When The Bahamas hosted the Fourth Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Escazú Agreement in April, it marked the first time the conference had been held in the Caribbean. For a region on the front lines of climate change, biodiversity loss and intensifying development pressures, the moment could not be more timely.
The Escazú Agreement is a landmark regional treaty that guarantees the rights to access information, public participation, and justice in environmental matters. At its core, it is about how decisions are made, who has a voice, and how human rights are protected when development and environmental protection intersect. For small island and coastal states, where ecosystems are fragile and communities depend directly on land, sea and natural resources, these principles are fundamental.
Ten of the 19 countries that have ratified the Escazú Agreement are from the Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Their leadership reflects a growing regional commitment to transparency, participation, accountability and the protection of environmental human rights defenders. I encourage other Caribbean States to follow their example.
The urgency is clear. Climate change is intensifying storms, flooding and sea level rise. Biodiversity loss threatens food security and livelihoods. At the same time, development pressures continue to grow. Decisions taken today will determine whether development strengthens resilience and inclusion or deepens inequality and environmental harm.
These issues were front and centre at an official COP side event organised by the UN Human Rights Office. Speakers representing diverse sectors of society engaged openly on the human rights obligations of States and responsibilities of businesses and one message was clear: communities affected by environmental decisions must be informed early and able to participate meaningfully.
This is not only a human rights obligation; it is also sound policy. When communities are excluded, projects often face resistance, delays and loss of trust. When participation is genuine and timely, decisions are stronger, risks are better managed, and outcomes are more sustainable over time.
But challenges remain. Greater awareness is still needed of the protections and opportunities the Agreement offers – not only for communities, but also for States and businesses.
One of the Agreement’s most important provisions is Article 9, which focuses on the protection of environmental human rights defenders. Across the Caribbean, individuals and communities work courageously to protect ecosystems and the rights of others, often with limited resources and at personal risk. Intimidation or reprisals against those who raise environmental concerns are incompatible with international human rights law and with the commitments States have made under the Escazú Agreement. They also undermine the principles of participation and trust that Caribbean countries reaffirmed at the COP.
States in the region should ensure that individuals working to defend the environment and human rights are able to carry out this work safely and without intimidation. And businesses operating in the Caribbean must ensure that their activities do not contribute – directly or through their value chains – to threats, criminalisation or reprisals against those who raise environmental concerns.
The UN Human Rights Office for the Caribbean remains committed to supporting States through capacity building, and technical assistance on the rights of access to information, public participation in decision making, access to justice, and the application of a human rights based approach to environmental action.
Hosting COP4 in The Bahamas was a powerful reminder that the Caribbean is not only vulnerable – it is also leading. With continued cooperation and political will, the Escazú Agreement can help ensure that development is inclusive and participatory and that it protects the right to a healthy environment for present and future generations.
Michelle Brathwaite
Regional Representative of the UN Human Rights Office for the Caribbean Community
Dear Editor,
VROMI needs and must have in its Permits Policy, or even just a very important criteria that all Commercial Development requesting Building Permits be submitted for Approval having, not just proper parking, which is already the case, but also having visible landscaping primarily at the front entrances and roadsides of their properties being developed.
Over the past decades, it has been the trend, because the Ministry of VROMI does not request for its Permits Approval that a very simple Landscaping Plan be submitted, having, for example, probably Palm or Coconut Trees as part of its Infrastructure Beautification and Site Plan Development. That is why, unfortunately, we still see projects being developed, being seen as concrete jungles, while landscaping and planting of trees are still visibly lacking. This all being able to improve the wellness of our nature, well-being, as well as healthy environment.
Permits for dwellings can also be encouraged to all have at least one type of fruit tree that is popularly known to grow in the soils of St. Maarten, and be planted on these Infrastructure developments as well.
The Department of Inspection, by way of supervision, during the construction phase, are able to verify that this would indeed be executed.
These are all ways of encouraging those in agriculture to develop and expand this market of planting as a living, since Government would encourage and promote this as part of a Building Permit Request Package. To start, it can be promoted first at the Weekly COM Press Briefing, and presented, as well as promoted by the Minister of VROMI.
Government must at all times focus primarily on expanding landscaping/ beautification, as well as the planting of fruit trees alongside our main public roads, sidewalks, public buildings, as well as public parks.
We are continuously failing in small, but very important things which may seem insignificant for big development, but beneficial for the overall aesthetic development of our Island for our people and visitors.
Point is, we need to start somewhere. And at times, all it takes is for Government to present and explain its intention and vision as to how we must develop, preserve, beautify, and protect our nature, while enhancing our Island's natural beauty.
The Late and Former Commissioner of Tourism and Economic Development, Dennis Pantophlet, always taught me the effectiveness of the unwritten rule/ policy or law.
Basically, promoting and establishing development trends by just presenting, promoting, and selling your vision to your people by way of our decisive actions, but, of course, leading by example as Government first through very aggressive and constant PR campaigns.
There are many amongst us with an extended background, expertise, knowledge, and wealth of experience, who are willing to pass this on to the next generation that will ask and listen to wise counsel.
That is the generation that is not seeking or competing for a career, because they have already passed that time and season in their lives.
Their heart’s desire is just to pass on the torch to those that will reach out their hands to grab hold of the continuation of their journey and destiny in life for the overall benefit of our country, and in the best interest of our St. Martin People.
Achken Roberto Richardson-IAM
Dear Editor,
I read “The Daily Herald” every day with interest. I find the local and international coverage excellent. There was an article in the April 24/25 issue, on page 9, about the donation of boxing equipment to inmates. Apparently, the premise was that this will contribute to their rehabilitation.
They are inmates because they committed an offence to the public. Why train them to be more aggressive? Why not just add a course in the handling of weapons?
I am sure that there are many other programmes that can be instituted that address their aggression and can hopefully allow them to control their feelings.
Jerry Kootman
Dear Editor,
Of late on social media more and more we are seeing puppy dogs being breastfed by cats and vicer versa. lionesses breastfeeding tiger cubs cats playing with snakes, but here by us for a good while now daily or nightly women on St. Maarten are making it a practice to publicly fight with each and will not stop until one or both are practically or completely naked
Because I have lived through the era when our parents used to tell us "Only dogs and cats does fight like all you" and "Not even dogs and cats don't fight each other any more" leading up to these days that the different animals are breastfeeding each other's pups and kids.
Instead of us copying from those animals, between the fighting and the kind of clothes women wear in public nowadays, I am at a lost. We were brought up to respect women. My mother who was the mother of eleven boys would always say to us " What you don't want any man to do to me or your sisters, do not do it to another woman".
I have always taken that warning into consideration, but when I see the way women dress in public nowadays no matter what time of the day it is, I wonder what my mother would have said. There are laws governing this kind of behaviour and I believe those who are involved with Carnival should listen and look around and consider the image of St. Maarten. Are we known for sleeping with our bedroom windows open?
Russell A Simmons
Dear Editor,
Two stories circulating recently in the local media deserve to be read together. The first: Sunresorts Ltd. N.V. is asking the Court of First Instance to declare its ownership in Mullet Bay as extending all the way to the coastline. The second: the Nature Foundation St. Maarten has again sounded the alarm over accelerating development activity around Mullet Bay, Beacon Hill, and Little Bay. Side by side, they raise a question that goes well beyond any single court case – who does this island actually belong to?
The Nature Foundation has been raising these concerns consistently and with evidence for years. When they speak, the right response is to listen seriously, not manage the optics. St. Maarten has finite land, finite coastline, and finite ecological resilience. The pressures accumulate quietly until what you assumed was still there is already gone.
Those pressures extend well beyond the environmental. Our roads are overwhelmed, our utilities remain fragile, and the quality of daily life for residents is being steadily worn down by growth that has routinely outpaced any serious capacity to manage it. Any honest conversation about development has to reckon with all of that, not just with what can be built.
But the question of beach access is the one I feel most urgently. Our beaches are among our most fundamental natural, social, and cultural assets – Mullet Bay especially. Families gather there. Children learn to swim there. People from every background share the same stretch of sand. Once that is gone, no settlement or marketing campaign brings it back.
I do much of my professional work in Jamaica, and one of the most painful things I encounter there is what has happened to the coastline. Less than one percent of Jamaica’s shoreline remains genuinely accessible to the public. It happened incrementally – a resort here, a concession there – each decision defensible in isolation, until the coast that belonged to Jamaicans in every real sense was no longer theirs to reach. I see the consequences every time I am there.
But I also want to be clear about what genuine public access must mean. A beach that is legally open yet practically hostile to residents has not been protected. The jet ski concessions that make the water aggressive and dangerous – and we were recently reminded how deadly that can be, following the fatal accident in Tobago – do not serve the public. The beach bar positioning itself as a faux St. Tropez, oriented entirely toward tourists, does not serve the public. The chair rental operators who hassle residents for simply sitting on their own beach certainly do not serve the public. Legal access that hands the space to a different set of commercial interests is no victory.
Beaches should be held for their natural, social, and cultural value, and that must shape what the government actually defends in court and how it manages the shoreline afterwards. St. Maarten still has a choice here. Mullet Bay is still there. I hope those in positions of responsibility treat it accordingly.
Tadzio Bervoets
