SOS for Blue Bay Marine Park/Mauritius

[Manasa Sovaki]

Davis, it seem that the Ministry of the Environment of Mauritius in issuing
prohibition orer has an Environment legislation. Please check if Environment
Impact Assessment (EIA) is included in that legislation or existing in other
legislation. EIA report if available should identify such problem as likely
to appear and mitigation activities should be in place. But that is to the
extreme since the Approving Authority for that Project and Ministry of
Environment should have been monitoring progress of work. Issue of
prohibition notice only arises when monitoring strategy was not strictly
adhered to. The Ministry of Environment officials must be reminded that the
proponents of the project can also sue for loss of income on the ground that
they were not properly adviced or consulted so that such incidence should
not have taken plae in the first place.The developer or project proponent
can plead for innocense and according to legal mind is enough to sway and
Judge in a Crimina Court (if Mauritius does not have a special environment
court) to let the developer go free with a warning not to repeat such
offence. By the way, another way out is just to discuss with the proponent
to pay for the clean up in order to avoid bad publicity worldwide and for
the Ministry of Environment to work together with Approving Authority and
developer in providing EIA reort if it was not done, or if available to
adhered to monitoring programmes, and follow agreed mitigation measurs if
and when needed.

Best regards

Manasa Sovaki
Principal Environment Officer
for DIRECTOR OF ENVIRONMENT, FIJI.
-----Original Message-----
From: Alexander Stone <reefkeeper at earthlink.net>
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2000 4:17 AM
Subject: SOS for Blue Bay Marine Park/Mauritius


>ATTENTION
>***Please reply directly to Doris Sénèque <ecosud at intnet.mu>***
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>
>       From: Doris Sénèque
>       Organization: Eco Sud
>       Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2000 7:42 PM
>       Subject: SOS for Blue Bay marine park in Mauritius
>
>       Dear nature lovers,
>
>       We are convinced you must be informed about what is going on in
>Mauritius at the moment.
>
>       The promoters of the "Follies" hotel project on Ile aux Deux
>Cocos, right in the middle of the
>       marine park of Blue Bay have dug out the basaltic coastline of
>the bay to build a marina as
>       part of that project.
>       On the 9th of September 2000 two machines - a rock hammer and a
>mechanical shovel -
>       have displaced about 400m3 of soil and rocks.The filtering nets
>placed in the sea by the
>       promoters the day before have been totally useless to contain the
>mud which spread in the
>       marine park over a distance of 80m.
>       The Ministry of Environment reacted accordingly and issued a
>prohibition order to stop the
>       works on the 13th of September.But damage had already been done
>to the environment and it
>       is a very serious situation.There is at the present time a layer
>of silt up to 15cm deep on the
>       corals, suffocating them and bringing about their death in the
>days to come.The alteration to
>       the coastline may have unpredictable and adverse impacts on the
>currents prevailing in the
>       lagoon. This gaping trench causes more mud to go on spreading in
>the marine park with
>       each tide and laboratory analysis of water samples have shown
>that that mud is acidic.
>
>       ECO-SUD being an ecologist association, we feel it is our
>responsibility as citizens to take
>       immediate action to put an end to that criminal assault on our
>natural heritage. But we are no
>       scientists and desperately need urgent help from overseas
>experts.
>       Please advise us as to what to do right now !
>
>       Best regards.
>
>       Doris Sénèque
>       Secretary
>
>       ECO-SUD
>       Casa do Sol
>       Bonites Street
>       Blue Bay
>       MAURITIUS.
>
>
>
>