http://www.stopredfrogbeachclub.com/scott.html
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
As a guidebook writer for Lonely Planet and an outdoors writer for
the Los Angeles Times, I have had the great fortune of traveling to
dozens of countries that had only recently begun to attract
international visitors in great numbers.
In each of those countries, government officials struggled with many
tourism issues. Among them was always the issue of how to protect
natural attractions such as coral reefs and rainforests from
developers seeking fortunes by building hotels, golf courses,
swimming pools and other tourist amenities inside or bordering the
natural attractions.
In Mexico, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries, I have watched as
greedy developers built with little or no regard for the natural and
cultural harm they know their developments will cause. In every
instance, the developers swore up and down that they were acting
with great environmental sensitivity, and they often spoke of waste-
water plants and other systems they were going to install.
But in every one of those instances, those systems were insufficient
and the developments ultimately took such an enormous toll on the
surrounding wildlife that they stopped attracting tourists. After
all, who wants to travel thousands of miles to snorkel a dead reef
or to explore in a rainforest that has been gutted by bulldozers?
Would you want to?
These developers speak of the investment they are making, but who
really thinks they have Bocatoreños' interests at heart? Who really
believes they give a damn about the people of Bocas or its
environment. They are interested in one thing: making themselves
rich. If you think otherwise, you don't know them as I do. And I do
know them.
One developer I interviewed in Mexico who was building a 500-room
resort near Cancun told me privately that he knew full well that his
resort would within 10 years kill all of the coral and drive away
most of the fish in front of his resort, but he said he didn't care
because the resort would pay for itself within five years and over
the next five he would become a very rich man.
I have met with many such men and I have spent time with these Red
Frog developers. They are no different.
But one need not visit dozens of island chains like Bocas del Toro,
as I have, to see what the Red Frog development will do Bastimentos
Island. One has only to look at what the developers have done so far
to see how environmentally insensitive they are. One need only ask
the Bocatorenos they have hired to learn of their concern for
Bocatorenos. One need only look into their dealings on Bastimentos
to see that the developers tried taking things they had no right to
take.
Visit the site these days, as I recently did, and you see enormous
earth-moving machines carving up and running over wildlife as if it
wasn't one of Panama's greatest national treasures. Does anyone
think the tourists will continue to come to Bocas if Bocas waters
have no lovely fish to see, no coral to marvel at, no red frogs to
watch with delight?
There's something else to ponder, and it is this: The Red Frog
development is not a tourist project in the conventional sense. It
is being marketed to people who won't be coming to Bocas on
vacation, spending lavishly in restaurants and bars and on boatmen
and guides. Red Frog is a residential development being marketed to
people who live on a budget. So while they will be contributing to
the area's environmental problems with their garbage, air pollution,
and human and toxic waste such as bleach and other cleansers, the
people who live at Red Frog will contribute very little to the local
economy.
And if you were born in Bocas and remember strolling Red Frog Beach
in your youth, hold on to those memories because you can be certain
your future access to Red Frog Beach will be denied. This is what
happens, as I've seen many times before in many countries: The
development goes up and the management says there have been thefts
of guests' belongings. The management says "outsiders" - that is,
people who don't live at Red Frog - must not be given access to the
beach anymore because some are thieves and steal from the Red Frog
residents. And with the right encouragement, management's complaints
are heard and the beach is off-limits to people who visited it all
their lives.
I have seen this exact thing so many times. In the Dominican
Republic, where beaches are also supposedly open to everyone, guards
with shotguns confront people who don't have an ID indicating they
are a guest of the local resort. Several times I was confronted this
way. Don't think it cannot happen at Red Frog.
If we are honest, we will recognize that ANAM officials do not have
the benefit of seeing the past work of developers like the Red Frog
people. ANAM officials don't have the benefit of seeing firsthand
how hollow are the claims of these people. They don't know that
developers such as these are experts at saying what officials need
to hear and the skirting or altogether abandoning their contractual
obligations.
If we are honest, we will also recognize that the very reason these
developers are here in countries such as Panama - that is, in
countries that are eager to attract foreign visitors - is because
they know they can take liberties with Panamanian environment laws
and with officials that they could never take in their homelands.
And they count on the stupidity, the gullibility and the corruption
of those officials to let them have their way with their projects.
If Panama in general (and Bocas in particular) is to protect its
natural attractions, it must not let developers such as these have
their way. Otherwise, 10 years from now the damage will be done, it
will not be reversible, and those who brought the damage about will
be far, far away and untouchable. The time to stop the damage is
now, while it can still be fixed and before more damage can be done.
Most sincerely,
Scott Doggett
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