Political aspects of the Tobago Cays
It is hard to know just what form the Tobago Cays Marine park will take in a few years. There was a lot of controversy in 2004 when St. Vincent's PM accepted an offer by Barrett of Palm Island to run it as a sort of privatized marine park. The thought of turning this natural place into a Disnified version of itself was very controversial. Barret eventually dropped out, but the future of the park still seems to be in limbo. Below are various articles on the issue.
http://www.caribbeancompass.com/crossroads.htm
http://www.noonsite.com/Members/doina/R2004-05-07-1/view
Below are the articles I have written for Caribbean Compass from oldest to newest.
The
Tobago Cays in Crisis
The
Tobago Cays are unique in the Caribbean. This little group of islands protected
by a horseshoe reef is visually spectacular and holds a kind of magic beauty
that makes it not only a national treasure but a world-class beauty spot of such
international fame that many more people have heard about the Grenadines and the
Tobago Cays than have heard about St. Vincent.
This recognition has been slow to come, like a singing star that rises suddenly from obscurity. It is only recently we have come to appreciate and take stock of the true value of these islands. And their value is not just local. The Tobago Cays form a major attraction for bringing visitors to this country from all over the world via many other Caribbean nations including Grenada, St. Lucia and Martinique. So much so, that the Tobago Cays usually features on brochures put out by charter companies operating in these islands. They are not just important locally but regionally and worldwide.
It
is a shame that this fame has sneaked up on us so that the Tobago Cays are
probably more appreciated by nationals of many other countries than they are by
Vincentians. Much of this is because many Vincentians have not had a chance to
visit them, which is something we need to change.
It
is worth stating at the outset that the Tobago Cays in no way need
“improving” they cannot look better than they do now. What is needed is some
delicate management that will halt and reverse some of the ravages upon the land
and reefs created by locals and visitors who use them. This needs to incorporate
the interests of the current vendors who come and sell in the Cays, the visiting
yachts, the day-charter boats and the dive boats. The last thing we need is to
build anything on the Cays.
An attempt was made to get a park running, but while a lot of good footwork was done, and some good decisions made, it did not come to fruition. While there are no accurate figures, the number of visitors annually is probably in the order of 70.000. If each of these were charged $10EC the income would be $700,000EC.
The
Cays are at in crisis because the government clearly wishes to do something
about them and appears to be in a hurry. One of the options is handing them over
to PIRL headed by Mr. Robert A. Barrett. This would involve a 25-year management
agreement, which no subsequent government may be able to change.
Another
proposal has been submitted to government by MEDO a Mayreau based NGO. I have
both these proposals in front of me along with an ECLAC evaluation of the
current Tobago Cays Marine Park prepared for the government of St. Vincent in
May 2002.
The
PIRL proposal contains two relevant pages. The first outlines Mr. Robert A.
Barrett’s qualifications.
describing
his environmental successes. The first recommendation is that on Palm Island he
effected:
The
fact that Mr. Barrett extols destroying brackish and fresh-water habitats that
happen to contain mosquitoes by flooding them with seawater shows an
extraordinary level of naivety about the environment that clearly precludes him
from any consideration as manager of a park. Most of his other achievements
relate to things like solar heating, sewages systems and hydroponic greenhouses
that indicate that Mr. Barrett is qualified to do what he has done – build
hotels, not manage parks.
He
then goes on to talk about the skilled team be can bring in as resources to the
TCMP. These are:
Specifically Mr Barret has over forty years of success in the Caribbean and international marketing and tourism industry. Furthermore PIRL’s proven management team includes: certified accountants, attorneys, international marketing and tourism experts, destination management professional, architects, water craft experts, engineers, decorated former law officials and environmental consultants to name just a few.
The team that produced the well manicured and heavily built up Palm Island are hardly the people you need to run a park.
So much for the qualifications, now to the proposal summary (if there is a full proposal I have not seen it), which is a single sheet of paper containing nine paragraphs. The first is:
To
the greatest extent possible. PIRL will manage the TCMP in accordance with the
principals set forth in the revised Tobago Cays Management Plan (attached as
exhibit ‘A”)
What is to the greatest extent possible supposed to mean? There is no attempt to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the revised Tobago Cays Management Plan, I cannot find any stated goal, except to get Mr. Barrett in charge, no indication of any understanding of the problems, nor direction and no worthwhile ideas, in fact absolutely nothing that would indicate that Mr. Barrett is in any way competent to even be on the board of a park let alone manage it.
What he promises to do is what he does best – to build in the Cays; namely to put up a reception area, a windmill, a big dock and ranger houses. Also, as you would expect of a hotelier, he promises to employ people, and supply boats.
The crux is the last paragraph in which he offers to collect user fees, give half the profit to the government and guarantees to pay them at least $134, 410 EC the first year, $201,615 EC the second year and $268,820 EC the third year and every year thereafter. In other words in exchange for our national jewel, the pride of not only St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but the Eastern Caribbean, the government is going to get about $100,000 US a year after the third year. It does allows for more to be paid if profits are larger, but this it is unlikely this will happen as PIRL is entirely in control of what constitutes expenses so they can control the level of profit.
It is hard to believe that any responsible government could take a proposal like this seriously. Handing over control one of the Caribbean’s most valued to treasures to a newcomer with no relevant qualifications, to operate for profit is a recipe for disaster for the Tobago Cays, it will be terrible for our self-esteem and likely damage the economy. It runs counter to all accepted practice in the Caribbean. All other highly valued sites are run under auspices of a park-like authority. There is considerable funding available for projects like the Tobago Cays Park from sources such as the OAS, the EU, OECS’s ESDU and NOAH. These could take the burden off the government and offer very significant funds for start up. These organizations will completely wash their hands of this project if the “for private profit” model is accepted, and we will likely become a laughing stock.
By contrast I find the MEDO proposal quite touching. The MEDO group show a love for the area, they are clearly very affected by what happens there as Mayreau sits on the edge of the park, and they are a hundred times more qualified than PIRL. They show that they have understood some of the problems, they have some specific ideas and should certainly be part of the solution. They do not have a complete grasp however, as they do not really know where to go with the vendor issue and one of their main proposals is to put in 80 moorings to protect the reef, a completely unnecessary expense as yachts do not anchor on the reef, and the sand is some of the best holding in the Caribbean. What is most confusing is where they fit in. The structure of TCMP involves a board of directors who set direction and tell the manager what to do, and a manager who actually runs the park and hires the people. Having the management be run by a group, means we then have two managers – the manager and TCMP. There may be some advantages to this as if one manager did not work out MEDO might be able to make a replacement without reference to the board, who would deal with the MEDO as the manager. MEDO was on the last board, and if nothing else they should be on the next, and if the government want to wash their hands of the Cays, handing the whole thing over to MEDO would be far better than handing it to PIRL.
The third document is an evaluation of the Tobago Cays National Park by Tom van’t Hof funded by ECLAC at the request of the St. Vincent government. This is a professional document. It shows a clear understanding of the park, its problems and the solutions along with the changed necessary in the law to make it work.
There are two obvious problems with it, both fixable, plus the question of how to get it going. The main problem is that Tom van’t Hof sees this as a non-profit organization with all funds going to the park authority. The government clearly wants to make money from the park. I have no problems with this (I do have a major problem with the profit going to a private individual however, a concern many will share). As a first step it should enforce the requirement that vessels visiting the Tobago Cays clear in first. They could make it a requirement that park officials check to make sure this has been done – and make arrangements for a customs officer to come round every evening to collect the money due (or give one of the rangers a dual role so he can do it). This alone will bring in considerable funds. If they need more maybe it could be structured thus; if we assume a park fee of $5 US, collected by park officials, maybe $3 could be the park entry fee and go to the non-profit park and $2 could be something like an “environmental tax” that goes to the government. This would bring them in an estimated $140,000 US – way more than offered by PIRL. It would also leave the park authority free to seek funds as a non-profit.
The second problem is that Tom suggests that we Clarify article 8 of the Maine Parks Regulation of 1998 with respect to unsupervised diving. Amend this article to allow supervised diving only. My problem with this is when such a measure was taken in SABA the number of visiting yachts dropped some 40%. Decisions about diving should only be made with the interested parties, including the charter companies. What makes more sense to allow the board to control and stop independent diving in such areas as they feel necessary, this allows the park to protect places like Mayreau Gardens where it is better people go with a dive shop.
Much of the groundwork for a proper park has been accomplished – we are only a short step from park that is locally run, financial benefit and not a strain. In the first instance Tom’s recommendations need to the reviewed and the legal amendments taken care of. Then to get the park going we need to bring in a professional for about three months to get the park up and running. There are two really good ones in the Caribbean. Tom van’t Hof is one and Kai Wulf of the SMMA is the other. I imagine either would be willing, Kai Wulf would be an excellent choice because he is closer and used to dealing with our kinds of issues and people. Given that we are this close to success it seems especially sad we may hand the whole thing over to an unqualified overseas individual. Things are happening fast – if you care about this issue, now is the time for action. There are petitions out you can sign, there is a group of concerned citizens in St. Vincent that need financial help, you can write your own letters about the Tobago Cays to Compass.
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The Tobago Cays Update
Since my last article on the Tobago Cays (Cays in Crisis), there has been a meeting between the prime minister of St. Vincent, the Right Honorable Gonsalves, and the a group called the Friends of the Tobago Cays. The FOTC were hoping maybe the government would consider options other than handing the Cays over to Robert Barrett of the Palm Island.
I was not at this meeting, neither am I a member of the FOTC, however, I got the feeling, from talking to some who were there, that they were being told by the PM that the Palm Island deal was the way St Vincent was going and they could get on board or get lost. They were also given a document of about 25 pages which is a contract drawn up but not yet signed.
It is this document to which I am now going to turn my attention. It must be said that in more recent statements the PM has said that nothing is signed and negotiations proceed. If this document is anything to judge by, that is just as well.
The document is entitled Strategic Alliance Agreement for the Protection and Preservation of the Tobago Cays Marine Park. I will call it the New Agreement for short (I tried SAAPPTCMP, but as an acronym it just does not make it).
The original Tobago Cays Marine Park was typical of most parks in as much as it included a board, whose member would hopefully have the best interests of the Tobago Cays at mind, and a manager. It was job of the board to set the direction of the park and instruct the manager who was to implement the plan the board came up with. In the New Agreement there is no board. Palm Island takes over the complete management of the Tobago Cays and no other body has any meaningful control except the government of St. Vincent, who need to approve some of the plans to be implemented.
If we look through this document we can get an idea where Palm Island is headed
They plan to build and “improve” the Cays. From article 4.7: “The contractor (PIRL) or is affiliates shall have the sole responsibility with respect to drafting and implementing the master plan and shall further have sole responsibility for obtaining any architectural drawings, plans and reports in connection with the construction of the Marine Park Ranger Station and any other improvements and facilities to be used in connection with this agreement”
They hope to put in, and make 50% from 120 moorings in the Tobago Cays, 20 moorings in Salt Whistle Bay, and 20 in Union Island plus more in other anchorages where they can get government agreement.
They will employ a project manager (their park manager), four rangers and a marine Biologist. These staff will be directly responsible to the project manager, and do what he tells them. Reports from the biologist will be available ONLY to the project manager and the government.
A lot of the plan is about infrastructure and moorings, which is strange considering the best and most knowledgeable report on the Tobago Cays National Park - Tom Van’t Hoff “Evaluation of the Tobago Cays” an ECLAC study done at the request of the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, states quite clearly that for the most part yacht moorings are COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY for the park. A fact that is obvious to all of us who sail there. Furthermore in this plan the moorings have spread from the Tobago Cays to Mayreau and Union. Now, the idea of placing moorings for hire, whether controlled by PIRL or others, may have merit. But it should have nothing to do with a plan for the Tobago Cays National Park.
Apart from the title and a half a page of recitals (whatever those are) the only thing I can find of relevance to the environment, apart from promising to take out the garbage, is: “The contractor shall at all times ENDEVOUR to operate the TCMP in an economically viable and environmentally friendly manner”. (Caps mine). As a lover of the Tobago Cays I don’t fine this reassuring, and clearly profit is put on a par with the environment. The New Agreement is full of details and empty of meaningful content. For example it states that the Marine Biologist shall have accounting proficiency and computer skills, but nowhere comes up with a vision of where the park stands, what it needs and where we are going with it. For example, there is nothing about dinghy moorings (which are vitally important). Nowhere does it say what regulations they plan to enforce, and how they will accommodate and organize the vendors in the Cays. Neither does it give any suggestion of how they plan to protect the reefs or manage the islands.
Unfortunately a project manager, four rangers and a marine biologist do not make a park. A park needs vision and understanding. I can find none here. I very much doubt the parties that wrote this have read and understood ECLAC’s Evaluation of the Tobago Cays National Park. I am not qualified to comment on the legal aspects of this document, but from a perspective of those interested in the Tobago Cays, it is absurdly amateurish.
In short, this plan hands over the Tobago Cays to a for-profit company with little indication of how they will manage it and no meaningful safeguards for protecting it. With its emphasis on infrastructure, it what one might expect from developers with no understanding of what a national park is or how it should be run.
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At the Friends of the Tobago Cays Educational Forum
When I read in Compass about this forum, I thought I would further my education and spend a day in attendance. I am really glad I went, the organization was spectacularly smooth, and the speakers all so interesting and articulate that never once did my attention wander.
Now it should be said at the outset this was to be an educational, non-political forum, but whether we like it or not this issue has become political. This was particularly in evidence during the late morning session, for much of which some of the stakeholders from the Grenadines aired their views.
But what was also clear is that this not a party political issue. Many of those who strongly disagree with the government on the Tobago Cays voted for Labour, and strongly support the government on other issues.
The Grenadine islanders were spectacularly articulate – and listening to them speak one after the other, we got a clear message of their plea, the essence of which can be summed up as: “We live in the Grenadines – they are our islands, yet every decision that is made about them, by whatever government has been done in St. Vincent without our participation and consent. We are tired of this – years ago we were free to come and go as we pleased on the all the islands – they were our islands. But one by one they have been sold off to foreigners. Now we no longer feel at home in PSV, we are not welcome in Palm Island, and we do not feel welcome in Mustique. We cannot visit well over half Canouan, Please Vincentions help us in stopping this final indignity of having the Cays put in the hands of a foreigner.”
As foreigner myself
and a yachstman, I could resonate with this message. For we on yachts were once
made to feel exceptionally welcome throughout the Grenadines. But as many of
them have turned into fancy resorts, the attitude towards us has also changed.
PSV, which used to host one of the best regattas in the islands, now only
tolerates yachts, and on many evenings their bar is closed to visitors. We can
still visit Palm Island, but a rope fence attempts to keep us off the best beach
and the bar is only for the very well heeled (For the price of two fruit punches
in Palm you could by 15 beers in the New York Bar). Mustique limits the number
of visiting yachts by a system of moorings and fees. And, of course, like
residents from the Grenadines, we need to get permission to walk in the northern
part of Canouan.
The rest of the forum was lead by overseas guest speakers, and the Friends of the Tobago Cays has to be congratulated for assembling top professionals from the Caribbean and the USA including Dr. Robin Mahon senior lecturer from the UWI in Barbados, Bill Causey, superintendent of the Florida Cays National Marine Sanctuaury, Dr Hazel Oxenford, lecturer at UWI in Barbados and Kai Wulf manager of Soufriere Marine Management Area in St. Lucia. We got a fabulous overview of how marine parks work, how they are financed and why they fail or are successful.
Again I noticed that several of the speakers came out with a similar message. In building a park such as this, the vital building block is communication and trust between those installing the park and the stakeholders and users. Without this, there will be conflict and problems. Bill Causey was perhaps the most eloquent on this subject. He had been there and done that – he tried it the other way – from the top down. And he did have problems – lot of them. He showed us a slide of an effigy of himself being hung from a lamppost, in protest against him, NOAA and the park. He managed to go back to the people, retrieve the situation by winning their trust and today runs a hugely successful park. But his photos were stark reminder of the way not to go.
One question put to the forum was whether they had any experience of a privatized marine park such as was envisaged for the Tobago Cays. Unfortunately they could not help us here, as none of them had ever heard of such an arrangement, but Dr. Robin Mahon was every eloquent on the subject of communication, participation and negotiation, and how to go about seeking common goals.
By arranging this first-class conference, Friends of the Tobago Cays have shown themselves to be a group capable of excellent organization. At this point they are the only group providing an alternative vision for the Tobago Cays to the privatized park run by PIRL that has been proposed by the government. Several people have asked me if there is anything to individuals can do to help the Cays. Well, the Friends of the Tobago Cays is now an official organization, and if you give them a contribution it will be used to further education, raise awareness of the Tobago Cays in St. Vincent and keep the debate open.
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Moorings in the Tobago Cays
The arguments for and against.
When Barret withdrew his offer to manage the Tobago Cays, the prime minister, the right Honorable Doctor Gonsalves, talked about carrying on with the Barret plan, the first stage of which was to put down 130 yacht moorings in the Tobago Cays. The Friends of the Tobago Cays have been asking Why? I think many Vincentians are confused about the issue. I hope this will clarify things.
Two main kinds of mooring used in marine parks, yacht moorings and dive/dinghy moorings. Why do most marine parks have these moorings and for what reasons?
The most important (but not the only) reason for a mooring is to protect the environment in areas where anchoring would cause damage. A good example of this is the dinghy moorings in the Tobago Cays. By providing somewhere for dinghies to tie up, we stop them anchoring on the coral and damaging it. The reason for the moorings is clearly understood by visitors and they all comply. This is similarly true of yacht moorings in the SMMA area in St. Lucia and the Cousteau Marine Park in Guadeloupe. These moorings are placed in coral and amid sensitive areas, and serve to protect the environment.
So do we need yacht moorings to protect the reefs in the Tobago Cays? Not in this case. Yachts do not anchor on the reefs. The place where most yachts anchor between the fringing reef and the islands is clear sand. Yachts not only don’t anchor on the reefs, for the most part they cannot, as the reefs are too shallow. This was clearly pointed out by Tom Vant Hoff in his report on the Tobago Cays Park requested by the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and funded by ECLAC. However, as he also pointed out there may be environmental reasons for a few moorings on the west side of the Cays among the grass beds. Since there is no environmental reason for 130 moorings, what other reasons may there be?
Some people mistakenly think that we cannot charge people unless we make them take a mooring. In other words a mooring is like a parking meter. Park entry fees are normal the world over, whether or not you are offered a mooring. All the parks that I know of in the Eastern Caribbean that have moorings also allow anchoring in non-sensitive areas. In each case the charge is the same. In fact it is imperative that it be the same because if the park charges for the moorings (rather than being in the park), they are then legally liable should anything happen to the yacht. So the charges are for being in the park and the moorings are free.
Another possible rationale for moorings mentioned by Tom Vant Hoff is to limit the number of people using the park. Since we are talking of 130 moorings – about as many boats as you ever see in the Tobago Cays, this too is clearly not the plan.
Still several Marine Parks do have some moorings in sandy areas where anchoring does no harm so why is this? It is basically a matter of public relations and offering something to the customer. It shows the marine park is active and doing something. A good example of this is the moorings put in Anse de Colombier by the St. Barts Marine Authority, those put in Oranjestaad by the Statia Marine Park and those put in Saba by the Saba Marine park authority. In all these cases you can still anchor in the same area as the moorings, but as a service the park has put in a few (usually about 7-15). Use one if you wish, or anchor if you choose. It helps them be visible and the presence of the moorings (even if you don’t choose to take one) reminds visitors it is park. In some cases we on yachts like them. In the case of Saba, it is a big plus as the water is very deep where anchoring is permitted (60 – 100 feet), and anchoring is really hard. In the case of Statia, the moorings are in the harbour and their use permits more yachts to share the small protected area behind the wall. In both these cases they help. In the case of Anse de Colombier, some consider them a convenience and use them, others just ignore them and anchor.
What are the pros and cons for the Tobago Cays? On the positive side, there are some users, particularly bareboaters that would feel happier to be tied to a mooring, and many of them will feel it a great convenience, and it will certainly show the park is doing something.
There are quite a few negatives. Each mooring will cost about $2000 EC so 130 moorings will burden the park with a debt of around a quarter of a million dollars. Would this money be better used in other ways? For example the essential dinghy moorings we have on the reef badly need maintenance right now and are essential to protect the reef. As part of this equation, moorings maintenance will take up a lot of time from the rangers, who will have less time to spend on reef monitoring and other activities.
Another part of the negative side is aesthetic and special to the Tobago Cays. Most of us who visit the Tobago Cays spend most of our time sitting on the boat enjoying the very wonderful light and water colors that are special to this park. 130 large white moorings will be ugly in this natural environment and significantly detract from our enjoyment especially those in the shallower water behind the reef. As a part time professional photographer, I know the view I cherish and take pictures of now – looking out from high on Petit Bateau facing the boats at anchor and the reef beyond, will never look the same again. Part of the beauty will be gone.
If the moorings are compulsory as opposed voluntary, this will further degrade our experience, make us feel pushed around and less free, in addition to which many of us have learned from experience that even park moorings can break, adding to our feeling of insecurity.
Compulsory moorings will introduce a second problem. As soon as we must use a mooring, local vendors are going to approach us to help us tie up – for which they will demand payment, increasing the cost of visiting the Tobago Cays. They will not take no for an answer, and we will end up feeling further hassled as many do already in the SMMA.
I hope all these factors will be carefully considered and debated before anyone goes ahead and fills the Tobago Cays with moorings.
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The Tobago Cays and The New Marine Parks Act.
The Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has come up with a draft proposal of a general law to cover all marine parks. This will replace the legislation that is currently in effect for the Tobago Cays, and the present board will be disbanded and new one put in place.
I find this act rather scary. What it does is to create a Parks Authority with almost dictatorial powers, and this parks authority is directly controlled by government.
This is how it works. The park authority is run by a board of directors. This board is made up of 14 members (The act says 13, but when you count them up it comes to 14). Ten of these are selected by government, or officials under the direct control of government, such as fisheries officers. The only members that might have some independence are two persons nominated by NGO’s (presumably the government decides which NGOs), and a person nominated by the hotels association. Even worse the board do not even get to select their own chairman and vice chairman; these are dictated by cabinet.
Marine parks, and in particular the Tobago Cays Marine Park is firstly about yachting. Yet there is absolutely no representation from the yachting sector – not a bare boat company representative nor anyone representing day charter companies. Secondly the park is about stakeholders who make their living from these yachts – vendors, dive companies, and the like. Nowhere are these represented, nor do they have to be consulted. In fact, the way this is formulated the Marine Parks are most likely to be run by people that have no special feeling or interest in the parks, but who will do exactly what government tells them.
Now, before going on I want to come back to the present and what we are just about to throw out with this new act. The constitution of the present board on paper is not that much more promising than the new. But for various reasons we have some really good and interested people on the board at the moment. We also have a park manager and park staff in place who seem interested and keen. So why is the park not going full steam ahead? What I have been told is that they have requested the government to authorize them to collect $5 EC per head for park entry, which they think will make the park self-sustaining, and this has not been granted.
So it seems we have a park on the verge of success that cannot quite get the help from government it needs, and we have government leaders who, in the past, have expressed doubts about the ability of locals to run a park. Given these two, I find the following part of this new act particularly disturbing:
Under part IV management agreements.
Section 19 says that the authority may enter into a written agreement (a management agreement) with any person or non-governmental organization for the management, conservation, restoration or protection of any marine park designated under this act. They have to do so under contract, which is given in Schedule 4 of the act. What this basically says is that the authority and the person to whom the park has been given to manage, will split the fees 50/50.
In other words, the board can hand the park over to someone else to look after, maybe a foreign hotelier who wants to get his hands on them. This seems like a terrible idea to me, though it is a little better than the last proposals with Palm Island, as we can escape a little easier. The contract specifies that either party may terminate this agreement by six months notice in writing.
There are other problems with this act as well. It is so badly written the park authority can confiscate your yacht almost on a whim. For this reason, if this legislation passes as is, I would caution all yachts about visiting any St. Vincent Marine Park.
Take Section 45. I am going to paraphrase to save you the legalese
(1) If a park warden has reasonable grounds to think a vessel has been used to commit an offence he may search it, and if he finds evidence, seize it.
(2) The court may order the forfeiture of the vessel.
So what kind of offences are we talking about here. Let us look at a few:
Entering or staying in any marine park without permission
Parking where you are not supposed to
Parking so as to obstruct or cause danger
No person shall pollute or cause to be polluted any area of the marine park. (Pollution is totally undefined, so it could be using your marine head.)
Leaving your boat unattended for more than 48 hours. (Let’s hope no couples have a true medical emergency).
Remove or damage any facility or equipment including buoys. (Let’s hope you don’t get tangled up in one by accident)
Damage or impair the growth of any plant.
I have no argument with most of these strictures, though they have clearly been copied from somewhere else and were not written with our local marine parks in mind. We don’t park boats, for example, we anchor them, and I can find nothing here specifically about damaging corals, which I would have thought was central to a marine park, though there are some all-inclusive clauses that could be stretched to cover it. But, these are not things for which one should be able to confiscate a yacht.
Consider the following scenario, a $30 million superyacht comes in. The engineer has a bad day and pumps out some oil by mistake. The warden sees this – searches the boat finds evidence the boat pumped the oil. The court can now order this yacht confiscated (and most insurance policies would probably not cover the confiscation, though they may cover the damage). Similarly a bareboat that anchors badly and drags onto another yacht causing damage, can by this law, be confiscated.
Now I hear you say, “but they will never do that”. Well, if they are never going to do it why have it there in the first place? Once given a power, an official might do anything. Let me give you a real-life example. In one island, to avoid embarrassment, I will call it St. Francis, they did not want commercial vessels coming and taking their fish. Fair enough, they passed a law – simply put “no foreign vessel may fish in St. Francis waters”. This law has lots of teeth and is fine if sensibly applied. If you are a commercial fishing boat, there is no way you can argue you are not commercial, because under the law you don’t have to be. This is left to the discretion of the fisheries officers. Now for many years it was sensibly applied – yachts and local traders passing by St. Francis that were fishing as an adjunct to other activities were left alone. Then one day a fisheries officer reads the law and realizes it allows him discretionary powers to fine people breaking the law. (This new St. Vincent Marine Parks Act does just the same.) This seemed to him a great way to put some money in fisheries coffers. So he goes out and fines a couple of charter yachts. Now here is the thing. If these people had taken it to court, a magistrate may well have had the sense to throw this out. But he has them by the short and curlies, this is their one-week holiday – if they wait and do that, their holiday for the whole year is ruined, their charter yacht tied to the town dock. So they pay, and immediately numerous charter companies boycott the island, costing them way more than fisheries gained in fines.
Don’t get me wrong, a park must have teeth, and they should be sharp, but a park should not be designed as a shark. A park needs to be able to fine people and to recover damages and should be able to detain a vessel, pending a dispute. I think they should also be able to ban people that deliberately misbehave from the park forever. But they should not be in the business of seizing or confiscating yachts.
Not too long ago a megayacht dropped an anchor on coral in Barbados. They were made to leave the anchor and chain in place as removing it would have caused more damage, and they were fined $20,000 US for the offence. I have no problem with this – but if they had confiscated the yacht, imagine what that would have done for yachting in the Caribbean!
It seems to me the Tobago Cays Marine Park is headed in the right direction, and with a little tweaking would be a great asset to the country. There may be reasons for a whole new act, rather than amending the old, but we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and if we do go for a new act, surely this is a great opportunity to get it right: To aim for a Parks Authority which will truly represent the stakeholders, an Authority whose powers are not so draconian that they will terrify the users, an Authority which is not empowered to hand St. Vincent's national treasures over to foreign business interests.
since august 05