00:00:04:01 - 00:00:05:03
Unknown
The lagoon.
00:00:05:05 - 00:00:07:09
Unknown
We consider it to be our breadbasket.
00:00:07:09 - 00:00:17:10
Unknown
As a protected area, it is linked to our coral reefs, it's
linked to our beaches, it's linked to our seafood, it's linked to the wetlands.
It's food security.
00:00:17:10 - 00:00:18:05
Unknown
It's our
00:00:18:05 - 00:00:21:09
Unknown
direction in terms of ecotourism and sustainability
00:00:21:09 - 00:00:31:12
Unknown
and you're targeting, all of that to change it into a multi million
dollar real estate scheme, which does not benefit us in any way.
00:01:10:16 - 00:01:12:17
Unknown
For us, as Barbudans
00:01:12:17 - 00:01:15:23
Unknown
it's probably the best place on God's earth.
00:01:16:04 - 00:01:17:03
Unknown
It's heaven.
00:01:18:07 - 00:01:29:14
Unknown
Barbuda is such a beautiful place, white sandy beaches,
turquoise sea, lush greenery, sunshine most of the time. So
who wouldn't want to come here.
00:01:30:12 - 00:01:31:11
Unknown
The pink sand.
00:01:31:11 - 00:01:32:22
Unknown
It's really beautiful.
00:01:32:22 - 00:01:35:02
Unknown
The water is really relaxing.
00:01:35:02 - 00:01:37:23
Unknown
The food we eat as well. Yeah.
00:01:42:06 - 00:01:45:08
Unknown
I'm a fisherman. That boat is mine.
00:01:45:08 - 00:01:47:03
Unknown
My lobster boat, right?
00:01:47:03 - 00:01:52:08
Unknown
On this island, 62 square mile. I
know every inch of it.
00:01:52:11 - 00:01:53:05
Unknown
we are blessed.
00:01:54:12 - 00:01:57:02
Unknown
There's a lot of deer here, which is a fellow deer.
00:01:57:24 - 00:02:05:08
Unknown
We hunt them in a sustainable way. We never over hunt,
right? You know, so it's just for food within the local populace.
00:02:06:03 - 00:02:14:00
Unknown
And of course is there's the
fishing and and then there's the conks and the
lobster, the staples of our diet.
00:02:14:00 - 00:02:17:20
Unknown
That's your daily menu? That's our daily menu. That’s it.
00:02:17:21 - 00:02:18:05
Unknown
Yeah.
00:02:24:03 - 00:02:26:19
Unknown
But what makes it unique is the fact that it's
00:02:26:19 - 00:02:28:23
Unknown
a sister island of Antigua and Barbuda.
00:02:28:23 - 00:02:33:21
Unknown
A very small population, just about 1800 at the last census.
00:02:35:04 - 00:02:37:14
Unknown
Flat, extremely flat.
00:02:37:22 - 00:02:40:00
Unknown
So a third of the island is
wetland.
00:02:40:00 - 00:02:41:10
Unknown
That's mangrove wetland.
00:02:41:12 - 00:02:50:18
Unknown
Another third is basically just above sea level. And we have
a area called the Highlands
and high being just around like 40 meters.
00:02:51:19 - 00:03:11:09
Unknown
An a whole, Barbuda has been preserved in a particular way
where the natural systems that are still intact compared to the other Caribbean
islands, the marine areas, the wildlife, the type of resources, fish, lobster and that sort of thing is as close to natural as you
can get anywhere else.
00:03:11:11 - 00:03:14:11
Unknown
And that's because of the way Barbudans have been living
00:03:45:16 - 00:03:54:21
Unknown
we grew up hearing about land and how our relationship to
the land is different from a lot of other places historically,
00:03:55:09 - 00:04:00:19
Unknown
The Codringtons who were the
landowning family here, they had slaves.
00:04:00:19 - 00:04:02:13
Unknown
And when the Codringtons left,
00:04:02:13 - 00:04:06:18
Unknown
we learned we were told that they left the land to the
Barbudans.
00:04:11:15 - 00:04:21:03
Unknown
You know, several families have their grounds and so they
can literally live from the vegetables and the fruit that they can grow on
these grounds.
00:04:32:02 - 00:04:34:03
Unknown
This is the thing about here.
00:04:34:03 - 00:04:41:14
Unknown
The sweetest melon, the sweetest pumpkin I taste from this.
From here. You know, it's beautiful.
00:04:41:19 - 00:04:48:11
Unknown
Yeah. My parents farm. They passed on now, you know. Yeah.
That's what they've been doing all their life. Fishing and
00:04:48:11 - 00:04:50:16
Unknown
they have the ground like we are doing now.
00:04:50:22 - 00:04:53:23
Unknown
We have been cultivating this for a while now.
00:04:54:04 - 00:05:01:16
Unknown
I sowed these out just a while ago and we were roasting some
corn, so we were just about getting ready to go home now.
00:05:02:13 - 00:05:16:16
Unknown
We came up to pick some peas, and so we have some squash,
peas, beans like these over on the other side.
00:05:16:16 - 00:05:24:03
Unknown
We live from the land farm, we hunt, we, you know, we go
fishing, we do everything.
00:05:24:03 - 00:05:25:04
Unknown
We build our homes.
00:05:25:04 - 00:05:34:06
Unknown
It is something that, from generation to generation, we've
been taught; this is how to keep the land system. This is how you benefit from
it.
00:05:34:06 - 00:05:36:13
Unknown
And it has worked for us for generations.
00:05:36:17 - 00:05:54:19
Unknown
And so the Barbuda Land Act was
brought in in 2007 to formalise that communal land system where it stated that
all land in Barbuda is owned in common by the people of Barbuda and land shall
not be sold, period.
00:06:14:24 - 00:06:27:14
Unknown
When a person or a Barbudan wants a piece of land to build a
home or to do a business, they'll apply to the council. The council will severe
the land and that land will be issued to that person. Right. So
they have a right of occupation.
00:06:36:12 - 00:06:38:11
Unknown
We do lunch.
00:06:38:11 - 00:06:44:22
Unknown
And we do grill. We do seafood, lobster fish, grilled fish.
00:06:44:22 - 00:06:47:18
Unknown
In the evening we do jerk pork, jerk chicken.
00:06:48:08 - 00:06:50:00
Unknown
All our seafood is from here.
00:06:50:05 - 00:06:55:16
Unknown
The lobster, the conch, the fish. Everything here is from
Barbuda
00:06:58:18 - 00:07:14:06
Unknown
It gives you the opportunity to build free of cost because
as we know around the world, you have to pay for a
piece of land, thousands of dollars. Here in Barbuda
we don't have to do that.
00:07:14:06 - 00:07:16:10
Unknown
The Land Act states that
00:07:16:10 - 00:07:17:19
Unknown
you can get
00:07:17:19 - 00:07:18:16
Unknown
a piece of land
00:07:18:16 - 00:07:19:13
Unknown
to do a
00:07:19:13 - 00:07:20:01
Unknown
business.
00:07:20:01 - 00:07:22:19
Unknown
And as you see I'm doing my shop.
00:07:27:01 - 00:07:31:12
Unknown
It's a great, great opportunity where the Land Act comes in.
00:07:45:15 - 00:07:51:03
Unknown
The most recent project is Peace, Love and Happiness.
00:08:21:03 - 00:08:25:12
Unknown
People might think PLH is tourism, but it isn't. It's not
tourism
00:08:25:12 - 00:08:34:19
Unknown
The bulk of what's going on there is for ownership. And the long term goal, I believe, is the Prime Minister wants the
Land Act to be completely
00:08:35:00 - 00:08:45:21
Unknown
abolished and freehold be brought in to
those people who have a property on a piece of land can say: "I want my
land certificate".
00:08:47:13 - 00:09:06:08
Unknown
I have been asked as the prime minister of the country to
share my views with you.
00:09:23:13 - 00:09:57:05
Unknown
The first thing that they intend to do is in
order to set their project down, they need to sell real estate. Each
property is valued at a minimum of 3, 4 million USD for each property. Some
properties are being sold as high as 30 million USD. They intend to come to Barbuda, get land at peppercorn prices and the way the
leases were issued is all heaped up in controversy and conflict of interest and
that sort of thing.
00:09:57:12 - 00:10:02:04
Unknown
So they managed to as far as we
Barbudans are concerned they have stolen that land,
00:10:03:21 - 00:10:05:12
Unknown
2018,
00:10:05:12 - 00:10:08:03
Unknown
the government changed
00:10:08:03 - 00:10:13:05
Unknown
Mr. Brown repealed the Land Act. In other words, he took it
off the books.
00:10:37:08 - 00:10:54:12
Unknown
This is about people wanting to own a part of Barbuda.
Simply that. And on the way to owning the government or whoever is making money
out of it. Right. But not the Barbudans. Not the council.
00:10:54:12 - 00:11:08:23
Unknown
The finances do not reach Barbuda and the law is, that is
entrenched in the Constitution, is that monies, taxes, anything paid by anyone
on Barbuda must come to the Barbuda treasury.
00:11:09:04 - 00:11:10:13
Unknown
And that's not so.
00:11:10:13 - 00:11:12:23
Unknown
The money goes to the central government.
00:11:17:04 - 00:11:22:11
Unknown
We recognize that our way of life is being threatened.
00:11:22:13 - 00:11:47:17
Unknown
For you to have a development like Peace, Love and
Happiness. It's a real estate type of development. Where you are going to be
selling properties. You're going to be selling land. Once you start a system
like that, land values are going to go up. And what Barbudans have enjoyed over
centuries in terms of having full access to resource, because land represents
resources, it represents power.
00:11:47:19 - 00:12:08:04
Unknown
You're now going to be placed in a market where he who have
the most money, which are the billionaires. They will outcompete the ordinary
Barbudans and then you're going to begin to see the disparities that you've
seen in many parts of the world where poor persons do not have access to any
resources, housing or anything like that. Poverty will
set in.
00:12:08:08 - 00:12:19:13
Unknown
We've seen what has happened around the Caribbean, around
the world with lands, and you just cannot allow for our lands to just be taken
from us and alienated to everybody else.
00:12:19:13 - 00:12:28:16
Unknown
Our grandparents and our generations before sacrificed a lot
to ensure that we have this opportunity to live a particular way.
00:12:28:16 - 00:12:58:18
Unknown
There was a poverty assessment that was done as part of
national development and Barbuda was found to have no poverty compared to
Antigua, just across the water. We don't have vagrants. We don't have people
eating out of garbage bins and that sort of thing. Secure population. And that
is a result of the land in a system where land is not sold, where everyone has
access to clean, fresh air, food, the agriculture that we practice and you
seeing all that ripped out.
00:13:01:03 - 00:13:16:13
Unknown
Well they're saying we don't own
the land. I don't agree with any of that because our people have been here for for hundreds of years. So how are we not going to have any
claim to this. That doesn’t sound right.
00:13:16:13 - 00:13:19:15
Unknown
This is us. This is what we have.
00:13:19:15 - 00:13:23:05
Unknown
This is what we have to show from
slavery.
00:13:23:08 - 00:13:30:00
Unknown
In any means necessary, we’re going to fight to maintain
ownership of this land.
00:13:30:03 - 00:13:37:22
Unknown
It doesn't matter what the government of Antigua says, or
what Privy Council says, this is our land.
00:13:58:05 - 00:13:59:20
Unknown
Hurricane Irma came.
00:13:59:20 - 00:14:05:15
Unknown
We believe that the government used that opportunity to
immediately come and change the system.
00:14:05:15 - 00:14:09:06
Unknown
We had a similar hurricane in 1995.
00:14:09:13 - 00:14:12:23
Unknown
The difference between 1995 and 2017,
00:14:13:03 - 00:14:21:14
Unknown
in 2017 all Barbudans were taken off the island. The excuse
was that for our protection and another storm which was coming.
00:14:22:10 - 00:14:24:18
Unknown
The thing is, the storm never came.
00:14:24:18 - 00:14:28:19
Unknown
I refused to move. And so shortly after that
00:14:28:19 - 00:14:29:14
Unknown
I saw
00:14:29:14 - 00:14:33:05
Unknown
a bunch of military guys coming down through the bushes.
00:14:33:13 - 00:14:34:20
Unknown
I said to them,
00:14:34:20 - 00:14:49:02
Unknown
I'm not moving because as far as I'm concerned, I’m fit here
and in fact, I’m now having breakfast. Do you want some breakfast? And I gave
him some breakfast just to demonstrate to him that, look, I am functional. Why
are you moving people off of the island?
00:14:49:13 - 00:14:57:24
Unknown
One night while I was sitting here, you keep hearing these,
you know, metal grating against solid rock. I’m saying, wait, what's going on
in Barbuda?
00:14:57:24 - 00:15:00:13
Unknown
So one day I decided to
00:15:00:13 - 00:15:01:22
Unknown
take a trip up
00:15:01:22 - 00:15:03:05
Unknown
to the forest area.
00:15:03:05 - 00:15:10:17
Unknown
I was basically shocked to see bulldozers and masses of
forest just cleared.
00:15:11:13 - 00:15:14:11
Unknown
Now, the thing that burnt us as Barbudans,
00:15:14:11 - 00:15:17:07
Unknown
there was no electricity on the island at the time.
00:15:17:07 - 00:15:22:03
Unknown
No hospital. The school was still closed and kept closed.
00:15:22:03 - 00:15:26:22
Unknown
And we were being told you are building an international
airport?
00:15:26:22 - 00:15:31:11
Unknown
When you have people in a disaster situation?
00:15:31:11 - 00:15:34:13
Unknown
And it's one of the things that made us realise
00:15:34:13 - 00:15:35:06
Unknown
that
00:15:35:06 - 00:15:43:03
Unknown
what was happening was by design, the recovery was being
delayed, obstacles were being placed in our way.
00:15:43:16 - 00:15:46:11
Unknown
As an academic person, I knew about
00:15:46:11 - 00:15:56:21
Unknown
disaster capitalism, but that was the first time blunt in my
face, the experience of disaster capitalism.
00:16:17:07 - 00:16:31:24
Unknown
You have to have permission from
the council to remove anything from Barbuda. Whether it's materials like this,
whether it's artefacts, pink sand on the beach, you have to
get council permission.
00:16:32:05 - 00:16:34:07
Unknown
And that wasn't given for this.
00:16:36:04 - 00:16:39:08
Unknown
What is being destroyed essentially is ecosystems.
00:16:39:08 - 00:16:43:19
Unknown
The underground water supply is very important to us. The
hydrology.
00:16:43:19 - 00:16:57:05
Unknown
When you see the extent to which this excavation goes, it
goes down literally to the water table. What that does is exposes the entire
underground water system to contamination and other things that are
unpredictable.
00:16:58:04 - 00:17:15:16
Unknown
We eventually took legal action against the government.
Because what we are saying is that you have started this and it does not follow
the regulations and the clauses in our own Physical Planning Act, which should
control these things.
00:17:15:18 - 00:17:18:00
Unknown
So we are saying the government is
acting illegally.
00:17:18:00 - 00:17:24:08
Unknown
Thing is, the huge amount of money
this represents
00:17:24:08 - 00:17:27:24
Unknown
that we've lost. And we get nothing. Yeah
that we've lost.
00:17:29:08 - 00:17:32:10
Unknown
This airport, it's not for the people, it's for the rich.
00:17:32:10 - 00:17:41:17
Unknown
And it's an enticement for people to come and say, I want to
build a holiday home here because they're going to have an airport. And that
might not necessarily be so.
00:17:50:14 - 00:17:52:12
Unknown
What this project is all about is
00:17:52:17 - 00:17:55:13
Unknown
attract those persons to buy
00:17:55:13 - 00:17:57:04
Unknown
million dollar homes.
00:17:57:06 - 00:18:08:11
Unknown
And so in the long run, they're
trying to paint a picture that you can land your private jet in Barbuda, be
ferried to your private home.
00:18:08:11 - 00:18:25:15
Unknown
And then we are excluded by these ten foot
fence with barbed wire. It's not for us. Okay. So it's
an entire community operated by itself, independent and keeping us out,
essentially in one word: apartheid.
00:18:47:23 - 00:18:50:18
Unknown
Codrington Lagoon is a nursery for your marine life.
00:18:50:20 - 00:18:56:20
Unknown
It is also nature operated, simply mean, we don't have to do
nothing about it. It operates on its own.
00:18:58:02 - 00:19:02:06
Unknown
As you look around, you're going to see a lot of jet black bird flying around
00:19:02:06 - 00:19:06:22
Unknown
That same jet black bird can
inflate a red balloon during mating season.
00:19:06:22 - 00:19:08:20
Unknown
Those are adult male.
00:19:09:13 - 00:19:21:03
Unknown
All the male do is sit in the mangrove and put on a show.
And if no female look at him, I believe he feel bad
every day when the sun go down.
00:19:26:04 - 00:19:38:18
Unknown
Take a look at that water. This is
where the lobster and the fish and wildlife, the birds, this is where it
starts. Okay. That's beautiful.
00:19:38:18 - 00:19:42:22
Unknown
What you’re seeing is an upside down
jellyfish
00:19:42:22 - 00:19:52:17
Unknown
There are not many areas throughout the Caribbean, even in
Antigua, where you can actually see the bottom like
this. This represents productivity. Okay. So that tasty lobster?
00:19:52:17 - 00:19:54:09
Unknown
This is what makes it.
00:19:54:09 - 00:20:00:02
Unknown
This is our food security.
00:20:14:02 - 00:20:24:22
Unknown
So Barbuda having that high
proportion of areas like that, seagrass, coral reefs, wetland mangrove. Those
are ideal areas for lobsters to settle.
00:20:24:22 - 00:20:32:23
Unknown
When that egg hatch now that creature knows to stay in here
until they become big and strong enough when they go back out on the ocean
floor.
00:20:32:23 - 00:20:38:21
Unknown
Those ocean currents carry them throughout the region on the
Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea.
00:20:38:21 - 00:20:47:13
Unknown
The lobster which was hatched in Barbuda may actually settle out in Belize and it may settle out in
Florida.
00:20:47:13 - 00:20:51:18
Unknown
So we have something to really
smile about.
00:20:52:13 - 00:21:08:01
Unknown
If you, for example, build a golf course that's going to be
destroying the wetland, that's going to affect the lagoon and those conditions
inside there, you are going to be affecting the production cycle for lobster.
00:21:08:09 - 00:21:19:02
Unknown
They build all these houses in areas where they can view the
sea and play golf. And what do you do in order to
build that? You destroy the very thing which is attractive to
00:21:19:02 - 00:21:22:00
Unknown
us as barbudans and to the world
as well.
00:21:44:17 - 00:21:53:05
Unknown
The, as we say, the wild, wild West, that period
of time in human history when anybody did anything as they feel like, we
have advanced way beyond that.
00:22:00:08 - 00:22:03:05
Unknown
I've been taking a series of images for
00:22:03:05 - 00:22:06:17
Unknown
the last year or so just to log
00:22:06:17 - 00:22:09:23
Unknown
the happenings of the larger projects on the island
00:22:10:08 - 00:22:13:15
Unknown
to make a kind of record of what's happening
00:22:13:15 - 00:22:15:02
Unknown
to our ecological systems.
00:22:15:19 - 00:22:16:17
Unknown
The pictures
00:22:16:17 - 00:22:27:10
Unknown
tell the story. And we are seeing the wanton mass
destruction of very important ecosystems and wetlands which have protected us
for hundreds and hundreds
00:22:27:10 - 00:22:28:00
Unknown
of years.
00:22:30:20 - 00:22:37:16
Unknown
Mangrove wetlands are some of the most important and most
efficient carbon sinks.
00:22:52:06 - 00:23:05:23
Unknown
The burden falls mostly on the poor and small developing
nations such as mine
00:23:05:23 - 00:23:10:09
Unknown
For years we have had the solution and actually
practicing it.
00:23:10:10 - 00:23:19:00
Unknown
And when you're now hearing of a development policy, which
is going to be taking out things like this, and then you're going to be
00:23:19:00 - 00:23:19:24
Unknown
lobbying
00:23:19:24 - 00:23:32:10
Unknown
in these climate meetings for loss and damage. How can you
justify that when you are taking out the insurance policies that you have and
the things that allow us to be able to withstand the climate change?
00:23:32:16 - 00:23:41:19
Unknown
This is what protects us and that's why it's so important to
us. And the world. And the world. Okay. We need more of these wetland areas.
00:23:52:08 - 00:24:00:01
Unknown
Barbuda is the only country in the world where you have
lobsters for snacks. You can actually eat lobster
anytime.
00:24:00:01 - 00:24:06:11
Unknown
Well, I source from the fishermen, and then the hunters will
come by with a quarter. I use the back portion.
00:24:06:13 - 00:24:09:19
Unknown
So I basically try to do all local
meats.
00:24:09:19 - 00:24:18:02
Unknown
So you'll find I do a deer burger,
I do a lobster burger. I also do a deer conch lobster taco.
00:24:18:02 - 00:24:20:08
Unknown
I try to utilise what we have.
00:24:28:01 - 00:24:36:04
Unknown
Coral trout, mutton snapper, chevalier(?), silk snapper.
00:24:36:04 - 00:24:39:07
Unknown
Fishing is a mainstay of the Barbadian community.
00:24:39:07 - 00:24:42:08
Unknown
Most barbudans who are not full time fishers
00:24:42:08 - 00:24:48:15
Unknown
subsidise their income through fishing. A lot of the young
people, that's where they start,
00:24:48:15 - 00:24:49:22
Unknown
in the lagoon right here.
00:24:51:00 - 00:24:58:01
Unknown
I think that would happen with any development that's really as large as we're having. It will affect us in one
way or the other.
00:24:58:01 - 00:24:59:14
Unknown
Because they're going to over fish
00:24:59:14 - 00:25:11:22
Unknown
you know, things that that would happen to the habitat
anyway. And then some of them are pulling down the mangroves. So you're going to find something is going to give.
00:25:12:02 - 00:25:16:17
Unknown
And maybe I won't be able to access the amount of lobster
that I access.
00:25:16:17 - 00:25:26:20
Unknown
You can't pull out that? They’re not ready yet. Oh, they’re
not ready yet. In 5 minutes? 10 minutes? 5 minutes. Okay.
00:25:32:03 - 00:25:39:01
Unknown
So you do what you have to do now. So I live in the present at the moment when it comes to
food.
00:25:39:05 - 00:26:02:23
Unknown
Take that up.. Take this out? Okay.
Let go. Yeah. Take that piece.. Eat it now. Oh, you
put it in the juices? Yeah. Mm hmm. That's how you eat a piece of lobster. No
butter and lime. Spoils the taste. Too much garlic is no good for lobster
unless you cook it on the stove. Yeah.
00:26:03:00 - 00:26:13:11
Unknown
Oh, my God. Ain’t it good? I told you, this is how I love it. It's just incredible.
00:26:13:11 - 00:26:17:03
Unknown
Barbudans were known to just roam the beaches freely.
00:26:17:03 - 00:26:22:00
Unknown
And if you lose that, especially when you look at what has
happened from Coco Point
00:26:22:00 - 00:26:26:11
Unknown
all the way down to Palmetto Point. That area is basically
00:26:26:11 - 00:26:28:05
Unknown
inaccessible to Barbudans.
00:26:28:05 - 00:26:29:21
Unknown
That is frightening.
00:26:30:17 - 00:26:37:22
Unknown
I am the kind of person that loves to go pick bush and any
kind of fruits around and and that kind of thing.
00:26:37:22 - 00:26:39:06
Unknown
You can't go there anymore.
00:26:39:06 - 00:26:47:06
Unknown
So my way of life, my customs, my
culture is being totally eroded and destroyed.
00:26:47:06 - 00:26:50:24
Unknown
The government has to understand
the importance.
00:26:50:24 - 00:26:59:16
Unknown
You cannot just take away what is the norm, what is the
culture, what is the traditions of a people just like that?
00:26:59:16 - 00:27:05:13
Unknown
I want Barbuda to develop at a pace with an increase in
population over time.
00:27:05:15 - 00:27:10:17
Unknown
That doesn't have Barbuda to be a place where barbudans don't exist.
00:27:12:06 - 00:27:17:10
Unknown
I tell my kids when I speak to my kids and my grandkids that
are old enough to understand,
00:27:17:10 - 00:27:19:19
Unknown
there's nobody in the world
00:27:19:19 - 00:27:33:12
Unknown
as rich as you are. I say, look, we own this. We own
paradise. People pay for this. We have it free. So that makes us wealthy beyond
your imagination
00:27:38:09 - 00:27:43:14
Unknown
My grandkids and my great grandkids would be angry with me.
00:27:43:14 - 00:27:58:14
Unknown
I mean, I'm not a rich man. I'm not going to be able to
leave my kids a large inheritance. But I could leave them a piece of this. It
can't be any better than that.