racetrack, a very popular, heavily used ... facility for local racing enthusiasts. Because time was of the essence in commencing construction of the hos~ital, a quick decision was made by government to move the racetrack to the Lagoon. The reasons appeared . . sound: the government owned the land (which made it convenient) and, further, there was a partially completed racetrack there already. It had been started by the Departm~nt of Public Works in 1968 in the mangrov~ . . wetlands at the lower end of Turpentine Run, but terminated because the . ..... local government had failed to secure necessary federal permits. The government's hastily assembled environmental assessment report, . .. ..' . accompanying its coastal zone permit application in late 1980 for siting the racetrack in the Lagoon area, argued that it was Public Works Depart- . . ment's sewage treatment plant, immediately to the west of the racetrack site, that was causing all the problems in the Lagoon. The only irrever- . .. . - sible environmental effect of the racetrack would be to diminish the .. . area available for nesting birds. The Coastal Zone Commission granted . . . . - . the permit in early 1981. Public confidence in the efficacy of the Virgin Islands CZM permitting process was not enhanced. It is ironic that just two months after the Coastal Zone Commis- sion permit was issued for the racetrack, the senior planner of the . . . . . Division of Coastal Zone Management completed and circulated for re- view his very detailed "management plan for the St. Thomas Mangrove Lagoon area of particular concern" (Teytaud, 1981). The plan was too 70 late to have any effect, too complex for efficient application, and too' removed from prevailing uses and management requirements to enjoy accep- tance as a workable plan of action or for controls. As water quality continued to decline and shoaling accelerated, DCCA came under increasing pressure from a newly formed, private sector Benner Bay/Lagoon Marine Industry ASso~iation and others to take more .. .... . . direct action to reduce Lagoon pollution loading and also to permit a deepening of the access channel by dredging. DCCA turned to the U.S~ . . , Army Corps of Engineers District in Jacksonville, Florida, with a re- quest to study the feasibility of improving the flushing of the Lagoon. . . '. . Proposed modifications included widening and deepening the Lagoon channel . . . to Benner Bay and dredging a turning basin at the end of the Bay. The . . . . . " . Corps responded favorably and promptly launched a preliminary reconnais- sance survey. Their September 1982 report (U .• S~· Army Corps of Engi- - . ' . . neers, 1982) documented approximately 400 boats docked in the Bay, the majority of them in excess of 28 feet in length. To quote the report: Benner Bay is one of the three major harbors in St. Thomas. It provides docking and anchorage for a large por~ion of the charter sailboats in the is- lands and, in times of severe weather, serves as a vital harbor of refuge for many additional boats. The bay also houses five commercial marinas and one of the few boat-hauling and complete service repair facilities in the Virgin Islands~ Since a large percen~ of the boats ;n. the islands have drafts in excess of five feet, shoaling in the bay has greatly curtailed its ~sefulness as an anchorage both in e~rgencies and on a long-term basis. In addition, economic growth of the ex- isting marine-related businesses in the area has suffered from the inability of.deeper draft ves- sels to enter the bay~~~~ Shoaling in the bay is also suspected to have contributed to the en- vironmental degradation of the area'by decreasing the flushing rate of the bay and the adjacent mangrove lagoon. The Corps estimated that 45~000 cubic yards of material would need to be excavated, costing $160~OOO for final planning and engineering studies plus an additional $495,000 for dredging and construction costs, 71 plus incidentals t for a total of $655,000. It would take two years, however, just to complete the detailed project plan. The "remedial action·' phase of Lagoon management was fast approaching. . . The local marina operators found two years to be somewhat long for . . . simply a planning phase and opted to do it themselves. The idea was, however, expanded to include an additional dredged area for ninety new boat slips~ but the ~rmit applicatio~ to th~ Government was r~ject~d~ in .. part because of rising concern within DCCA about the number of moored and docked live-aboard boats used as residences. The agency believed that . . live-aboard boats were contributing significantly to the growing pollu- . . . tion problem in the Lagoon. Concern was laid to rest, however, in 1983, .. . when an EPA funded study of vessel wastes in the territory demonstrated . . that while the Lagoon's boat population had risen in one year from 400 to . . . 481 vessels, only 81 were live-aboards. Furthermore, the aggregate Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) loading from all boats was only 8.6 lb/day: . - . . ' while at the Lagoon head, the combined loading of the sewage treatment plant and Turpentine Run effluents was 455 lb/day: or 98 percent of the problem (Wernicke and Towle~ 1983)~ With few options left open, and with public pressure mounting con- . . . ' . . . . . . cerning both the public "dump" and sewage pollution at the Lagoon head, the government was forced to take action. It elected (with U.S. federal funding) to "eliminate" the dump by building a "high-tech" 350 tons per day solid waste incinerator/energy recovery plant (to make fresh water . . .. by seawater desalination) and elected to eliminate the "sewage" problem by building yet another high technoI"ogy, centralized sewage treatment - system (replacing ~ll existing smaller plants which would be abandoned)~ The total estimated cost is 25 million dollars. The two proposed facili- ties are to be located at the Lagoon head shoreline (the old "dump site"), on the land previously purchased by the government for the aborted jet airport (Virgin Islands Pla~ning Offic~: 1983)~ As for the Mangrove Lagoon, its days are clearly numbered, and in one--perhaps two--decades it will have more facilities than fish, . .,. . more boats than birds, and more modifications than mangroves, requiring ever more costly pollution control and continuing remedial measures (like 72 dredging) to do what nature once did for free~ 4.2.4 Retrospective Conclusions .. In the first place, there was a conceptual failure by almost every- . . one to perceive the Lagoon and its associated watershed as a system of connected and related parts (some more critical than others). This . . . resulted in a sequence of structural design failures in virtually every management sector or agency concerned with the Lagoon "sink" at the lower end of the watershed. For example, the natural scientists who produced the approximately 20 research reports, monitoring documents, and development impact assess- ment studies between 1968 and 1983~ with only two partial exceptions, . . . failed to address the totality of the ecosystem, focusing only on the "effects" manifested in the Lagoon. The Mangrove Lagoon without its . . . . . watershed may have been a useful and convenient study framework but it was not a satisfactory resource management model. .. ... .... . As a consequence, there was a tendency to measure and count the wrong things and not to quantify others. In studies of the Mangrove . . . . . Lagoon there were elaborate scientific measurements and quantification . - of waves, currents and fisheries, of fecal coliform and other water . . . " quality parameters, and of the distribution of benthic and pelagic or- ganisms, sea grasses, algae, and mangroves. But it might have been more useful to count fewer fish and algae, and to allocate more time and effort to count the number of site development permits~ septic tanks~ and housing units, and to measure periodically the devegetated areas ., in the uplands, as well as look at things like commercial effluents, stream flow and' sediment loads in Turpentine Run. An assessment of the driving variables and trends in the whole system would have been more useful than just measuring their impacts on the aquatic system at the lower end of the watershed. Even with this expanded focus, the task of 4ata analysis leading to a determination of significance and to implications for management would have remained at risk because natural scientists are not accustomed to, skilled at; or comfortable interpreting these kinds of data. A team ef- 73 fort involving planners, resource management technicans~ and natural and social scientists was required, but the terms of reference for most studies rarely encouraged or even permitted such an approach. Both the planning and management systems failed to conceptualize the ecosystem as a "watershed unit" and therefore proceeded ov~r the years to look at the phenomenon of growth in the area through an arti- ficial framework of "census enumeration districts" and zoning di"stricts and codes designed in 1970 but never modified in the face of emerging concentration and density factors in the "Turpentine Run/Mangrove Lagoon ecosystem. n In any event, just the existence of a central, physical or town planning unit (whatever it is called) can give all concerned a false " " sense of security. This problem is especially awkward when dealing . . ' " . with coastal and marine matters in developing island areas, largely because planning units seldom have staff competent to adddress the com- ......... plex question of coastal resource planning. This situation is espe- cially bothersome for insular areas undertaking more intensive strategies to develop coastal and marine resources. As in the case of Rodney Bay in St. Lucia (see Section 4.1), there were also systemic failures in the transition of the Virgin Islands Man- grove Lagoon and its watershed from a low-cost viable natural system to " " a pollution prone area requiring high-cost engineering interventions to maintain its "utility" to residents and users. Units of the local re- . . . .. .. . . source management system (planning, zoning, environmental control, waste disposal, land use, and coastal zone management) were completely over-. whelmed by the magnitude of the tasks required in the face of externally generated and accelerated development activity. They never seemed to . . . .. "catch up" as the.ir functions required more lead time and expertise than " . were available locally, even though external funding support was ostensi- .. . . bly provided for some elements of their resource management functions. For example, the establishment of a Virgin Islands environmental . .. . management agency, the Department of Conservation and Cultural Affairs (DCCA) in 1968 tended to encourage a false sense of environmental secur- " " " ity. It was simply too n~w and too complex an undertaking to be effec- tive in its early years. The institutionalization of any new, broadly. focused and "technically" based government department (or its minister- . , , ial equivalent) takes time, is fraught with organizational, funding and staffing problems and is destined for a difficult first decade of trial and error learning~ with some successes and many failures. Th~ ~ngrove , ' , Lagoon was, unfortunately, one of the latter. . .. . DCCA's agenda from 1970 onward was too full to allow the agency to pay much attention to the Mangrove Lagoon (although it did, wi,th off- , " island funds, support several studies focused on the Lagoon but not properly aimed at the right issues)~ Therefore, when the new, externally funded Virgin Islands Coastal Zone Management Program was approved in . . . ... . . . . . , . 1978 by the local legislature (based on a three-year planning effort) and assigned to DCCA to administer, those within the agency and those .. " . . . . , outside concerned with coastal resources somewhat naively assumed that a balance could be struck between developmental pressUre and environmental .. .. . . . imperatives in coastal areas. Hope may spring eternal, but unfortun- . . . .... ately reality creeps in, and in the case of the Mangrove Lagoon, the . .. .. .. . ... . . . Virgin Islands' CZM program was fundamentally flawed. Using an external (federal U.S.) model, it split out a relatively narrow "coastal zone" alon8 the land/sea interface into a two-tier demarcation, a) ignoring the . ' ... . fact that, in small islands, the entire island is a coastal zone and b) , , excluding from the CZM program's purview and permitting jurisdiction the entire inner core of the island and thus most upland "watershed" areas . . . . . .. . . (for example, the most heavily populated segments of the Turpentine Run- Mangrove Lagoon drainage basin)~ • There was also a technical failure of researchers, planners, and managers to address the full spectrum of driving variables within the system. The numerous studies of the natural system and its changing characteristics produced mostly negative management recommendations . .. .. of the "don't do this anymore" character, with little concern for how to , , effect needed changes in user behavior, management structures and policy< , . At no time was there a systematic investigation of the social system and . . . . . .... . its characteristics, limits, changes, and driving variables--wh1ch were continually interacting with the natural parameters of the Mangrove 75 Lagoon and its watershed. . . Between 1960 and 1984, the Mangrove Lagoon watershed experienced the emergence of a variety of new social units of direct and indirect users of the Lagoon. In 1960 there were only farmers, fisherm~n . . . . . - . and a sprinkling of residents and small commercial establishments (served by septic tanks). By 1984 there were nearly 500 vessel owners, an active . . ... - .' . marine industry, thousands of low-income public housing residents: thous- ands of middle-income single family dwellings, thousands of apartment dwellers and owners~ and h~ndreds of commercial businesses. To some, this was progress. But there were numerous deferred or hidden costs, not the least of which was the degradation of the Mangrove Lagoon. Finally, the Virgin Islands Mangrove Lagoon example illustrates sev- eral additional technical problems worthy of mention • • There was a general failure to recognize the fact that the .. aggregate effect of degradation in an ecosystem like the Mangrove Lagoon can be worse than the sum. Initially, in- . . . .. . cremental changes are minimized and considered acceptable because the natural ecosytem is "working" and can handle . . . . .. the changes. But in later stages; larger incremental . . changes are justified as inconsequential (in the presence of the aggregate pollution effect)~ The argument is made . . . . . . that by concentrating pO'lluting activities in one location, . . . the use of other still pristine areas for those same activities will be avoided. • There was a failure of gove'rnment to abide by its own established rules and to apply the same environmental standards to itself as it requires of the private sector. Permit systems involving subjective .judgments by the permitting agency only work well when everyone assumes .. the procedure is "fair" and "reasonable." When, for . . . . example, government agencies subvert this system by manipulating the process through subterfuge, or by applying higher "anti~pollution" or environmental quality standards to others than they are willing to • 76 honor, then the permit system will break down--not in form but in function • There was a tendency on the part of all off-island, external development funding agencies involved in . . . Lagoon watershed development to ignore the environ- mental impact of their lending or gr~nt input~ It . . . . is almost as if there were a separate set of less stringent rules for "offshore" areas, but, as ~'Riordan (1981) and others have noted, it is unrealistic to assume that external (off-isl~nd) f~nding so~rces ~nd institutions will voluntarily seek to establish the full spectrum of environmental costs or be willing to internalize them, within discrete project budgets. How- ever, until such costs (representing a draw-down on the . . natural and social systems' capital stock) are identified . " . , and quantified, development planning and growth manage- ... ' .. ment will continue to generate unanticipated environmental crises, disbenefits and ecosystem losses, leaving islands at risk. • The Virgin Islands' experience de~onstrates that the impact of inappropriate capital-intensive technologies on fragile ... insular ecosystems will tend to reduce long-term resource . . . . flexibility because of the virtually irreversible alterations to specialized and highly cOmplex land/sea ecosystems caused by such intrusions. This dysfunctionality results from the incompatibility of grafting high-volume technologies onto small closed environments with a very limited capacity to ab- sorb the residuals (McElroy~ 1978b)~ As McElroy has noted, "The result is the substitution of ma~made inputs for irre- . . . placeable natural ones, and in the long run development options are restricted and perverse feedbacks reduce the viability of environmentally sensitive industries like tourism. Such technological dependence chronically limits future local op- tions" (McElroy, 1978b). 77 4.3 ECNAMP: A Regional NGO/PVOParticipatory Planning Approach . . Over the past eight years, the Eastern Caribbean Natural Area Management Program (ECNAMP) has developed as an effective regional approach to is- . . . land resource assessment, environmental management, and ecodevelopment. It is a private sector initiative supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, World Wildlife Fund, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, UNEP, and others. ECNAMP was based on an hypothesis (derived from prior experimental activity in Latin America) that, given the pace of Caribbean tourism development and landscape change, a systematic national park and wild- lands program was needed in island countries. Such an approach would serve a dual purpose of analysis and action: the process of identifi- . . . cation, justification, selection, planning and protecting "critical natural areas" also provided a mechanism for introducing mUltiple-use ..... resource assessment, strategic planning, and management techniques. . . Each would be addressed through a non-formal, hands-on, learning-by-doing . . . . . .. process. By linking conservationists, local users and institutions, development planners, and unique ecosystem features in a kind of "non- . . . Faustian bargain," both the development and conservation ethics could be honorably addressed in a well choreographed framework of human and .. natural ecosystem interactions. The whole, it was assumed, would be greater than the sum of its parts. Essential to ECNAMP's development was acceptance of a long-term approach: a small "force for change" over an extended period of time (three to ten years) would be more effective than a larger force . over a short span of time (one to three years). Further~ ECNAMP has been structured so that, except in rare cases, a less "qualified" indigenous . . . . expert, consultant, or participant was preferable to a more qualified . . "continental" expert from the outside. Additionally, a locally designed and produced plan (perhaps using external counsel)~ however simple or imprecise, was preferable to an externally produced, more sophisticated , . . . . .. '.. . plan or scheme. The entire concept was, in the language of educators, , an experiential learning Itfategy for ~ the teacher and the learner. Best of all, it has worked! 78 ECNAMP was originally launched in 1976 by a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (under the auspices of the Caribbean Conserva- tion Association and the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources) as the Eastern Caribbean Wildlands Program~ It took as its . . ... thematic approach the need to define ·strategic planning programs for natural areas in the Eastern Caribbean~ The initial effort embraced a " - . . " . . . . strong conservation theme, with an emphasis on the region's needs and . . .. . - best options for insular park, preserve, and natural area protection and preserva tion. By the end of 1980, through the gradual evolution of a rather low-key, "botto~p" strategy emphasizing participatory components, ECNAMP had emerged more as a process than as a discrete program. It was less of a natural-area protagonist and more an attempt "to stimulate creative development ••• through the definition and use of socially . . . . . prudent approaches designed to match the environment's potential" (Putney, 1981). The resultant emphasis has been on the human and social .. components of the natural resource ecosystem, on the interaction of the . . . human resource base and the natural resource base, and on the development of a sustainable "ecodevelopment" process. In effect, the "island experience" of the early years generated a quasi-reversal of emphasis from wildland protection to ecodevelopment and sustained resource uti- lization strategies. Even more significant was the shift in focus from .... terrestrial to marine environments and resources. ECNAMP_'s long-term potential as an agent of insular change .is based .. on the premise that strengthening lO'cal institutional capabilitieswi1l . enhance the capacity of an island area to effectively manage its natural resource base. As a eatalytie~ skills-building effort: the program has developed an ·integrated series of mutually reinforcing activities. . '. . Major program components include research, training, education, mapping, . . planning and field projects, each designed to strengthen the capabilities of island resource managers (such as fisheries officers and planners) in the Eastern Caribbean. The goal is to foster management strategies sensitive to human needs and economic imperatives which do not exceed ecological constraints. 79 One of its earliest program components was an inventory and mapping - . effort, combining locally collected and collated natural resource systems data (for each of 25 island areas in the Eastern Caribbean) with data on established resource users and the human resource base. The r~su1ting output of this survey and mapping proje~t was a series of island data atlases (l8 maps per island). Atlases were designed to provide a broad . .. . . spectrum of information for local and regional policy makers, planners, . . .. and resource managers (especially those who had collated and analyzed the data as a training process). The information compiled illustrates the . . . . .... inter-relatedness of both the biological and socio-economic aspects of development activity and encourages a systematic approach to decision - - making and resource utilization (Putney, 1982). . - - More recently, ECNAMP program efforts have included non-formal, community-based coastal zone management and environmental education in St. Lucia; assistance to a forestry products crafts industry in Dominica; . . . . .. . ' . and a marine parks program for the British Virgin Islands which empha- . . . . . sizes traditional use, economic activities, recreation, education, and research as well as protection of the natural environment. Other pro- jects are an integrated, multi-island, intra-governmental strategy for .. . . . . .. . ' " . resource planning and development for Anguilla, St. Barthelemy, and St. Martin/St. Maarten, and a multiple-use development planning effort for . . . . the Cabrits Peninsula in Dominica. This last project incorporates an . . ecodeve1opment approach for utilizing the resources of a local fishing - - . community and developing a nearby historic site located within the Dominica National Park. ECNAMP activities are structured to support a process which is holistic rather than segmented into smaller parts. Its integrated . - approach to natural resource management emphasizes coordination, with . . . . . . a series of linked program elements carried out within a highly - . flexible, decentralized management framework to encourage integrated learning and transferability. Dispersed offices and personnel located on several islands in the Eastern Caribbean (Barbados~ St. Croix~· St. Lucia~ Antigua~ Britiih Virgin Islands) participate in the program, and affiliated associates can be found in most of the other larger islands 80 of the Eastern Caribbean. Since its inception in 1978, the ECNAMP opera- tion has evolved as a network of collaborating individuals and institu- tions from the region who cooperate in the ECNAMP framework when appro- . . priate. It uses a talent pool of individuals already in place in the islands of the Lesser Antilles, thus enhancing ECNAMP's ability to be responsive to changing local .requirements and to adjust requirements in . .. .. . - . " . . response to ongoing community-based assessments. . . The importance of participatory strategies to all facets of program planning and implementation has been consistently stressed by ECNAMP . . . personnel. ECNAMP strategists recognize that communities, together with government planners, must be an integral part of the decision making process for natural resource utilization. Emphasis has been placed on the use of local community exp~rtise~ assessments~ and solutions to meet local problems and define local needs. The linking mechanism is a re- gional networking of indigenous institutions and consultants, responding to community-level needs in designing and implementing program activities in the small decentralized islands of the Eastern Caribbean (Putney, 1981; Towle, J~~ 1982)~ The change process fundamental to development can perhaps best be . . . .. .. ... . .. accomplished within an organizational framework which acknowledges the uncertainty associated with the task of development. An appropriate . . . . . . . . . response to such a risk-bearing environment is a process of ongoing creative adaptation. This is the working model of ECNAMP. Its funding . . and executing agencies have permitted core personnel to work within an environment relatively free of institutional constraints or plan-specific .. - . approaches to resource management. Rather, an experiential, action- . . . based, capacity-building program style has been encouraged. The ensuing climate of innovation and flexibility has permitted ECNAMP to adapt the . . process en route which has been, in effect, goal enhancing. ECNAMP is a catalytic development process for natural resource man- agement witn increasing emphasis on coastal areas. It is not an organi- zation in and of itself, but it manifests a capacity building framework which is being "institutionalized" as a learning model by a network of . . ... . collaborating program participants in island areas throughout the Eastern 81 Caribbean. It is as much a learning process as a doing process and, as- such, is a unique program, with replication possibilities, for developing island areas (Towle, J., 1982). Its most recent publication, "Guidelines for Integrated Marine Re- source Management in the Eastern Caribbean:" provides a useful "model de- monstrating what can be done at the local and regional level by employ- ing a "participatory" strategy, limited funds~ unlimited patience: and a willingness to listen to the non-professional resource managers-- i.e., the traditional users of the resource. It is recommended reading and a working handbook for anyone addressing island coastal zones and marine resource development and management (Geoghegan: 1983). 82 5. THE PACIFIC ISLAND REALM: EXAMPLES AND LESSONS 5.1 Regional Overview Embracing some 64 million square miles and covering nearly one-third of the earth's surface. the Pacific Ocean is the largest. most pr?minent feature of the globe. It also contains the world's largest collection of islands--some "continental." most "oceanic." It includes the world's second and third largest islands (New Guinea and Borneo). the world's two largest independent archipelagic states (Indonesia and the Philippines) and perhaps twenty or so island groups encompassing more than a hundred .. . thousand islands. atolls and islets. There are twenty separate smaller . . . political entities of which ten are independent "developing" island countries. If the reader can conceive of a line drawn along the great circle route (the shortest distance) from Japan. eastward across the Pacific Ocean to central Chile and then back to Australia's south coast. the wedge-shaped enclosed area or "triangle" contains nearly all of the is- land groups of the Pacific, encompassing the islands of Melanesia. Micro- . . . . nesia and Polynesia, and some five million people (three-fifths in New Guinea). This wedge-shaped Pacific Ocean "island" subregion. even though only about one-fourth of the larger Pacific Basin. covers a vast oceanic area nearly 9~600 km (6~000 miles) long measured on the east-west axis and averaging about 4~800 km (3~000 miles) on the northsouth axis~ For every 500 square miles of ocean there is an average of about one square mile of island "land." Under the framework of the emerging "Exclusive Economic Zone" concept (200-mile-wide extensions to the terri- . . torial sea boundary), land-to-sea area ratios vary widely. with New Guinea at.l:lO, Fiji at 1:60, the Cook Islands at 1:3.000 and Kiribati at 1:6,000 (all figures rounded)~ Some island groups, like Fiji. are true "clusters," while most are spread out in curvilinear arcs over gr~at distances like the Solomons, the Cook Is1ands~ Tonga and especially Kiribati (the former Gilberts) which extends over 4,000 km (2;400 miles) of ocean space but has only 567 km2 (215 square miles) of land area. In 1979 the Pacific island area received about three percent of the 83 world-wide total of overseas development assistance (concessionary - - grants) mainly from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France and the UN. By way of comparison, the Caribbean region received about .' . . . five percent and the five island states in the Indian Ocean area received two and one-half percent. Donor/r~cipient funding relationships in the Pacific vary widely, some highly dependent on a few bilateral sources and others with a broader, more multilateral external funding base. 5.2 Fiji: The Regional Center Fiji is made up of about 322 islands which are strategically located in the center of the South Pacific island area. The total land area of Fiji is 18,272 km2 (7~000 square miles). There are two rather large islands, Viti Levu with 10~429 km2 and Vanua Levu with 5~556 km2~ and ninety-five other inhabitated islands like Taveuni (470 km2). Appr~ximately 95 per- - . cent of the population of Fiji lives on the two main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Population is concentrated in Suva, Latoka, and Nadi areas of Viti Levu (Figure 9)~ The economy of Fiji is primarily agrarian. Sugar is the primary export. Tourism in Fiji is second to sugar as a foreign exchange-earning . - . sector. Other major exports are gold, copra, fish and coconut oil. The population of Fiji is approximately 635,000, of which forty percent work in the agriculture sector. Bilateral overseas development assistance to . .. . . Fiji in 1980 was 31 million dollars (total overseas development assis- tance was 33 million do11ars)~ less than ten percent of total Fijian goverment expenditures which .in 1980 were US$360 million. Accordin~ to Hamnett et a1. (1981), "Just after independence in 1970, Fiji relied on - - the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand for a majority of its aid. Since that time, Fiji has successfully captured aid funds ••• [but] has also built up its own ability to generate development funds inter- nally." Fiji is therefore less vulnerable to major changes in foreign aid allocations." Food imports per capita in 1978 were only US$ll4, and the government has a fairly elaborate diversification strategy designed to reduce even this relatively low level of dependency on external food supplies. The govermnent of Fiji, unlike most Caribbean countries, has 1-12'5 ~ Rotuma o 177"E Yasawa (/' lit) Navit~'1 OWaya • 0. ~ Vatulele 15'5 Yadua ~ ® Port Ellinston . C'\.... Koro • Makapr \,;) () Wakaya@ t)Oov~au ift\fi\O a Nairai ~~Batiki ~cau @ 180' Cikobia C;) FIJI ~~ ?!.. .. ~. Laucala@ Tavenui .0' ~ Vanua " ?(: Bavalu @ o Cicia 0 o Tuvuca Nayau \:) o Lakeba @ Moala& o 0' Ono Totoya (1:J ~ Q Kabara O. 0,- v0 a Kadavu