Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Environmental legislation in the Seychelles was implemented in a top-down
process under the one-party state of President France Albert René in the mid-1970s.
This policy continued even after the turn to democracy in the early 1990s. The
institutional framework for environmental conservation was established with the
implementation of the Department of the Environment in 1989. As early as 1990, this
Department resented the first environmental management plan for the Seychelles
(RoS
1990
), followed by a plan for 2000-2010 which provides guidelines for all
activities related to the environment (RoS
2001
). In order to ensure environmental
conservation, some 50% of the land area of the Seychelles (230 km
2
) was turned
into protected areas (RoS
2001
). These areas are of particular importance in creating
the image of an eco-island, and they are part of the Seychelles' successful marketing
strategy (Gössling and Wall
2007
). Within the archipelago, such an island as
Aldabra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has no permanent settlement and is only
accessible to scientists and special visitors.
Another example of successful containment and high per capita value added
could be that of
St Barthélemy
(or
St Barths
), a Caribbean island which is an over-
seas collectivity of France (and, until 2007, part of the same
department d'outre
mer
as Guadeloupe). The island has an area of only about 12 km
2
and a residential
population of about 3,500 persons. The island has long been considered a play-
ground of the rich and famous; it is known for its beautiful pristine beaches, gourmet
dining in chic bistros and high-end designer shopping. There are only some 25 hotels,
most of them with 15 rooms or fewer, and the largest, the Guanahani, has just 70 rooms.
Doumenge (
1998
: 341) describes the island as follows:
There, the airport has a very small airstrip, accessible only to small planes having not more
than 20 seats (including that of the pilot). This drastically limits tourist access, and offers
an efficient means of control. In St Barthélemy, you can enjoy a very quiet, traditional way
of life, with a very high standard of living, and the islanders control their destiny in a more
thorough manner than would otherwise be possible.
For the insatiably curious, the island's “incredibly short runway” (Insiders' Guide
2006
) is 2,100 feet (646 m) long. In the Caribbean region, only Saba has as shorter
runway. Flying on a scheduled flight into St Barths is only possible with small
planes, like the 20-seater Hawker de Havilland Twin Otter. A total of 175,055 pas-
sengers arrived in St Barths in 2003, port and airport combined: “passengers”
includes both residents and visitors alike. While there is as yet no system that
allows the exact number of tourists to be counted, the number of visitors is calcu-
lated at around 50,000 (St Barths News
2004
). One cannot fly direct into St Barths:
the main entry point for commercial flights is via Dutch Sint Maarten, just 10-min'
flying time away. Those 10 min, apparently, make a world of a difference. As Doumenge
(
1998
) candidly continues:
Just in front of St Barthélemy lies Sint Maarten, an island with disaster written all over it,
with its mafia barons, gambling racket, and crowds in excess of one million tourists a year
channeled through a large international airport.
A third example, this time of how a containment policy can run into serious dif-
ficulty, even though it may have started off with the best of intentions, concerns
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