Shift development as climate crisis hits coasts, marine expert urges

Prominent environmentalist Professor Robin Mahon has called for a serious reassessment of construction projects along the island’s coastlines in light of changing sea level patterns caused by climate change.

Mahon, an emeritus professor of marine affairs at the University of the West Indies and chairman of the executive group of The Land Conservancy Barbados (TLC), expressed concern over the continued approval of coastal developments despite the growing threat of damage from increasingly intense storms.

In a Barbados TODAY interview about the impact of Hurricane Beryl in July, which significantly damaged several coastal structures on the island’s West coast, Professor Mahon questioned the wisdom of building directly on the coast.

“One has to question the wisdom of continuing to build directly on the coast, just at the top of the beach,” he said.

The professor highlighted the potential short-term view of investors: “Of course that depends on an investor and an investor may look at a 30-year horizon for recovering all of their investment. In which case they don’t care if they are left with a partially underwater hotel.”

He called for greater attention to relocating developments, particularly in tourist accommodation, away from the fragile coastline and further inland.

“One set of views would be that they should be pulling back from the coast more than usual, and we should be encouraging hotels to build on the other side of the roads away from the sea, or even higher up,” he said.

Professor Mahon, a scholar in the fields of marine affairs, fisheries, and environmental studies, expressed concern that these issues are not being sufficiently addressed in current development plans.

“I don’t know that we are really in our development [phase], paying as much attention to those as we could or should be,” he added.

In addition to coastal development concerns, the long-time advocate for the protection of the Graeme Hall wetlands, raised alarm over the potential sale of the privately owned Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary. Despite initial statements from Minister of the Environment Adrian Forde claiming unawareness of any sale plans, he noted a troubling lack of updates following public outcry earlier this year.

“Graeme Hall continues to be a problematic site,” Professor Mahon said, advocating for the entire area to fall under the control of an independent body. He explained that a management committee comprising government departments and NGOs agrees that Graeme Hall needs to be managed as a single wetland, despite its current split ownership.

The late Canadian philanthropist Peter Allard established the sanctuary in the late 1990s intending to protect the Graeme Hall Swamp, the island’s last remaining mangrove woodland, turning it into a popular tourist attraction until around 2006. A dispute between Allard and the government over uncontrolled pollution allegedly from the nearby sewage treatment plant, the swamp has been closed to the public since then.

The nature sanctuary covers 42 per cent of the swamp, an area of 12.87 square kilometres designated under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

Professor Mahon urged unified management: “We really need to get hold of Mr Allard’s nature sanctuary and bring it into some kind of management arrangement.”

shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb