[Coral-List] reef fight

Dennis Hubbard dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu
Wed Apr 6 08:43:49 EDT 2016


I think that Bob has good points. As a consultant, I often found developers
to be more open to my opinions about setbacks and such than government
agencies.... especially in foreign island nations. In the BVI, I worked
with a foreign property owner who agreed that not having his front units
only 25 ft from the beach; he agreed that 100 ft was wiser. When we went
into the appropriate minister, the response was essentially, "we can't
afford to lose the units closer to the beach" (a sad comment as nature
ultimately took them away despite the Minister's protestations).

Having said this, we had a particular consultant that Bob Dill used to
fondly refer to as the "biostitute" who had a "sign the check and tell me
what you want the report to say" policy. This gave that individual a huge
advantage over those of us who preferred to base our suggestions on facts
and show the developer how working wisely was actually cheaper in the long
run. In the end, I made most of my money trying to "fix" problems created
by my "esteemed colleague", so I suppose that I should not be so harsh in
hindsight.

Best,

Dennis

On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Robert Bourke <rbourke at oceanit.com> wrote:

> John;
>    Over the past 25 years, I have taken a slightly different approach to
> ameliorate the impact of coastal development upon nearshore reefs, and it
> seems to have worked fairly well.  Most developers are not really evil
> people and would prefer not to decimate the coastal resources upon which
> their marketing staff has based much of their promotional material.  They
> just don't understand the ramifications of their development upon the
> environment, nor do they know how to do it right.
>
> Rather than try to "prevent" the coastal development from occurring,
> perhaps you could either work with the developer (or make sure the
> developer chooses good consultants) to ensure that low impact development
> methods are used.  We can all easily point to developments that have had
> large adverse impacts upon coastal resources.  It requires a good deal more
> effort to point out those that have been designed to work within their
> environment and then translate these positive attributes to new coastal
> development schemes.
>
> Aloha
>
> Bob Bourke
> Oceanit
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:
> coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of John Hocevar
> Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 6:44 AM
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: [Coral-List] reef fight
>
> Hi -
>
> I have been on this list for many years, and have followed the discussions
> about what we as a community can do to prevent the loss of coral reefs.
>
> Today, I am looking for your help in identifying reefs that are currently
> threatened by major development projects (eg resorts, ports, or golf
> courses). Ideally, I'm looking for cases where there is a local community
> trying to protect their reef from a large developer. Bringing more support
> and attention to that kind of battle would be a powerful story that we
> could turn into a local victory as well as a much bigger story about the
> urgent need to protect reefs in general.
>
> Please feel free to reply directly rather than to the full list.
>
> John Hocevar
> Oceans Campaign Director
> Greenpeace USA
> jhocevar at greenpeace.org
> (202) 319-2408
>
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-- 
Dennis Hubbard
Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
(440) 775-8346

* "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
 Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"


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