South coast Grenada – beautiful and under threat! 30/07/2021
We moved from St George’s on Wednesday, around Saline Point (the most southwesterly point) and along the south coast to Prickly Bay. Why Prickly Bay? Anna asked. Well, the peninsular to the east is called L’Anse aux Epines, French for the Bay of Thorns, after the numerous acacia trees that grow in the forest around here. So, from thorns to prickly!
A short voyage, only 10 nautical miles. Prickly Bay is a large natural bay with a headland protruding in the middle, dividing it into two inner bays. We are anchored in the easterly one, about 100 metres off the headland and 200 metres from a beach. As I edited this piece, a sea turtle suddenly popped its head above the water a few metres from where I’m sitting under the Bimini. It’s nice and cool in the breeze – at 1pm the temperature is 30, but feels like 36 due to the humidity.
The land around here is reasonably developed: numerous houses and small hotels. But generally light density, so they are surrounded by lots of trees, making it green and pleasant.
Yesterday I took a walk, from the eastern end of the bay, inland a bit to a dirt track that goes through natural forest around the north of the next bay, Mount Hartman Bay, and further on to the shores of Woburn Bay. There it led to a small bridge which crosses the water to Hog Island. The island is superb – there is nothing on it except a small wooden structure, Roger’s Beach Bar. There is a hill in the centre, a few stories high. On the east side is a beach where I ate my lunch in complete solitude – there was no one else there!
Walking around to the west side you come to a second small beach, where Roger’s is. Lovely clear water, great for swimming. Leaving there I cut through the mangrove swamp. Everywhere you look there are holes in the sandy mud and crabs scuttling around. When you get very close they shoot down their holes and just as rapidly re-emerge as you pass.
But paradise is under threat, and it tells you quite a lot about what is going on in the world. At the top of Mount Hartman Bay there is a huge project underway, which will cover 280 acres of what has up to now been virgin forest. The project is the Mount Hartman University and Resort, under the control of a Hong Kong company no doubt funded from China. It aims to build a university and student residences, as well as hotels and condos that “will attract hundreds of thousands of tourists a year”. The plans show multiple buildings that will be 8 or 9 stories high – in other words, they will absolutely dominate, and so destroy, the landscape.
Of course, this being 2021, the plans are described as being environmentally sound, biomass this and solar power that, etc. They have even won an award for being outstanding – funny though that industry professionals have never heard of this award – turns out that it is the first time it has been awarded, by an unknown organisation… So, we have greenwashing on a mammoth scale. The destruction to the natural environment will be immense – it is hardly environmentally sound to destroy pristine forest and then say Oh, look, we’ve stuck up a few solar panels!
That this is being funded from China is obvious. (As in Africa) the Chinese government has been providing financing to many Caribbean islands. After various funding, the Grenadan prime minister stated in 2019 that the country was not becoming beholden to China. Interestingly though, the Chinese are currently funding modernisation of the airport. This official assistance is always intended to pave the way for special treatment. Here we have it, the Mount Hartman University town project – a quid pro quo for money given and lent. One also wonders whether any direct backhanders have been paid…?
This sort of development makes you wonder what the Caribbean islands will look like in 20 years – or even worse, in 50 years’ time. Overbuilt, overdeveloped, concrete replacing natural forest. What a tragedy.