Serious threats to Cayman Brac

The rain-forests of Brazil and Indonesia are threatened by timber harvesting, otherwise known as logging. 

The coastal waters of every developed country in the world are threatened by industrial pollution; 

The inland waters of every agricultural country in the world are threatened by pesticides and chemical fertilisers; 

The exotic wildlife of Asia and Africa has been decimated by big-game hunting and the remaining animals are threatened by loss of food and habitat. 

All of these threats are recognised and various international bodies, such as the Worldwide Fund for Nature (previously known as the World Wildlife Fund), operate programmes and provide technical assistance towards mitigating them. A number of international treaties, such as the Ramsar Convention, bind signatory countries to effecting legal protection for, or taking specific action towards, the preservation of flora, fauna and habitat. 

Environmental threats 

From a Cayman Brac perspective this is all very well, but may appear to have no direct relevance: There is no rain-forest, no industry, very little agriculture and no large mammals or reptiles. 

The threats, however, do exist, and are as significant for this small island as are those listed above for other parts of the world. 

At first glance, approaching by sea or air, Cayman Brac appears to be entirely covered with vegetation; indeed from seaward, except in the Watering Place/Creek districts there are very few buildings to be seen at all. The casual observer might therefore conclude the human population to be even smaller than it actually is.  

The effects of Hurricane Paloma are not now obvious. The trees and bushes have grown back but beneath the green canopy lies a tangled mass of fallen branches. Some of this, such as Red Birch is already rotting and providing food for termites, which in turn feed lizards and frogs; some, such as Ironwood, will probably never rot and remain where it lies forever.  

The birds are re-appearing. The small species were particularly badly affected and after the hurricane birds such as Bananaquits and Elenias could only be seen singly and infrequently. Somehow the few remaining ones managed to find each other and breed, so that, while nowhere near their previous numbers, they can now be found quite easily. 

Disasters waiting to happen 

We may conclude, therefore, that nature can recover from natural disasters. What then of artificially created disasters? In this context ‘disaster’ is a relative term. A car running over a soldier-crab is a disaster for the crab but probably not for the car (unless a claw pierces the tyre). The obliteration of a plant by bush-clearing or road widening, although seemingly insignificant in terms of wider human activity, is a disaster if that plant is unique and exists nowhere else in the world. 

There are, then, several potential disasters just waiting to happen on the Brac. 

Plants 

There are no common names for these plants, so the latin designations have to be used: 

Verbesina Caymanensis. This small shrub exists only in two locations in Spot Bay but may have already been obliterated from one of those by PWD staff clearing the path beside which it grows. 

Consolea Millspaughii Caymanensis is a very spiny cactus which used to also grow in Little Cayman, but has reportedly died out there. It exists in a few places, mostly on the Bluff, but could disappear over the course of a day if any of these were cleared for house-building. 

Epiphyllum Phyllanthus Plattsii. This is a spineless flat cactus which crawls over the rock and exists only in a small area on Cottontree Bay Bluff and nowhere else in the world. A public road runs through the middle of the growth area and undoubtedly destroyed a substantial number of plants when it was first built and then widened. 

Cutting of the verges regularly causes more damage. 

Birds 

The Brown Booby has been written about sufficiently so no description is necessary. Two colonies exist, but one was virtually destroyed last year by a helicopter hovering 50 feet above the nests, presumably for tourists to take photographs of the chicks and nests being blown over the edge of the Bluff by the down-draught. 

The other colony, at the Eastern end of the Bluff, is easily accessible to pedestrians since Government widened and partially filled the old ‘Peter’s Road’. So far the birds appear to have tolerated the resultant increased human attention. 

Iguanas 

There may be 50 Rock Iguanas left on the Brac. Suitable nesting sites are few and far between and are being reduced by new landowners on the South Side building houses and altering the terrain. The creatures like to nest on the lowland and migrate onto the Bluff. They travel relatively long distances, but are vulnerable to vehicles particularly on the S. Side road and the many agricultural roads in the Bluff. 

Cayman Brac is not the Galapagos Islands, there is no overwhelming number of unique species of flora and fauna such that an international body would come to their aid. What there is, however, is a small number of plants which do not exist anywhere else, some birds which are under threat everywhere they nest and a few medium-sized reptiles which, together with their cousins in Little Cayman, are also a unique species. 

The general public must decide if any or all of these should be preserved; the operators of heavy equipment could ask about them before clearing a piece of land; the PWD crews could ask before cutting everything in sight.  

Those who receive the questions may not know the answers; they, in turn, can ask. The National Trust has staff and members with the expertise to help. 

This column was submitted by the National Trust for the Cayman Islands, Cayman Brac District Committee.