Despite millions of dollars in damage estimated to have been done to Barbados’ coral reefs by the anchorage of numerous cruise ships at the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the maritime affairs minister has downplayed fines to punish cruise lines, declaring the destruction to have been unforeseen.
He told journalists at a Maritime Day ceremony at the Barbados Port Inc on Friday, that though the situation was unfortunate, a heavy-handed approach was not necessary at this time.
Kirk Humphrey said: “I do not believe that the best position now to take is to try go after the ships and prove them to be a villain. I feel as if the best solution is to work with the ships as we are doing now, to be able to build out the maritime sector, to be able to offer opportunities to people and so on.
“How do I tell somebody this is where you go, we want to work with you, and then [it’s the] ships fault. It’s not the position I have chosen to take.”
The minister insisted that protocols for cruise lines visiting the island were now more stringent than before, with similar incidents being unlikely to ever occur again on the scale which was observed.
He said: “We will as we have, continue the conversation, we will continue to work with the lines, we have made decisions, we held a press conference, I said already there will be no more anchoring on the west coast for ships of that size. Even in the traditional anchorage of Carlisle Bay, you have to write a letter and let us know in advance and each case is evaluated on a case by case basis.
“If you want to be in the west coast waters, you have to use your positioning system, which means that you just float without anchoring so that they do not damage the reef. I feel as though we have put in place enough now to be able to protect reefs going forward.
“I must also tell you that we had done a study on the reef before, and there was no area in Barbados that had very good reef, and that had nothing to do with the ships. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to build back the reef, he said. (SB)
