St. Maarten Private Eye

To whoever BB is, please allow me to answer you;
Two trees behind the catholic church rectory were chopped down completely, they were in the process to cut all the trees but were caught on time.
The ones with the cut branches are the ones that were saved, the branches will grow back.
As for Indigo beach clearing all the land or stripping the land, why don't you ask the VROM department or the Commissioner of Environment who gave the authorisation for the developer to strip over 5000acres of land all at once.
We asked, we did not get any answers.
PRIDE foundation has told the developers that we are not in favour of having the land stripped all at once as this has caused erosian of the soil into the sea on numerous occassions.
Nature Foundation sent a press release to the media advising government to require a Environmental Impact Assesment be made before any large developments take place and a soil test should have taken place.
Does Government and their departments take Nature foundation seriously? if they did, there would be no need for Nature Foundation having to tell government via the media right?
My point is; question your elected officials, they are the ones handing out permits like hot bread, you elected them, question them.
Environmental groups do not have any authority to allow or disallow clearing of land, this falls into the hands of VROM advisors who then pass the advice on to the EXCO, it is then up to EXCO to accept the advice given to them.
And for the record, environmental groups have given government countless advice on various issues regarding the environment, they just seem to give lip service and do nothing.
And last, anyone complaining about tree cutting and other environmental issues should have attended the recently concluded ENVIRO WEEK. please don't come now and say nonsense. VROM department held a presentation, EPIC held a presentation on BLUE FLAG, The world renkowned coral scientist Goreau had 2 presentations, UNESCO IHE in his presentation told the gathering that the Cul De Sac basin will be flooded if drastic measures are not taken (again advice to government) he also mentioned that the Dutch side is too densly populated by showing a map of the density.
So everyone on this board that is so concerned about enviornmental issues had the oppertunity to educate and learn things for themselves during ENVIRO WEEK., instead the week was poorly attended.
I can only assume that people here are so short sighted or maybe just expect the environmental groups to fight every war for them without their volunteer input.
Ask your government! They are running your country, ask them why they don't take advice from the Carrying capacity study, the TOURMAP, SHTA white paper on environment and traffic, the environmental reccomendations made by the enviro groups, the UNESCO-IHE report.

St.Maarten PRIDE foundation