Has Anyone Else Noticed the Cas-en-Bas Beach is Slowly Disappearing?

[dropcap][/dropcap]Simon Mc Intosh moved from Trinidad and Tobago to Saint Lucia at the age of two. As a young boy he was drawn to local beaches and credits them with the person he turned out to be: a fierce, young sportsman who snagged the title of the OECS’ top-ranked swimmer in 1996 and 1997. Watersports have also been a major part of his adult life. In 2012 he opened his own accommodation and kite-surfing business, Aquaholics Saint Lucia. Now, he is one of two kite surfers operating an enterprise at Cas-en-Bas beach. What made this beach a favourite spot for Mc Intosh, other locals and visitors alike was that although the notoriously choppy Atlantic brushes its shores, the sea is quite calm, thanks to the outer reefs breaking normally aggressive waves before they arrive inland.

“Cas-en-Bas beach is no longer what it used to be,” claims Mc Intosh. He blames this on both man and nature that he says together have affected the beach’s aesthetic and ecosystem.  As we talk at the beach, he indicates, with an outstretched arm, a sandy road cut off by the sea. “No one can drive a car here anymore,” he says. “It’s actually really, really bad. The level of the beach has dropped, the distance between the tree-line and the high-tide line is dramatically different.”

In June of this year there were news reports following a mass crowd beach party at Cas-en-Bas. One unidentified environmentalist told this newspaper he witnessed people “digging out heaps of sand from the beach with a backhoe”.  After the party “the beach was excessively littered with plastic straws that have proven most damaging to marine life”.

On Mc Intosh’s social media pages, where he has documented the slow demise of his workplace, photos are posted of trucks on the beach and a massive hole dug on the shoreline, close to the sea. “I have pictures of the area before they did the sand-mining for the party,” he said. “They dug a hole in the sand deep down to the hard ground so as to erect something like a stage.” Mc Intosh believes this has a lot to do with the currently loose, sinking texture and nature of the sand in the area.

The organisers of the party rebutted much of what the environmentalists had claimed, insisting that they had official approval for all they did at the site. They said representatives from the National Conservation Authority had monitored their preparations. Moreover, that their garbage had been dealt with by cleaners from the NCA “and in accordance with the regulations of the St. Lucia Environmental Company Ltd”. Their statement was confirmed by the NCA for the purposes of this article. About the removal of sand, NCA general manager Jacintha Annius-Lee asserted that following the event, the displaced sand was returned to the beach.

What Mc Intosh is most concerned about, however, is not just the beach events. He believes also that lack of regulations, the lax approach to rules already enforced and the absence of skilled specialists to handle environmentally threatening projects all contribute to the degrading of the beach. Pointing to seaweed spread across the sand he explained: “There is black seaweed that is indigineous to Cas-en-Bas beach. It’s usually on the bottom and it comes up during the hurricane season. I’ve had people here from the NCA watching this black seaweed and I ask them, ‘What kind of seaweed is that? Is that Sargussum [orange-brown seaweed currently moving around the Atlantic Ocean in large masses]?’ And they say it is. I mean, these people seem to have little training in coastal management. They don’t even know what Sargassum is.”

Saint Lucia’s NCA has the following mandate: “To identify, manage, conserve and generally provide stewardship over natural assets including beaches, coastal, protected and other declared or designated areas, in a sustainable manner and to provide ancillary amenities thereby contributing to the social and economic development of Saint Lucia.” The organisation’s website states that mangrove in the area was also recently destroyed by infrastructural development and that “the Saint Lucia Archeological and Historical Society recently discovered a site with remains of Amerindians, the earliest inhabitants of the island [and], plans are afoot to preserve the area.”

About the claims against mass crowd events, NCA’s general manager, Annius-Lee has also expressed concern for the currrent state of the Cas-en-Bas beach. She assured this reporter that based on advice from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, no longer will such events be authorized by the NCA, although Mc Intosh insists that the parties continue. The authority’s advice is to contact the NCA or the police whenever illegal activity is spotted on the beach. Annius-Lee also said that “in some instances organisers do not know that they need to get permission”. Which ignorance, she agrees, the organisation needs to address sooner rather than later.

As for Mc Intosh, he states he has seen nothing to
make him optimistic about
the future of Cas-en-Bas. He says that although swamping along the area during the wet season is normal, the beach’s response now to heavy rain renders certain parts of it inaccessible by vehicle. His primary wish is to see accountability take effect and for the voices of experts and environmental specialists to lead the conversation on beach conservation.