Tourism expansion v turtle nests: the dispute dividing communities in one Tobago resort

Plans for a 200-room project on an unspoiled beach have pitted developers against the conservationists fighting for smaller-scale schemes to protect the island’s habitat

Visitors to Rocky Point in south-west Tobago are drawn to its sandy beach, fringed by coral reefs and dark rock formations and carpeted with the fruit-bearing trees found on Caribbean coastlines – almonds, sea grapes, coconuts, and the poisonous manchineel. The beach is part of Back Bay, a 500-metre swathe of land, and trekking through its undulating terrain, thickly covered in bush and shrubs, feels akin to walking through a rainforest.

But this still relatively unspoiled location is at the centre of a struggle between two opposing interests – those who see large-scale development as the most profitable path and those who believe smaller, incremental developments owned by the community would be best.

As elsewhere in the Caribbean, the need for economic growth has led to growing interest in tourism development. Rene Seepersadsingh, the first vice-president of the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association, says: “Tobago is very focused on attracting private partnership investment because our tourism product is now in that evolution stage, where we’re looking to upgrade the offering that we have.

“There are great opportunities for participation and development within the sector,” he adds.

With that goal in mind, the 12 hectares (30 acres) of Rocky Point became the subject of a request for expressions of interest in 2021 from the government agency Eteck, which manages and develops economic zones.

Eteck invited proposals from qualified firms to design and manage a premier hotel and property development on the site. Superior Hotels, a locally owned company, ultimately won. It received a 99-year lease to develop a $500m (£378m), 200-room property on the site, which also includes plans for a number of privately owned villas.

Since then, the project has sparked a struggle that has been going on for the past four years, led by environmentalists, Tobagonians and others who believe the development will ruin Rocky Point.

Duane Kenny, a founding member of the Rocky Point Foundation – one of several entities that submitted an expression of interest to Eteck – is now advocating for increased accountability. A former hotel manager, he is an avid surfer at Back Bay and owns tourism-related businesses in Tobago.

“Our focus is to make sure that whatever is done on that site is done in an environmentally sound way, in a way that preserves it for Tobago and for future generations,” he says.

He says he and his associates replied to the expression of interest with a proposal for a small eco-resort featuring nature trails, turtle watching and a wax museum showcasing Amerindian artefacts discovered at Rocky Point. He also highlighted the remains of Fort Monck, a distinctive fort with well-preserved masonry.

Kenny says the winning project’s initial design raised concerns about it seemingly ignoring many archaeological and ecological features at Rocky Point, and that the subsequent amendments still do not adequately address many of the issues raised.

“The amount of concrete development on this site, at least in the current model, makes us worry that the impact on the environment will be significant,” he says, adding that in his view a 200-room hotel has little chance of success in Tobago, where most large hotels struggle to achieve sustainable occupancy levels.

Michelle Cazabon-Mannette, an environmental biologist and director at the NGO SpeSeas, says more than 100 people submitted written objections to the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) as part of the environmental impact assessment, which the project needs to obtain a certificate of environmental clearance (CEC). She says that after widespread objections at town hall meetings and in written submissions, the project holder made only minor design adjustments.

After the adjustments, the EMA granted Superior Hotels a CEC, with about 20 pages of mitigation measures attached that the project must follow.

Kirkland Brathwaite, principal at Katalyst Solutions, an environmental and project management firm, says a CEC often includes several environmental impact mitigation measures, adding that a quality assurance project plan is mandatory to ensure proper monitoring.

Cazabon-Mannette says the mitigation measures listed in the CEC are insufficient, though she acknowledges that “the project designs provided – on which the CEC is based – were conceptual and (Superior Hotels) made it clear these were not final designs”.

Whatever form the final designs take, Cazabon-Mannette and Kenny say a 200-room hotel and numerous villas will probably mean removing many of the trees on Rocky Point. “A major concern is having an appropriate scale of development that would minimise the footprint in terms of the coastal vegetation that would need to be cleared,” Cazabon-Mannette says.

She adds that the trees provide shade and help protect the beach from coastal erosion, and their removal would harm one of Tobago’s most important turtle nesting sites. “At Back Bay, the shade keeps the sand cool,” she says, making it a choice for hawksbill turtles and leatherback turtles laying their eggs.

Cazabon-Mannette says that sediment runoff from development could also threaten the unique coral reef that makes it a surfer’s paradise. The developer has promised to set up silt fences during construction to control sediment runoff, but “these things fail all the time”, Kenny says.

When questioned about the concerns of environmentalists, John Aboud, chairman of Superior Hotels T&T, replied to the Guardian by forwarding the CEC, without further comment.

While the EMA approval has been issued, final approvals from Tobago’s Town and Country Planning Division and the assembly, its legislative body, remain under review.

Marriott International, the company reportedly in talks to manage the resort, says it is not involved in the proposed development at Rocky Point and that it has not executed any agreement with Superior Hotels for the site.

The EMA and Eteck were also approached for comment.

Brathwaite says that expecting a developer to make significant changes to designs after an environmental impact assessment is completed would be unrealistic. “There is a general resistance to making any modifications because they have already spent quite a lot of money.”

He believes that once the EMA grants a CEC and the accompanying mitigation measures are followed, there should be no real concerns about its environmental impact.

“The CEC codifies the conditions that have to be met … and the monitoring requirements scale with the likely risk and severity posed to the environment in which the activities are proposed to be carried out,” he says. “So they become progressively more stringent for areas that are more environmentally sensitive.”

Yet many local people believe a development that needs so many mitigation measures, which they consider to carry extensive risks, is not the way forward for Tobago.

The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (Canari) has been advocating a different approach, called community-based tourism, in other areas of Tobago, such as Speyside, about an hour’s drive north of Rocky Point.

Dylis McDonald, Canari’s senior technical officer, says projects such as the one at Speyside are usually small-scale and rooted in community members’ own vision for their future. “In the community-based tourism space, very often conservation, restoration and protection are core to what the enterprises are doing,” she says. “There is a particular type of ownership and understanding and connection to the areas where those activities are implemented.”

Campaigners and experts acknowledge that while small hotels succeed in Tobago, other small-scale eco-tourism sites may still not consistently provide steady income. Turtle nesting patrols, for instance, employ people to protect the hatchling turtles and eggs, but it is seasonal work that offers only a stipend when funds are available.

Yet, Kenny says, a development that is in harmony with nature and a sustainable business model is possible. “You can have your cake and eat it, too.”