The noncompliance of existing plans, court orders and laws in southwestern coastal areas in Buyé, Joyuda, and La Parguera, shows how complex the implementation of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan would be.
The experience of communities in Isabela and Vega Baja shows that the government of Puerto Rico acts against the recommendations of experts and its own public policy, which is supposed to protect coastal natural resources.
During a video interview on the climate crisis, as part of the Caribe Fest held in Puerto Rico, climate finance policy adviser David Eckstein explained the vulnerability climate indicators that Caribbean countries such as Puerto Rico and Haiti have been known for from 2000 to 2019.
No one needs to explain the importance of dealing with the growing problem of climate change to Puerto Ricans and to most of the residents of our archipelago because we know very well that our lives depend on it.
When Donald De Castro was a boy in the 1940s, mangroves lined the shore and cays in front of his family’s small waterfront home in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).
“We used to do a lot of fishing in mangroves,” the 86-year-old recalled. “They had snappers and they had different kinds of fish; we caught good fish.”
Far from slowing the pace of construction on Puerto Rico’s coasts to address climate change, as experts have requested, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi’s administration hit the accelerator to approve construction permits along the coasts.
byKayla Young (Centro de Periodismo Investigativo y Cayman Current) |
Few places in Grand Cayman offer the expansive, open views of the Caribbean Sea like those seen from the top floor of The WaterColours condominiums.
To start, most places lack this elevation. On an island with an average altitude of six feet, it’s a luxury to take in the turquoise waters and white sand beaches from a 10th-story perspective.
Until recently, only this complex, a 2014 creation of luxury developer Fraser Wellon, and Kimpton Seafire Resort by the Dart group, the islands’ largest private landowner, had achieved such heights. That’s soon to change, but for now, this particular sea view, from the top-floor penthouse of the late Jamaican tourism mogul Ernest “Ernie” Smatt, remains one of Grand Cayman’s most elite. The complex is just one of dozens of luxury condominiums that have filled in Grand Cayman’s vulnerable coastline over the past decade. During the COVID-19 crisis, construction of such projects has accelerated, exposing the local population to serious climate change threats in exchange for properties most Caymanians cannot aspire to own in a lifetime.