Pete Seeger’s song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” contains the lines  “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?” To make the question even more demanding it is repeated.

The song would become a highly emotional protest song about the waste of human lives in the Vietnam War.

It should also be used to protest the extraordinary decision by the Cayman Islands Planning Authority (CPA) on the 15^th August to allow developer, RC Estates, to remove 50 feet of recovering mangrove buffer that runs 2,000ft along the coastal lots of a proposed development in the South Sound.

The area is a marine replenishment zone but the developer also has permission to fill the area with marl and extend the lots into the ocean and construct a 9ft. concrete sea wall.

The Department of Environment (DoE) at the CPA meeting produced an extensive report with evidence warning of the danger of removing the mangrove buffer and the need to replenish the area. This is something the DoE has been carrying out with some success in the area after it was damaged by Hurricane Ivan. With the help and assistance from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Migratory Bird Conservation and Reef Ball Foundation much invested time, energy and public resources has gone into the replenishment.

The Cayman Islands Planning Department also advised against the removal of the mangrove.

One of our stories today is a National Coastal Protection Report “Reduction of Wind and Swell Waves by Mangroves” that we have published in its entirety and in my opinion is required reading.

I quote:

“Coastal populations are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme events such as storms and hurricanes, and these pressures may be exacerbated through the influence of climate change and sea level rise. Coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests are increasingly being promoted and used as a tool in coastal defence strategies. There remains, however, a pressing need to better understand the roles that ecosystems can play in defending coasts. This report focuses on mangrove forests and the role they can play in reducing wind and swell waves. While mangrove forests are usually found on shores with little incoming wave energy, they may receive larger waves during storms, hurricanes and periods of high winds. Large wind and swell waves can cause flooding and damage to coastal infrastructure. By reducing wave energy and height, mangroves can potentially reduce associated damage.

“All evidence suggests that mangroves can reduce the height of wind and swell waves over relatively short distances: wave height can be reduced by between 13 and 66% over 100 m of mangroves. The highest rate of wave height reduction per unit distance occurs near the mangrove edge, as waves begin their passage through the mangroves.”

In Florida, where the removal of mangrove trees created storm surges and pollution and alteration of natural systems, they implemented the Mangrove Trimming and Preservation Act 1996. “Mangrove trees populate estuaries along Florida’s central and southern coasts. These trees provided both habitat and food for many marine organisms. Mangrove trees also act as natural storm buffers in these wetland areas by reducing wind and wave action. Along with the preservation of these trees and their habitat, the act bans the trimming and alteration of mangrove trees. Even trees that are located on private property are protected by this act.”

Read more: Florida Tree Laws | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6902272_florida-tree-laws.html#ixzz25WMbtFht

Another excellent study was done by Prof. K. Kathiresan, at the Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology, entitled “Degradation and Destruction of Mangroves”. You can download it at :ocw.unu.edu/…mangroves/Degradation-and-destruction-of-mangrov

Professor Kathiresan claims, “The world mangrove experts are of the opinion that the long term survival of mangroves is at great risk due to fragmentation of the habitats and that the services offered by the mangroves may likely be totally lost within 100 years.”

In the USA from 1958 – 1983 (before they saw the sense of the Mangrove Preservation Act) the mangrove areas went from 260000 ha to 175000 ha a staggering 67% reduction.

I doubt any records have been kept here in the Cayman Islands but if they were I believe we would be astonished and we should be outraged. Our protection from storms that are increasing is being removed by greedy developers and rich purchasers who haven’t got any brain but eyes that see a beautiful calm sea.

And the members of the CPA board continually give permission for mangrove removal despite all the warnings and risks to their own lives and their property. Do they honestly think a 9ft concrete wall is going to be any barrier to 10 and 20ft plus waves from a hurricane?

Do you remember the whimper of criticism when two years ago Michael Ryan removed over 350,000 sq ft of mangrove buffer at the North Sound? This after Hurricane Ivan?

The DoE officials have been asking for a mangrove buffer designation within a Conservation Law but this has gone unheeded by the government ministers we vote in. Now is the time to DEMAND it.

Why don’t we ever learn? It’s not just the developers. If we the public, would look at the evidence we would never think of purchasing a house that has only a 9ft sea wall to protect us.

This is our lives and our properties these fools are messing with. Tell the Minister of the Environment Mark Scotland we are not going to stand for it. If you have to, SHOUT it out. And this is the list of the persons on the CPA that approved it justifying their actions saying they were swayed by the presentation given by the applicant’s lawyer that the owners had a legal right to develop the land. The attorney said his client’s land had a fixed boundary, which the sea had eroded, but it was still his client’s boundary.

“There is no disputing anymore,” he said, “if you have a fixed boundary and the sea erodes your land, it is still your boundary. Government guarantees title to land, if the opposite were the case it would be bad for business. For today’s hearing, this boundary is fixed and they have every legal right to do this.

He also argued that, despite being no expert with no qualifications even suggesting same, offered this:

“They are moving the seawall a bit seaward and adding rip rap. It’s not a hard sea wall. There are many, many areas on the island where this has been done. One benefit of Ivan is that we can now say rip rap diffuses storm surge. Boulders are harder to move than mangroves.”

The CPA board comprises: Messrs. A.L. Thompson (Chair) – absent, Steve McLaughlin (Dep Chair), Peterkin Berry (left at 12:00), Peter Campbell (absent), Dave Christian, Ernie Hurlstone (absent), Rex Miller, Allan Myles, Eldon Rankin, Helbert Rodriquez (except 6.1 -WILMAR RAMIREZ Block 24D Parcel 124), Antonio Smith, Haroon Pandohie (Exec Sec) and Ron Sanderson (Asst Dir. Of Planning (CP))

Where have all the people gone? Where have all our homes gone?

“When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”