Disturbing the habitat in Labadee...

[MysticRhythmCruiser]

Hi everyone,

 

I normally do not complain about anyone or anything on cruises, but I observed a disturbing behavior while on VOS last week. While visiting Labadee, several young people piled what had to have been hundreds of small conch shells on the floating mats. I'm not sure what was finally done with these shells, but considering that they are an essential part of the local habitat (food for birds, etc.), I thought it was inappropriate to gather these large collections for whatever reason. Hopefully they were not brought back to the ship -- I'd imagine they'd wake up to quite a stink of rotting conch the next day -- but nevertheless, they should not have been moved in such numbers.

 

Has anyone else observed people doing this? I understand people having the desire to take a shell or two as a memento -- but even this can devastate a habitat quickly when "one or two" shells still have their inhabitants and it is repeated thousands of times over the course of a year. I hope that when parents take their children to beautiful locales like Labadee and other places in the Caribbean, they teach them (and remember for themselves) the value of being observers, not scavengers, within the natural life and ecosystem that they're privileged to visit.

 

Off the soap box...

 

Cheers,

Esther

[robsvacation]

I hate to say it but Labadee is likely pretty much distroyed at this point. 1000's of people desend on this little piece of land, sunscreen polluting the waters, a huge ship churning up the seabed, people grabbing a piece of this or that to take with them, the land cleared, most of the natural criters frightened away or eating the scraps of foreign food left behind, beach sand shipped in to replenish the area after erosion. This is not sustainable development in the least.

 

Perhaps it's less damaging than a resort or highrises, and it certainly is a pretty strip of land, and I really enjoyed my time there, but I can't imagine that natural habitat truly exists any more.