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Irish Times
06-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
‘Colonisation 2.0': inhabitants of unspoilt Caribbean island Barbuda push back against Robert De Niro-linked development
A lone paddleboarder glides across calm aquamarine water as 'yachties' steer a tiny dinghy towards the shoreline's pristine sands. It's a picture-perfect Caribbean vista – but behind the idyllic scene lies a troubling reality. Barbuda, a tiny low-lying island 23km long and 12km wide, is in the grip of a modern-day version of a gold rush. The treasure in question is its unspoilt, almost empty beaches and crystal-clear waters. The rush to exploit it is devastating: bulldozed sand dunes and dredged wetlands, private communities constructed on top of turtle-nesting beaches – a precarious ecosystem and culture under threat as luxury developments are constructed for the ultra-wealthy. 'They want the whole waterfront area,' says John Mussington, chairman of the island's local government, the Barbuda Council, gesturing down the beach towards one of the most high-profile developments, part-owned by Robert De Niro . 'Everything will be fenced off because the properties will be owned by the millionaires so they can enjoy their private lifestyle. That means they don't want to see people like me.' De Niro's $250 million development is just one of a number of projects under construction on Barbuda, the smaller, more remote, island of a former British colony, Antigua and Barbuda. READ MORE In an interview with the New York Times in January, De Niro and his partners said their project would respect the island's ecosystem and protect it from hurricanes. Construction on Barbuda. All photographs: Jennifer Hough Katy Horne, Paradise Found's managing director, said the design and construction adhered to Miami-Dade hurricane building code standards. She said the one-storey buildings would be set back from the flood plain and that dunes, mangroves and other vegetation would protect against winds and water surges. De Niro and his business partner, Australian billionaire James Packer, are building on the site of the abandoned K Club resort, where Princess Diana once famously holidayed, naming it Paradise Found when they first set their sights on it. Mussington smiles wryly at that. 'Imagine a millionaire coming to find what they think is their paradise. We have been stewards over this island for years. Now that you're realising what we have done to create this paradise, you're coming back in the form of what you call luxury tourism and real estate speculation, to use up the resources, exhaust it, and just discard us again? We have to say no to that. It is colonisation 2.0.' Barbudans are the descendants of enslaved Africans, who, after emancipation in 1834, were left to live on the island, primarily because it was wild and scrubby and seen as unsuitable for much else. Since then Barbudans have communally governed the island, a practice that was codified in national law in 2007. The system of customary land tenure is the reason Barbuda has remained an unspoilt Caribbean island, where people practise hunting, fishing, living from the land and, importantly, are not dependent on tourism for economic survival. Now, all of this is under threat under the guise of 'sustainable' tourism. John Mussington and Jackie Frank. Photograph: Jennifer Hough Despite contributing very little to global greenhouse gas emissions, the Caribbean is expected to be severely affected by climate change in the coming years. Rising sea levels and increasingly severe tropical storms all make coastal developments – and tourism – even more vulnerable. It is through this lens that many locals say it is a folly to force Barbuda to become dependent on tourism. Such over-reliance is a region-wide concern, which has been exacerbated by the impact of climate change. In Antigua, tourism accounts for about 60 per cent of GDP, making it the largest sector of the economy. When Covid hit, Antigua was badly affected, but in Barbuda, because the people are largely self-sustaining, the impact was not felt as much. Barbuda, however, has long been considered an economic opportunity by the country's central government. When Hurricane Irma, a devastating category-five storm, hit the region in 2017, it provided a pathway for prime minister Gaston Browne's administration to make good on its long-signalled intent to turn the island into a millionaires' playground. As Barbudans endured a forced evacuation from their island, the government overturned their customary land rights and moved heavy machinery on to the island, not to rebuild for locals but to carve out space in a pristine forest for a new airport runway. Frustratingly for locals, this same government leads climate change advocacy on the international stage and is a prominent member of Small Island Developing States (Sids), which the Irish Government funds to assist small island nations to overcome climate issues. Last year Barbudans protested at the annual Sids conference, which was held in Antigua and Barbuda's capital St John's, highlighting serious concerns due to the lack of grassroots representation, specifically of Barbudan land defenders and the Barbuda Council. The people of Barbuda are largely self-sustaining. Photograph: Jennifer Hough Jackie Frank, an elected member of the Barbuda Council, says Barbudans are a proud people who simply want to retain control of their island's destiny. 'All Barbudans are land defenders,' the soft-spoken retired teacher says. Being a land defender took Frank and Mussington to the highest court in the region in 2023. Their case began as a legal challenge to the airport construction, which took place without consultation, and ended up as an appeal in the UK's Privy Council in London, the highest court for Antigua and Barbuda. Ironically, this colonial-era institution provided the justice their domestic courts had denied. 'What the privy court ruling means,' says Frank, 'is that whether it's me or Mussi or whoever, can stand up and say, I don't agree with that. I want to see the documents. I want the information ... We have the right just to complain, to have a voice. That's what was confirmed [by the Privy Council].' Frank and Mussington were represented in court by the Global Legal Action Network (Glan), a Galway- and London-based legal advocacy nonprofit organisation. Glan represents a number of litigants on Barbuda and has lodged complaints with international human rights bodies on behalf of the land defenders. Local fisherman George Jeffery has spent his life living in harmony with the Codrington Lagoon, an internationally protected area and the nesting colony of the frigatebird, a critically endangered species and the national bird of Antigua and Barbuda. The Codrington Lagoon His case accuses the authorities of bypassing planning laws and failing to protect the fragile ecosystem. Miranda Beazer, who ran a beachfront business on the famous Princess Diana Beach since 1992, until it was damaged in Irma, is another litigant. She planned to rebuild her business, but says that one day she got a call to say it was being bulldozed. She's now embroiled in a legal case with the Peace, Love and Happiness (PLH) development project, part owned by billionaire John Paul DeJoria. 'It's frustrating at times,' says Beazer. 'It's like David versus Goliath, because I feel as if I'm on my own sometimes with the pain and the suffering. I want to put back up the structures that were there before. I want it to be useful for our own people. We are always talking about the beachfront being developed for foreigners. 'What's wrong with Barbudans owning a beachfront property to make ends meet? Barbudans are not supposed to be in such positions to be owning beachfront properties … but you cannot come to a Caribbean island and be dictating things like that.' Dispossession The inequity Beazer describes is visible at every turn. The island's village, Codrington, still bears the scars of Irma – abandoned wooden houses dot the landscape, while developers criss-cross the dusty roads with their large machinery to build million-dollar villas. Director of Glan, Dr Gearóid Ó Cuinn, contends that Barbuda's fragile ecosystems and the self-determination of its people are being 'sacrificed at the altar of elite profit'. 'Private developers are constructing gated communities on top of ecologically sensitive areas, disregarding both the rights of the local population and the environmental protections that should be in place. The state's complicity in enabling this destruction raises serious legal and ethical questions – this is not development, it's dispossession.' But even as legal challenges continue apace, so too does the construction and everything that comes along with it: restricted access to beaches, military-style security on the island, disruption of a simple way of life that has coexisted with its fragile ecosystem for generations. Mussington says Barbudans are not against progress, they just want to see a gentler type of tourism, one that protects the island and benefits future generations, not unseen millionaires who swoop in on helicopters and private jets. 'It boils down to whether or not we intend to continue living on the island as Barbudans,' says Mussington. 'At the end of the day, in order for us to continue to live sustainably on the island, something has to be done in terms of this development policy. It is not sustainable, it's a threat to the island itself, and it's a threat to the people in terms of being able to survive here ... In other words, if this continues, the island wouldn't be a paradise any more.' The government of Antigua and Barbuda has consistently denied allegations of land grabs and disaster capitalism and did not respond to requests to comment on these issues. simon cumbers – This reporting was facilitated by a grant from the Simon Cumbers Media Fund.
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- The Guardian
Not just rice and peas: lifting the lid on the radical roots of Caribbean cuisine
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week, I dived into Caribe, a remarkable Caribbean cookbook that is simultaneously history, memoir and visual masterpiece. I spoke to the author, Keshia Sakarah, about how she came to write such a special book. Caribe is not only a recipe book of Caribbean dishes, it is also a homage to family as well as an account of history and migration. That history is both short and long: it charts Sakarah's Caribbean community in her home city of Leicester, England, and of each individual country in which the recipes originated. And there is another layer of history: that of the dishes and ingredients – how they came about and how far they travelled on the tides of colonialism and immigration. This was the most edifying part for me, as it revealed the expanse of cuisine around the world and its commonalities. For instance, I had no idea that kibbeh, a meatball rolled in bulgur – that I only understood as a niche Levantine dish – exists in the Dominican Republic as kipes or quipes. It was brought to the Caribbean by immigrants from the Middle East in the late 19th century. Who knew? Sakarah did. She discovered that fact during a multiyear research odyssey across the islands. Sakarah's love for cooking, and the culture behind it, comes from early exposure. She is an only child of Barbudan and Montserratian descent and spent much of her childhood with her retired grandparents, who were 'enjoying life, cooking and eating. I would go to the allotment and the market with them. That planted that seed.' The result was a fascination with Caribbean food that flourished in adulthood, when Sakarah decided to be a chef and an archiver of Caribbean cuisine. On her travels, she found her passion mirrored by those she engaged with. 'I would just have conversations with people about food,' she says. 'People wanted to tell stories and were excited that I was interested.' The process of on-the-ground research was 'covert and natural' because locals sensed her curiosity wasn't 'extractive'. Crops, colonisers and resistance 'The linking of the history was quite surprising to a lot of people,' Sakarah says, 'because they had never considered it. Especially in our community, we have no idea why we eat what we eat.' In one particularly enlightening section of the book, Sakarah details how sweet potatoes, cassavas and maize were unfamiliar to Spanish colonisers in the Dominican Republic in the late 1400s. When they established their first settlement, these colonisers relied on the farming capabilities of the Indigenous Taíno people, who were skilled in crop generation. In an act of resistance, the Taíno refused to plant the crops, leading to the starvation of the Spanish. However, they returned in subsequent settlements better prepared. The Spanish brought crops and livestock familiar to them in a mass movement of species known as the Columbian exchange, which Sakarah says 'changed the face of flora and fauna across the globe'. Caribe is full of such eye-opening vignettes on how the region's food carries a historical legacy. Two things struck me as I read the book: I had never seen a single written recipe growing up, and I had not a single idea about where the food I grew up eating came from. Even the recipes handed down to me are not quantifiable by measurements – they are a pinch of this and a dash of that. Everything is assimilated but never recorded. Sakarah wanted to make that record because 'when an elder passes, they go with all their knowledge, so it's important to archive things for the purposes of preservation'. She wanted the work to feel like an intimate passing on of information, using language, imagery and references that were not that of the outsider looking in. The pictures that accompany the recipes were almost painfully resonant, ones of Black hands casually drawn in a pinching action after scooping up a morsel. One recipe for dal shows an implement that I had only ever seen in Sudan, a wooden rod with a bifurcated bottom, spun in the pot to loosen the grain. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion A culinary reminder of home I say to Sakarah that the longer I am removed from home, the more food plays a complex rooting role in my life, where I hold on to random meals or ingredients from childhood: fava beans, okra, salty goat's cheese. Food plays a similar role for her, in ways that she didn't even realise. Because she grew up with her first-generation grandparents, Sakarah says she feels more Caribbean than British, which shows up in very confusing ways. Researching the book has enabled her 'to come to terms with that, because I see the layers in it, and also the beauty of the diaspora'. One of the main motivations of this book, which represents the various islands in separate chapters, was to show the shared yet diverse expanse of Caribbean food that is often wrongly collapsed as only 'Jamaican'. Nor was Sakarah interested in presenting regional dishes as a victim of imperialism, but rather a product of overlapping histories. By doing so, she removed shame and did not attempt to assert identity through cuisine. Sakarah has pulled off a remarkable feat – the book is quietly radical in its presentation of food as something that is not political, but a product of politics. It is simply what everyone eats. 'Food isn't always celebratory and fun and joyful,' she says. Nor is it always an act of cultural resistance: 'It just is.' Caribe by Keshia Sakarah is published by Penguin Books. To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply. To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
BBC News
12-06-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Townsend joins National League side Eastleigh
Goalkeeper Nick Townsend has joined National League side Eastleigh following his departure from Newport Antigua and Barbuda international was offered a new deal by The Exiles, but decided to leave Rodney Parade after seven years and 209 who was voted Newport's Supporters Player of the Year for the last two seasons, was out of contract this 30-year-old former Barnsley keeper joins an Eastleigh side that finished 13th in the National League last season."It's exciting for me and my family to have a fresh start down here," Townsend told the club's website.
Forbes
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Antigua Celebrates Cuisine And Opens Door To Caribbean Heritage Month
Antiguan-American Chef Claude Lewis worked with local culinary students to host a talk and demo at ... More Fab Fest. Antigua is beautiful. Antigua is too beautiful. Sometimes the beauty of it seems unreal. Sometimes the beauty of it seems as if it were stage sets for a play, for no real sunset could look like that….excerpt from Antiguan-American author, Jamaica Kincaid, in her essay, 'A Small Place'. As Caribbean Heritage Month moves into full swing in the United States, there was an unofficial prelude over in Antigua and Barbuda during a month-long celebration in May. For the third year in a row, Antigua and Barbuda Culinary Month, organized by the tourism board, has corralled local and visiting chefs, along with other hospitality professionals to highlight the bounty of the region's cuisine and talent with tastings, forums, and demos all of which was made electric by local music and daily revelry. The celebration launched on May 4 with restaurants across the island featuring special prix fixe menus for Restaurant Week. On the same day, the Cedar Valley Golf Club went from a fairway for pitches, putts, and drives to a village green full of stalls for a food, art, and beverage fair. Known more officially as FAB FEST, the fair was an 'everyone's invited' experience with face-painting and games for kids or mixology and cooking demonstrations for adults. A parade of dancers on stilts in tradition costumes added to the color and energy that initiated the month-long, hyper-focused lens on Antigua and its cuisine. Antiguan dancers kick off Fab Fest, which began the month-long May celebration of the region. Just as Kincaid pointed out in her essay, 'A Small Place,' Antigua is a complex place with a torrid history, yet it is underscored by a thoroughfare of perseverance and beauty that seems unreal yet undeniable. In the same way, the bounty of fruit and vegetables, for example, seem unreal in their brightness or sweetness or color with an undeniably more flavorful taste than the same bite from other places. From soursops and saltfish, black pineapple and pumpkin, plantains and coconut, or ackee and tamarind, products and their caretakers--from farmers and vendors, got center stage during the month-long celebration. This year the fête returned with local and visiting chefs who partnered with a number of restaurants around the island to curate unique culinary experiences that take local ingredients and dishes and elevate them to star-studded plates. Antiguan-American chef and former Food Network Chopped Champion Claude Lewis, joined forces with London-based Antiguan chef, Andi Oliver, and culinary students from the region's Hospitality Training Institute (ABHTI) for a fine-dining, multi-course homage to the island at Blue Waters Resort. When talking to some of the chefs who have 'come home' to pay tribute, there's an array of emotion surrounding the experience. On the one hand, they have planted roots elsewhere, and yet celebrating the land of their parents, their ancestors, is an unquestionable act of pride and celebration. 'Being invited for culinary month is an honor,' Chef Lewis said. Lewis, who has most recently led Freetown Road Project in Jersey City, an eatery named after the location in Antigua where his parents are from added, 'It's important for me to bring awareness to the vibrant culture of Antigua and Barbuda.' Chef Andi Oliver and Chef Althea Brown at Blue Water Resort Collaboration Dinner, May 8. Being able to do so with Chef Oliver and the team of students from ABHTI not only brought a range of culinary expertise together, but validation that a small island is worthy of a big culinary moment. 'It was truly an inspirational experience which I'll be bringing back to New York City in the form of my new Restaurant Rasta opening late summer early fall,' Lewis continued. Chef Oliver, also the author of the popular The Pepperpot Diaries--part cookbook, part memoir--agreed that the event was emotional and special, adding on her Instagram, 'We called upon our ancestors and they helped us bring plates full of inspiration to our tables.' Another collaborative dinner which brought two esteemed Antiguan-born chefs together--Chef Kareem Roberts and Chef Kerth Gumbs--proved similarly festive and noteworthy. Held at the newly reopened Rokuni restaurant in Sugar Ridge, the two chefs, based in the U.K., came together to create a high-end celebration of local ingredients. Roberts, head chef at the award-winning The Burleigh Arms , was seen throughout his time in Antigua shopping at the local markets before his event and gushing over the variety, the color, the taste which can only be described as moment of real pride. 'Being a part of Culinary Heritage Month is a bespoke honour—and something of a full circle moment for me. When I left Antigua in 2010, I was in search of the very things this event now offers: exposure, structure, and inspiration. Back then, I was a young, hungry cook with few reference points, hoping to find my place in the wider culinary world. To now see those resources being built at home is more than fulfilling—it's a quiet reassurance that the next generation of Antiguan culinarians will begin their journey with a head start I never had." Chef Kareem Roberts with culinary students at Rokuni Collaborative dinner in Antigua, May 9. 'Returning home has taught me that the real narrative lies in the ingredients—and in the hands that offer them. If you were to ask me to describe the soul of Antiguan food, I would urge you to look no further than the central market on a Saturday morning. It is a living archive of culture: a cacophony of food, history, resilience, and honesty. I could wax lyrical about the quality of the produce here, but there is nothing more powerful than the presence of the people—the hands that present you with their best. These are hands that have fed families, turned soil, braided hair, and built communities.' Amidst the special evening dinners there were daily street tours and cooking demos, all celebrating the hyper local offerings of farmers, vendors, and restauranteurs. Chef Althea Brown of Caribbean Paleo was on board to highlight the many intersections and cultures that make up Caribbean cuisine. Originally from Guyana, now the U.S., Brown hosted a Caribbean roti-making class. 'I was honored to be invited back for a second year, to share about the heritage of the Caribbean roti. I hosted Baylay–a hands on roti-making master class. Baylay is a Guyanese creole word that means to roll out roti dough. The class featured little anecdotes of British indentureship and how it shaped Guyana's culinary heritage," Brown noted. Each participant made their own Guyanese oil rotis and then ate their creations with chicken curry and channa and aloo curry, further illuminating the many cultural influences that make up Caribbean cuisine. 'Although this experience doesn't fall under fine dining umbrella of the culinary month, I love that Antigua sees the value in highlighting this culinary tradition that made its way from Guyana and Trinidad to the rest of the Caribbean. ' Chef Kerth Gumbs of Fenchurch restaurant in London, amidst his collaborative dinner with Chef Kareem ... More Roberts during Antigua and Barbuda Culinary Month, May 9. Although Kincaid's essay, 'A Small Place' delves deeply into Antigua's dark, complicated history, peeking from the corners of each page, like a ray of sunlight is the realization that a remarkable wealth of beauty, pride, and creativity can come from it as well. The Antigua and Barbuda Culinary month and the energy surrounding it, is just one example of how one small place can create a powerful, reverberating experience that goes well beyond those unreal sunsets and too beautiful blue waters.
Travel Weekly
04-06-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
Four islands, four approaches to Airbnb
Arnie Weissmann Of all the disrupters that have entered the travel industry so far in the 21st century, none has been as disruptive -- and ubiquitous -- as Airbnb. Hospitality companies that must adhere to strict local development guidelines and pay bed taxes have begged regulating jurisdictions to level the playing field by addressing unregulated vacation rentals. Communities that lost housing stock to Airbnb conversions have seen rents increase and the fabric of their neighborhoods thin. The residents of some cities blame the company for contributing to overtourism. Municipalities, even countries, have responded. This year Spain will implement regulations that include requiring that a permit be obtained before a property can become a vacation home. Oahu and New York have banned stays of less than 30 days. Amsterdam capped the number of nights a host can rent to 30 per year. Airbnb issues become more complicated for countries whose economies are tourism-dependent. This week was Caribbean Week, when tourism ministers and the heads of destination promotion bureaus descend on New York to raise awareness of their islands. In a series of back-to-back-to-back-to-back interviews with representatives of Caribbean islands, I found that they each looked at Airbnb's presence differently. Antigua and Barbuda was the most supportive of vacation rentals. "They are good for us," said the country's tourism minister, Max Fernandez. "We have seen a plethora of interest, and that means that a lot of people are getting involved in the industry. If you don't have people from all strata involved in tourism, especially in terms of ownership, then it's not sustainable, and sustainability is the key." To keep housing affordable as more properties convert to vacation rentals, Fernandez said the government is supporting a large-scale home-building initiative. "It's about creating a balance," he added. Airbnb serves another supportive role, Fernandez believes. "In economic downturns, the high-end is less likely to be affected. But at the same time, we believe that short-term rental properties like Airbnb can offer the kind of mix to make it balance out," he said. "That's the way we are looking at it." On Anguilla, vacation rentals are regulated for two reasons, tourism minister Cardigan Connor said. First, they are monitored to see if they meet required standards, and second, guest information is gathered to help keep track of where visitors are staying in case of a hurricane. "Anything that happens on the island is a responsibility of government," Connor said. "And as long as proprietors of the Airbnb properties understand that, then they know we're protecting each other as well as guests." St. Martin -- the French side of the island -- creates its balance by actively looking for unregistered vacation rentals but in some instances allowing them to operate in neighborhoods where they're not supposed to be. "We need 3,500 rooms," said St. Martin tourism minister Valerie Damaseau. "We see that there's a lot of purchasing of villas and vacation rental homes. They're listed [on Airbnb's platform] but are registered to us as their personal home. We know that some are not fully paying their taxes. "So we have several teams that visit these sites; they're just going to show up," she continued. "The situation exists, and we want to structure it. We don't want visitors who stay in these properties to say that they're not good, so we can assist the homeowner to make sure that the product is as renovated as possible and that it has the amenities that everyone is seeking." Many of the St. Martin vacation rentals are in areas where they're forbidden to be, but Damaseau is not shutting them down. "We're working on some text to try to regulate them," she said. "We need those rooms to bring [the island inventory] up to 3,500. We shut our eyes because those extra rooms have saved us over the years. We'll tighten the screws a little, but we need to find the right balance." "Villas are a tricky one," said Turks and Caicos tourism minister Zhavargo Jolly. "It's a catch-22. We're a high-end luxury destination, but we get six or seven people staying in a villa because it's less expensive than six or seven hotel rooms. But then they can't afford the amenities that generate the [per person] revenue we expect. And they complain about the affordability of the island." Paul Pennicook, CEO of Experience Turks & Caicos, added that it's one reason they are focusing on the travel trade, which doesn't typically attract the same clients as Airbnb. "Also, with the Airbnb scenario, we're not ever sure that everyone is paying their fair share of taxes. But I had a discussion with Airbnb and got a commitment that they were willing to collect taxes for us," he said. "But they're not prepared to give us the details about who they collected the taxes from; they'll just send a lump sum. My attitude is: just take the money."
