Anegada, severe coastal erosion. Photograph: © SAF
Excerpts;
The postcards portray sand, sea and sun. But key players in the Caribbean tourism industry are warning that it’s time to shift gears away from the region’s threatened coastlines and instead promote inland attractions like biodiversity.
“Climate change is one of the things that is affecting the hotel industry, and the fact that most of our hotels are right on the beaches (means) they are subject to violent storms, the frequency of which has been projected to increase due to climate change issues,” hotelier and social entrepreneur Valmiki Kempadoo told IPS.
“Outside of Trinidad and maybe a large country like Jamaica, tourism is by far the largest economic driver of these smaller islands… and we have to seek new solutions, new business models that could take this thing into the 21st century,” he said…
Kempadoo is urging his regional counterparts to move their properties away from the beaches, noting that in light of the effects of climate change “having a hotel at 500 feet or 1,000 feet above sea level can help in that general direction”.
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Battling Beach erosion, Barbardos
Jamaica’s Beaches in peril
Several beaches on the western end of Jamaica could be totally wiped out in the next 5 to 10 years if local authorities and residents do not act now.
Anegada, British Virgin Islands. Photo courtesy of: © Andrew Cooper, University of Ulster
