Over the weekend I got a file, from various sources, titled: Quick Scan Marine Environment Ecosystem and Biodiversity Composition and Potential Negative Impacts of the beach development activities in front of the Hilton Embassy Suites, at Eagle Beach.
The file was dated July 5th, and the authors were members of the Fundacion Parke Nacional Aruba (FPNA) Executive Board. I posted the link to the 14 page PDF on my FB page, at the end of a 24Ora news item.
They reported accurately about the report, which basically described, as the title clearly suggests, the Ecosystem and Biodiversity Composition and Potential Negative Impacts of the beach development activities in front of the Hilton Embassy Suites, at J.E. Irausquin Blvd. 268, Eagle Beach.
You don’t have to read the report, just scan the title.
And I hope that the judge presiding over the case, saw it.
Was he given the document, I ask.
The document is interesting because it names all grasses, plants and fish, whose names I never knew, so it is good reading material. I realized they all live underwater so they are invisible to us from above, but they are there and require protection from bulldozers.
Listen to the conclusion of the report:
The marine sanctuary in front of the Hilton Embassy Suites is likely the last remaining (relatively) undisturbed section of coastline along the hotel-populated western coast of Aruba. It comprises unique ecosystems and biodiversity and is of high value to the marine environment. Further development of a beach in this location would result in complete biodiversity loss of this area, as can already be seen in the section that was recently filled with sand by the hotel contractors. Additionally, due to the vulnerability of these habitats, increased human activity in these shallow waters will have a high impact on the marine life through trampling, crushing, dragging, increased wave action, and pollutants, ultimately leading to its demise.
Just reading that paragraph, almost moved me to tears.
We have been trampling, crushing, dragging, and digging this island’s nature away, yet it’s the island’s nature that attracts visitors to our shore.
Where is our sense of mutual responsibility, the realization that our individual bad decisions matter, they are not just ours, as they also have detrimental effects on the world around us, on our environment.
Of course it is the right of Mr Burdugu to kill himself doing drugs, but when he beats his wife up to a pulp, and sends his two children, ages 2 and 8 months, to the hospital, society had to interfere because we have a mutual responsibility, a pact, an unwritten agreement, that we will look after each other and express active concern about the well-being of individuals in our society.
That pact extends to Nature, and to our environment. What is done on the beach, concerns us all, this is our turtle, our seagrass, our shrimp, our mangroves, our corals, our sponges. HANDS OFF.
(My readers keep telling me that we should also pay attention to mangroves being cut in Savaneta, in favor of beachfront construction.)
