"A dead whale is no good to the Caribbean; we need live whales…because we've got a burgeoning whale watching industry, particularly in the Eastern Caribbean countries that is an essential and growing part of their tourism product," he said.
--Environmentalist Dr. Fitzroy Armour
Living on a small island has opened my eyes to alot, but particularly the tourist industry, its policies and procedures and most importantly its economic impact. In the last ten years Grenada has sprouted into one of the biggest tourist islands of the Caribbean (although many U.S. tourists haven't discovered us yet). We recently built Port Louis, digging a large chuck of land out to make this Port for tourists boats, yacht and fishing charters. We dug two new docks for cruise ships, extending our capacity to up to 4 cruise ships at a time. We are constantly opening new site seeing adventures like underwater sculptures, hiking trails, historical tours and scuba diving. The tourist industry contributes to nearly half of the GDP of Grenada. So to say we are dependent on tourism is quite the understatement.
Recently the Caribbean islands have come under tough pressure from the IWC (International Whaling Commission) to vote in support of loosening the whaling regulations in the Eastern Caribbean. This pressure is primarily coming from one of our largest financial supporters: Japan. Between 1986 and 1995, Grenada received more than 15 million dollars in grant aid from Japan, and we are expecting another 5 million this year for a fishery project in Gouyave. These statistics are startling to me in a sense that we are very dependent on other countries. Slowly but surely we are losing our exporting trade and doubling our importing trade. Many of the housing developments and schools on island are built by foreigners, usually British, Chinese or Japanese. This disturbs me for many reasons but the largest be that we have VERY capable LOCAL laborers and craftsmen to build these same structures. We simply lack the funding to produce projects of such magnitude.
This week, Grenada decided to openly promote the sell of their vote in support of whaling. This means our government may not support whaling, but we are willing to take the hit in order to receive more money from the Japanese. This decision has stifling effects on the livelihood of whales in and around the Caribbean. Each year whales (and many others) venture to the Caribbean to mate and have their babies, sensing that the Caribbean Sea is a safe place for them. This new measure would rip that right away from these precious creatures who provide such beauty to our ecosystem.
I challenge every one of my readers to continue to follow the progress of this story in the Caribbean, regardless of where we all live. This could effect every one of our lives in some form or another. Its terrible that money is controlling this issue with no empathy for the animals being affected.
For more information please go to: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51887 or search Facebook for 'Grenada Friends of Whales and Nature'
