Excerpt from The Guardian
Bitter dispute as supporters argue the US $2bn luxury resort project is a vital economic stimulus while critics say it will destroy natural habitat as well as traditions and cultures.
From the air, the peninsula of Palmetto Point – fringed by aquamarine water and pink-hued sand – looks like a developer’s dream.
To local residents it’s the scene of childhood memories and balmy afternoons spent picking seagrapes and ambling among the sand dunes – a landscape many fear could soon be lost to them forever.
Three years after Barbuda was devastated by Hurricane Irma, the tiny Caribbean isle is the scene of a bitter dispute that has pitted islanders against foreign developers who plan to build a US $2bn luxury resort project.
A group of investors, including John Paul Dejoria, the billionaire entrepreneur behind Paul Mitchell hair products, have been given a 99-year lease to create hundreds of deluxe private homes and a golf course for the scheme named Peace, Love and Happiness (PLH).
Supporters see the development as a vital economic stimulus that has already created dozens of jobs for an island still recovering from the September 2017 hurricane. Critics say it will encroach on a national park, damaging one of the world’s largest nesting sites for the magnificent frigate bird and endangered wildlife.
