For immediate release: 27 May 2024
As the 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS)[1] kicks off in Antigua civil society groups are calling out the UN event for excluding Barbudans while platforming the developers who are destroying their island.[2] The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) together with local partner, the Barbuda Land Rights and Resources Committee (BLRRC) are raising serious concerns regarding the lack of grassroots and local representation specifically of Barbudan land defenders and the Barbuda Council.[3] At the same time, billionaire JP Dejoria whose company Peace Love Happiness (PLH) is building a golf resort over Barbuda’s internationally listed wetland is appearing at events in the company of Prime Minister Gaston Browne. These destructive developments make this low-lying island more vulnerable to climate change and have already attracted widespread international criticism from UN experts who have written both to Dejoria[4] and Browne[5] raising issues with the PLH project on human rights grounds. Rather than being at the table where decisions are made, Barbudans’ only option is to raise awareness of the ecological and climate crisis on Barbuda outside the event.
Barbuda, the smaller island of the twin-island nation, has seen developers flood into to acquire large stretches of land in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in 2017. Since this time islanders have seen their southern and western coastline captured, land defenders have been arrested and experienced widespread environmental harms. The conference is set to feature two sessions hosted by scientist Deborah Brosnan whose company provided Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) that enabled many of the unsustainable developments on Barbuda to proceed.[6] The EIAs greenlighted the PLH project which includes the “Barbuda Ocean Club”, a luxury residential enclave which has been heavily criticised for destroying Barbuda’s wetlands,[7] cutting off local access to beaches[8] and colluding with the central government to dismantle the communal land ownership on Barbuda so that they can sell villas to global elites. Experts from the science team as Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (eLaw) reviewed Brosnan & Associates’ EIAs and concluded that they are superficial and inadequate.
John Mussington of the Barbuda Land Rights and Resources Committee (BLRRC) said: “While this conference’s theme is “resilience”, it is taking place while the resilience of Barbudans and their communally owned island is systematically being compromised by non-sustainable, harmful developments that are replacing natural coastal and wetland ecosystems with luxury residences and golf courses. We want a SIDS agenda that will effectively prevent the hypocrisy that turns a blind eye to the destruction of biodiversity and resilient ecosystems while publicly saying the opposite.”
Tom Goreau PhD, President of the Global Coral Reef Alliance said: “This is the first SIDS conference I am not attending as there will be no venue for serious discussion of global climate change solutions. It is regrettable that UNSIDS will not address the global coral reef extinction crisis, the existential urgency of regrowing coastal ecosystems like coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrasses through community-managed ecosystem regeneration and sustainable mariculture, sea level rise adaptation, or the delicate ecosystems on Barbuda that are imminently threatened. Barbuda is the last large pristine island in the Caribbean, and requires the strongest protection and management as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, not to be trashed by irresponsible mega-yacht marinas, golf courses, and sewage that have destroyed the natural resources and fisheries of all other Caribbean islands.”
YaYa Marin Coleman chairperson of the United Black Association for Development Educational Foundation (UEF), Belize who travelled for two days to show solidarity to Barbudan land defenders said “SIDS has been co-opted by European ways of domination of natural resources for profit by the predatory class inclusive of some of our skin folks who are not our kinfolks. It is not the only world possible. Barbudans are living examples of what it means to live communally as Afrikan Descendants racialized as Black People and are willing to collectively defend their land struggle as Barbudan Land Defenders.”
Sarah O’Malley lawyer at GLAN said “Developers instrumental in the destruction and privatisation of Barbuda are leveraging the SIDS conference to their advantage. Meanwhile Barbudans are excluded. This serves as a potent symbol of a broader global issue where Indigenous and Tribal communities who can best protect the planet remain marginalized while capitalistic, extractivist narratives from powerful Global North actors are platformed within international fora.”
Notes
Washington DC based Irish-American Scientist co-opting small island developing state’s forum
An alumna of NUI Galway, an Irish scientist, is set to speak at a climate conference in the Caribbean next week. Meanwhile GLAN, an NGO based at the Irish Centre for Human Rights in NUI Galway, is collaborating with the community on Barbuda to protest her contributions, given her collusion with billionaire investors destroying their island’s fragile ecology by greenlighting their ultra-luxury projects with subpar EIAs. Brosnan has publicly stated that money is “the prime mover” in the climate science world.[9] On 26th May Brosnan spoke at another SIDS event invited by Ambassador Fergal Mythen, Permanent Representative of Ireland to the UN, co-chair of the Steering Committee on Partnerships for SIDS.[10]
Dr. Deborah Brosnan, the President and Founder of Deborah Brosnan & Associates, has a significant personal stake in the PLH development. She was listed on the PLH website as a member of the PLH core team[11] alongside JP DeJoria and, as shown in the photo below, the development is planned to feature a “Brosnan School of the Environment.”
PLH Map of Development at Palmetto Point (2019)
PLH are partnered with the Discovery Land Company (DLC) whose luxury project in the Bahamas has destroyed coral reefs and fisheries.[12]
SIDS Women’s Major Group endorsement
GLAN and the BLRRC endorse the statement made by the SIDS Women’s Major Group and in particular their five demands made in conjunction with small-scale fisherfolk and their calling out of the SIDS Agenda inviting ocean grabbing:
“It is our deep concern that ABAS invites the private sector to capitalise on the Ocean as a ‘new frontier’ of extraction, as well as through green and blue bonds, and the carbon market. Reliance on carbon markets will ensure we do not stay within the 1.5C warming threshold and as a mechanism will further fossil fuel use, endangering the survival of SIDS. Reliance on carbon markets will also shift the responsibilities of climate change impacts from the polluters to communities facing the adverse impacts of climate change.”[13] The SIDS agenda (ABAS) was agreed prior to conference with little civil society input and no local community outreach.[14]
More information:
Palmetto point development: potential impacts on Barbuda’s fisheries
Pristine Barbuda threatened by unsustainable development
Longer quotes
John Mussington of the Barbuda Land Rights and Resources
Committee (BLRRC) said: “The SIDS4 conference in Antigua is proceeding under the theme of “Charting the course towards resilient prosperity.” Representatives will meet in exclusive plenary sessions to develop the next 10-year SIDS agenda. While this is taking place the resilience of Barbudans and their communally owned island is systematically being compromised by non-sustainable, harmful developments that are replacing natural coastal and wetland ecosystems with luxury residences and golf courses. The resilience that allowed the island and its People to survive the strongest Atlantic storm on record (as of September 2017) has been severely compromised as the SIDS conference proceeds this week.
Should a storm make landfall in the 2024 hurricane season Barbudans will be worse off than they were in 2017. In fact, the good environmental stewardship that was responsible for creating the resilience of the island in 2017 is in danger of being nullified as the government administration attempt to unilaterally and forcibly change the Barbudan communal land tenure system.
That is why we want a SIDS 10-year Agenda that allows meaningful and effective participation from ordinary people who are most affected. We want a SIDS agenda that will effectively prevent the hypocrisy that turns a blind eye to the destruction of biodiversity and resilient ecosystems while publicly saying the opposite. We want the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS) to be inclusive of Us and to work for Us.”
YaYa Marin Coleman chairperson of the United Black Association for Development Educational Foundation (UEF), Belize who travelled for two days from Southside Belize city to show solidarity to Barbudan land defenders said “Afrikan descendants in Barbuda have a human right to continue to live their traditional Afrikan ways of being, in harmony with the Earth as our Afrikan Ancestresses and Ancestors did and taught them to do.
- To know that we have a duty to them, us the living, and our unborn children.
- To take only what is needed from the sea, and the land.
- To replant and nourish ourselves and MaMa Earth.
- To regard nature and the creatures of the soil and sea as our kinfolks and a part of the circle of life.
European ways of domination of natural resources for profit by the predatory class inclusive of some of our skin folks who are not our kinfolks, is not the only world possible. Barbudans and Barbuda are living examples of what it means to live communally as Afrikan Descendants racialized as Black People and are willing to collectively defend their land struggle as Barbudan Land Defenders – #onlydipeeplewillsavedipeeple.”
[1] The SIDS: 39 States: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cabo Verde, Comoros, Cook Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Mauritius, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Singapore, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. 18 Associate Members of United Nations Regional Commissions: American Samoa, Anguilla, Aruba, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Guadeloupe, Guam, Martinique, Montserrat, New Caledonia, Commonwealth of Northern Marianas, French Polynesia, Puerto Rico, Sint Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands.
[2] https://www.deborahbrosnan.com/unsids.html.
[3] The local population of Barbuda are excluded from having any significant input at the crucial, decision-making sessions of the conference, given the bureaucratic hurdles. Barbuda Council members are only able to access side events, not in their official capacity as local government but only if supported and sponsored by other civil society groups.
[4] https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=26336.
[5] AL ATG (1.2021) (ohchr.org).
[6] Brosnan & Associates has authored EIAs for the PLH project, for the Murbee/Rosewood development, the development at Cedar Tree Point and for the contested airport – the EIA which has yet to be disclosed to the Barbudan Land Defenders legally challenging the airport or their legal team. All of these developments are currently being challenged in the courts with the support of GLAN. See: https://antiguaobserver.com/barbudan-landowner-brings-two-david-v-goliath-legal-challenges-against-billionaire-developers/;https://apnews.com/article/barbuda-wetland-development-legal-fight-b8414644be49d18c2eadbd8e1ba0237d.
[7] Challenging management of International | glanlaw.
[8] https://antiguaobserver.com/more-than-20-barbudans-due-before-court-for-trespassing-on-plh-site/.
[9] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/work/going-abroad-forced-me-to-challenge-assumptions-that-i-had-1.4393220 “ Whether we environmentalists like it or not, money is the prime mover for a meaningful response at scale.”
[10] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/deborahbrosnan_unsids4-globalbusinessnetwork-activity-7200531989035200513-mLas?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android.
[11] The Team, Barbuda Ocean Club, https://barbuda1team1dream.com/about/#team, the screenshot embedded was sourced from the Way Back Machine a tool for accessing older versions of websites.
[12] Golf courses kill coral reefs and fisheries: harmful algae blooms and disease caused by nutrient runoff from golf course development on Guana Cay, Abaco, Bahamas – Global Coral Reef Alliance.
[13] Contact: Noelene Nabulivou, Fiji, DIVA FOR EQUALITY, WOMEN’S MAJOR GROUP – SIDS, Pacific Feminist Alliance for Climate Justice, Pacific Women Mediators Network, Pacific Feminist Community of Practice, Pacific Feminist SRHR Coalition, PACIFIC FEMINISTS DEFENDING THE LIVING PLANET, Whatsapp: (679) 713 8026, General Email: noelenen@gmail.com.
[14] https://sdgs.un.org/sites/default/files/2024-04/SIDS4%20-%20Co-Chairs%20FINAL%20%281%29.pdf.