Dear Editor

An Agonising Waste Land

I never felt so dismayed on a trip to Windward Point on Anguilla’s east coast like a few days ago when I took some friends with me there.

I remember it to have been a place of much beauty, its sand dunes well intact and its beach so peaceful. It was a rude awakening for me when I saw the devastation to the beach and its sand resources. The dunes are gone. The jagged cliffs of rock and the boulders strewn around now stand in derision of the beauty that was once there.

From a visitor’s point of view, it is an ugly scene. When I mentioned to a number of persons in Anguilla what I saw, they told be it was “a burning shame and disgrace” that nationals of the island, who should take pride in their beautiful beaches and pleasant environment, should do this.

I believe that after a long time the beach sand (not the dunes) will slowly return but the unscrupulous miners and truckers need to discontinue their plunder. Right now Windward Point Beach is an agonising waste land.

I have been given to understand that huge shipments of sand are frequently imported from some of the neighbouring islands and as far south as Guyana. I have seen heaps of this sand at Sandy Ground and other nearby areas and I wonder whether these imports are not sufficient to meet the island’s construction demands rather that persons raping Windward Point Beach.

In writing this letter I do not feel I am intruding for two reasons. The first is that I am an environmentalist by profession and the second is that I have been a repeat visitor to Anguilla for so many years that I now feel that I am a belonger.

Nicholas Whittaker
(Visiting from North Carolina)

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