Cayman Islands: Will They Pave Paradise?

Around the world we are seeing evidence of coral decline due to bleaching, pollution, change in water temperature and myriad other factors.

SCUBA divers pay for special certifications to maintain perfect buoyancy lest their fin kick a sea fan or their hand make contact with a coral head.Considering such efforts are being made to protect coral, it seems the recent announcement that the Cayman Island government will soon be dredging a large portion of these reefs is a sad irony. Many islanders believe that the plan to install concrete piers for easy cruise ship guest access is short sighted and the loss of corals will actually hurt not only the marine ecosystem, but also an important part of island income, tourism.Recent scientific studies show that silt and other dredging byproducts will lower resistance and make corals 50% more vulnerable to disease.

So the corals that are not directly killed by the dredging and cruise ship traffic will be at higher risk of death.Cruise line officials claim that more goliath cruise ships will make port at Grand Cayman Island, if passengers do not have to endure the five minute tender transfer across the quaint Georgetown harbor. Keith Sahm, manager of one of the islands oldest hotels states, “Do you know that out of all the islands the cruise industry own, there is only one with a pier? Just one, because the cruise companies want to keep their islands pristine for their passengers. In addition to the paramount environmental concerns, there are economic issues.

SCUBA diving has been a constant island income source for many years. People trying to jump on the cruise ship bandwagon to make some fast money will leave a decimated marine environment in their wake. Once this is gone, there is no going back. Unless you can wait around for 2,000 years.”The environmental impact assessment indicates that dredging and the resulting silt will destroy many of the reefs ecosystems. Coral reefs are particularly slow to develop and many of these reefs are thousands of years old.While worldwide coral reef decline is a serious concern, Grand Cayman is the current home to healthy specimens of corals included on the IUCN* Red List as critically endangered.Jay Ireland, co-founder of Cayman’s “Stingray City” commented, “When you mention the Cayman Islands people think immediately of banking and coral reefs.

The 200-foot visibility, the warm water and the myriad corals, fish, turtles and flamboyant invertebrates currently thrive in the living aquarium around Cayman. To risk ruining this because transient cruise ship passengers do not want to inconvenience themselves with a short tender ride to the shore is lunacy.”Click here to sign a petition urging officials to reconsider the installation of these piers. Nosy Turtle image courtesy Cathy Church. More

 

 

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Port plan to undergo economic impact assessment

An economic impact assessment for the proposed cruise berthing facility is in the works, The Cayman Reporter understands.

George Town's Proposed Cruise Terminal

Minister of Finance Hon Marco Archer confirmed that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) has been contracted to carry out the assessment. The Cayman Reporter inquired if the assessment has already started and how much this assessment will cost the country, but Mr Archer has not responded at press time.

The Cayman Islands has already done an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to the tune of $2.5 million based on the current proposal of a two finger pier. The EIA indicated that dredging and its silt plume could impact 15 acres of coral reef. Now that the EIA has been completed and the Department of Environment (DoE) is the process of completing a report on the assessment to submit to Cabinet, a call for the examination of the proposal’s impact on the entire economy has been made.

Founder and Director-General at The Cayman Institute, Nicholas Robson, said to grasp the full impact of the proposal its impact on the country’s economy must be evaluated. He believes the economic impact assessment should state how financing a cruise port, that could destroy a significant part of the reef on the south-west of the island, will affect the country. He believes it should look at how many jobs will be affected in the retail sector as well as in to water sports industry.

He noted that it is also imperative to analyse the true strengths and weaknesses of the cruise tourism and stay-over tourism to these islands.

“We should be weighing up the cruise passenger industry and its per-capita spend against stay-over tourism. Should we be looking into lengthening the runway to 10,000 feet to be able to accommodate long haul flights from Europe and points east? The Persian Gulf and China have many high net worth individuals which may well want to come to the Cayman Islands. We have already had Mr. Lee Ka-Shing one of the richest men in Hong Kong residing and doing business here,” he said.

Furthermore, Mr Robson stated that it is important for Cayman to know how many cruise passengers it can manage. “If we try and take too many cruise passengers per day none will have an enjoyable experience,” he said.

Commenting on his own stance on the port plans Mr Robson said he is for any initiative that will have the greatest benefit to the majority of the people in the Cayman Islands. “A decision made today will affect the Cayman islands for many years into the future. Furthermore, with Cuba opening up the cruise industry may find that more passengers want to go to Cuba, causing some of the cruise lines dropping Cayman,” he said.

The Advancement of Cruise Tourism in the Cayman Islands (ACT) member Chris Kirkconnell told The Cayman Reporter that the ACT was formed because members involved in the cruise industry felt that the Cayman Islands Tourism Association (CITA), the tourism sector’s representative group, was only concerned about stay-over businesses. Those involved in cruise felt that in order to have a voice they had to start a group of their own.

“Once we formed ACT CITA tried to convince us that we didn’t need a separate entity and it seemed like they were trying to give us some kind of attention up until now. If you look at the member makeup of CITA its much more heavily stay-over focused than cruise,” Mr Kirkconnell expressed. More

 

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