Paradise Not For Sale
Can the Barbudans protect their paradise island from exploitation?
To the residents of Barbuda, their small Caribbean island is paradise on earth. But new laws putting protected land up for profit have the potential to destabilise their unique lifestyle. This report investigates local reactions to this threat, and their struggle to protect their land.
Apart from its beautiful beaches and clear waters full of fish and lobster, the Barbudans take pride in their unique implementation of the Barbuda Land Act of 2007 which made land not for sale. "For us as Barbudans it's probably the best place on God's earth." Locals stress the indispensability of this form of society: "it is something that, from generation to generation, we've been taught; this is how to keep the land system." But Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Antigua, sees the coastline as a form of income for his government. For the people of Barbuda, their very way of life is being threatened by what is increasingly being labelled “apartheid,” implemented by a government viewed with disdain, as being systematically “independent and keeping us out.”
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