Dear Source,
As a St. Thomas resident for more than eight years, I came to appreciate the beauty of all the Virgin Islands. Although I moved back to my native Puerto Rico last year, I still visit St. Thomas frequently to visit friends and enjoy once more the beauty that surrounds me there.
The north side of St. Thomas, containing its most — almost its only — pristine area of tropical humid forest, seems now to be threatened by a "development" that is poised to rid the island of its last large green area.
That no terrestrial area in St. Thomas has ever been declared, to my knowledge, a wildlife refuge or nature reserve has always been beyond me. Now, the last extensive tract of remaining forest is about to be damaged by more of the so-called development that has wreaked havoc in my own home island of Puerto Rico.
What a pity.
On a small island like St. Thomas, where everything is close by and where natural areas are by now practically nonexistent, why don't those developers choose to place their hotels, restaurants, whatever, in the already urbanized area of Charlotte Amalie, and then organize excursions to those same few remaining natural places?
That is ecotourism — and not doing away with nature just to make money.
I say it again: what a pity … and what a shortsightedness of the local people who let this happen.
Father Alejandro Sánchez
Carolina, Puerto Rico
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