St. Maarten Private Eye

Back at the beginning of July the Island Vision Foundation, publisher of Environews Magazine presented what it called the First Windward Island Annual Environmental Awards. Roy was invited by IVF to present some of the awards and to make a speech which was entiltiled Wake up and smell the progress. Go read it and then join me below for a more indepth look at Environews, Roy Marlin and the smell that you smell.

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First lets start with Environews, Green Voice and De Robert.

Back in October last year Local Hero wrote this blog post about the Green Voice Foundation which was at the time seeking new members. Since then the Green Voice appears to have a touch of laryngitis because he haven't heard a word since.

The principle players behind Green Voice were/are Stuart Johnson and Stephan Dje de Robert. Stuart as you should know, ran on the DP slate in January and scored 64 votes out of 10576 cast, a remarkable 0.6% of the vote. He is currently trying to become eligable for USM Student President but it would seem his grades are slacking just a little.

Anyway, when Stuart made his decision to jump on the DP slate he apparently left the GVF. Stepane on the otherhand decided to turn his attention and energies into creating an income for himself. He started Environews and he has a radio program on Sundays.

I think I will call him Stepane from now on because that's what it says on the website's front page. It truly is amazing that a small content environmental website can have two different spelling mistakes for the word 'environmental'. On the main page, which still has the Jan-Feb issue as it's main feature, it calls Alita Singh the "Enviromental Person of the Year", and if you click any of the tabs on the left then the words at the top of the list will change to 'The Environemental Voice'. There are others too. Archieves?

Anyway, Island Vision Foundation produces Environews, yet we have absolutely no idea about who is on the board. Could Stepane be on it? Well, not if he's collecting a salary from the magazine. And a foundation is supposed to be non profit, so who is checking his books? Anyone?

Further investigation on the Environews site led me to their message board where I discovered one message, from November last year and I think I know who posted it too, own up! The reply that they posted to the question is very very interesting and I have copied it to a page here because I feel they may decide to remove it after my bringing it to your attention.

we'd rather take an AD that is paid for than go after a protest for an UNDERTABLE deal with the developer, like some you ENVIROGUY's ?????

Are alarm bells ringing in your head about these people yet? What a totally ridiculous and even rudely aggressive reply. They say they work in association with Green Voice but that the forum is not Green Voice's and therefore the wrong place for such questions. Not that Green Voice has a website, if they do then Google can't find it. Please feel free to go there and share your thoughts on their reply. Question their integrity, they don't like that.

So let's move onto the the Island Vision Awards presentation back July. Roy apparently was desperate to get his picture next to Jadira, I guess he think's it will give him some kind of 'envirocredibility' and probably some kind of perverse pleasure too. Figure out the body language yourself.

From what I understand, few if any of the participants were aware that Roy was going to be giving a speech to the gathering. Environews lost any credibility it thought it had by inviting this man to give a speech to environmentalists, it was insulting and Stepane knew full well what he was doing, he has 'good contacts' with Roy. In fact it is rumored he hopes to get some job in government one day, perhaps 'environemental advisor' to Roy?

In his speech, Roy started out by wondering what he could say to convince the gathered audience he cared about the environment too, his conclusion, and probably that of most in the audience, was 'nothing'. He has no environmental record of any kind, he has not done one thing in his whole term in office that has favored or protected the environment anywhere on the island. The environmental cause is still waiting for that "one case' to go in their favor.

(EWE is not a case because he was enthusiastic about the project and public pressure forced him to deny the permit request.)

He openly admits that he has a struggle with 'two masters', presumably he means the portfolios he is commissioner of, Planning - Development and Environment. Anyone with a fraction of common sense can see that putting these two portfolios together is a conflict of interest. Poor old Roy, such a dilema he faces.

As usual with Roy's speeches, he spins, distorts and manipulates information and words, he mentions that 'one cannot judge a development on emtional issues', implying that those who want to protect the environment do so only because of their emotions. Emotions do play a part of course, when you care about greenery and wildlife, then seeing it get destroyed is always emotional, but scientific evidence supports conservation and preservation too and is always the basis for any opposition.

Those opposing Dawn Beach were not against development, but they wanted it to fit better into the natural surroundings and questioned the size of it. As it happens, Roy approved the permits, allowing 50% density rather than the usual 40% and permitting the pool deck to be only 33 meters from the waterline instead of the usual 50 meters. He also gave an extra 5 meters elsewhere, if they needed it. In fact, he made absolutely NO environmental conditions for a well known and documented turtle nesting beach. I seriously question too if anyone is actually checking on these requirements, or rather, consessions, that were made. Anyone with a tape measure want to go measure?

Roy promised to make Dawn Beach an 'environmental succes story", a story that we have been following, we await the chapter on public access and parking.

Roy's argument about providing jobs is also misleading, the youth hanging out on the streets and higher crime figures have far more to do with failed or poor management of education, social services, labor, immigration and law enforcement.

He then goes on about EWE, yawn, Blah blah blah. I tell you, it's not progress that the audience were smelling that night.

Let's see now, Roy is also responsible for GEBE, which still has no plan to create an island wide water and waste infrastructure. Remember Intaquin? It also has no plans on moving towards sustainable or clean energy, you can bet they will be buying new heavy fuel generators to expand again soon. Doin a heckofa job Roy!

The garbage dump is almost full and is due it's next fire soon. The last we heard about the TNO (waste) report was that it was delayed. Still reviewing it Roy?

The VROM office cannot keep up with the development on the island and neither can ROB, both are understaffed, under equiped and there is absolutly no regular monitoring of developments once approved, a fact that many developers know well and abuse. Information and data is sketchy at best and overdevelopment has many negative factors including strain on the environment, infrastructure and social fabric that is ignored again and again.

Philip Van Delden makes a reply to Roy's speech entitled Wrong place wrong time, I'd like to add my own using a photo posted by an anonymous reader sometime back.

Roy has no integrity or credibility when it comes to the environment, none whatsoever and he should be relieved of the portfolio. I was fascinated by the illiteracy displayed, I'd heard he was uneducated (or if he is indeed educated, it obviously didn't stay with him). Much of what he said made no sense at all.

Island Vision also lacks integrity and credibility, it is slick, deceivingly so. It puts on a good but empty face mouthing all the standard platitudes about respecting the environment while sensibly managing development.

As a final giggle take note first of the photo from Roy's speech, it is a photoshoped image with Roy infront of Mary's Fancy Gut. Hmmm, maybe Stepane and Roy arn't such good friends afterall.

And don't miss the next issue of Environews pictured inside this months issue.

Apparently Stuart submitted the image himself to Stepane and Sarah isn't too happy about it. (it is photoshopped.) Apparently as it says, Stuey is going to talk about DP Leadership and the party's environmental record.

You have to laugh! You may hurt yourself if you try to hold it in!

Hady Nufyet

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