St. Maarten Private Eye

By Rueben J Thompson

Love the Lagoon, Environmental Protection in the Caribbean

Concerned citizens frequently contact EPIC and its partner foundations to report environmental crimes such as unauthorized land reclamation, illegal waste disposal, the pumping of sewage and in some cases even oil-paint into the Simpson Bay Lagoon. People call and expect the foundations to go out and fine the perpetrators of these environmental crimes. Unfortunately none of the island’s environmental foundations are currently mandated to issue fines or halt the aforementioned activities.

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Upon having been informed of an environmental crime taking place the foundations generally make a short site visit, take pictures and subsequently forward the information to the relevant government departments and other authorities. The decision on whether or not to halt the environmentally hazardous activities and to issue fines is then made by the relevant departments and/or other authorities based on legislation and the findings of the environmental inspector.

The island’s foundations have, however, regrettably experienced numerous occasions whereby environmental crimes were not penalized despite serious damage to the environment and obvious violations of existing legislation. It seems the halting of environmental crimes and subsequent issuing of fines also relies heavily on political will to do so.

As development on St. Maarten is taking place at a rapid pace and the VROM and relevant inspection departments are severely understaffed government would do well to (partially) outsource its environmental management and inspection responsibilities to a private company or one of the island’s environmental foundations such as the recently established Caribbean Foundation for Sustainability.

The act of government outsourcing (environmental) management responsibilities to a foundation or corporation is not entirely new to St. Maarten. Preliminary efforts towards such an arrangement were for instance made with the establishment of the Simpson Bay Lagoon Authority Corporation (SLAC) in 2002.

The Simpson Bay Lagoon Authority Corporation (SLAC) whose mission, according to their website www.sxmlagoonauthority.com, is “to manage, develop and control the Simpson Bay and the Simpson Bay Lagoon including the John Sainsborough Lejeuz Bridge in the broadest sense and to enhance and improve the environment of Simpson Bay and the Lagoon” unfortunately does not yet have the authority it’s title and mission statement suggest it does. SLAC can therefore do very little, if anything at all, to alleviate or manage all the external pressures the Lagoon currently faces.

Seeing that the development of the few remaining open areas along the Simpson Bay Lagoon’s shorelines is progressing rapidly with the construction of new marinas, condo’s, villas, offices, stores and homes the time has come for the management of the Lagoon to be reassessed. Government needs to restructure and allocate more funding, responsibility and authority to the Simpson Bay Lagoon Authority Corporation and include St. Maarten’s Conservation NGOs in the Lagoon’s daily management.

Make sure you read the next Lagoon Log for more answers to your questions and for more information on the Simpson Bay Lagoon.

Rueben J. Thompson
Project Manager Love the Lagoon,
Environmental Protection in the Caribbean

Additional Lagoon Logs - By Rueben J Thompson - EPIC

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