Soualigans Develop Environmental Justice Statement during St. Martin Book Fair

SINT MAARTEN (POND ISLAND) — As part of the 2026 St. Martin Book Fair, residents from across the island gathered at the University of St. Martin on June 6 for a community session entitled “Soualigans, We Need You,” where they worked collectively to develop an Environmental Justice Statement for St. Martin.

Rather than attending a traditional presentation, participants were invited to contribute directly to the development of the statement. Through a facilitated process, residents responded to three questions: What do we love? What are we losing? What do we want? Every response was recorded, discussed, and prioritized ensuring that each participant had an equal voice in determining the final outcome.

The resulting statement begins with a clear declaration: “Soualiga – St. Martin – is our home, our inheritance, and our responsibility.” It recognizes that the island’s natural environment is not separate from its future development but forms the foundation of its health, culture, economy, and resilience.

The statement is organized around four themes: what residents believe, what they are losing, what they demand, and what they commit to protecting.

Throughout the discussion, participants expressed concern about the continued loss of natural and cultural landmarks across the island. Residents reflected on the disappearance or degradation of places such as the old scenic road to Point Blanche, Flamingo Pond, the wetland at Dawn Beach, and many of the mature trees that once defined the landscape.

Concerns were also raised about the pace of hillside and high-rise development and the limited environmental safeguards currently in place.

Participants highlighted that Sint Maarten remains the only jurisdiction within the Dutch Caribbean that does not require environmental and social impact assessments for major developments. They also noted that existing policies intended to protect beaches, hillsides, and significant trees often remain unenforced.

Water security emerged as one of the strongest themes of the day. Residents reflected on the loss of public freshwater springs and the increasing dependence on purchased drinking water despite living on a tropical island. Participants also recalled that during Hurricane Irma, many households relied on traditional wells when centralized water systems failed. As a result, the statement calls for the identification, protection, restoration, and sustainable management of the island’s springs, wells, and freshwater resources.

The statement outlines eight key demands directed to decision-makers on both the Dutch and French sides of the island. These include strengthening and enforcing environmental protections for beaches, hillsides, and trees; introducing mandatory environmental and social impact assessments on the Dutch side; establishing a protected national park; creating formal mechanisms for community participation in decision-making; safeguarding freshwater resources; strengthening cross-border cooperation on shared ecosystems and sargassum management; expanding environmental and cultural education in schools; and developing sustainable financing mechanisms that support both conservation and local communities.

A recurring message throughout the session was the importance of meaningful public participation. Participants emphasized that residents must be included in decisions affecting the future of the island and that local knowledge should be recognized as an essential part of environmental planning and conservation.

The statement concludes with a commitment to future generations: “The Soualiga we protect today is the Soualiga our grandchildren will inherit.”

The session, which formed part of the 2026 St. Martin Book Fair programme, was facilitated by Tadzio Bervoets, Chair of the UNESCO Ocean Decade Task Force for Latin America and the Caribbean, environmental management specialist, and co-founder of the Caribbean Shark Coalition. The final statement will be shared with government representatives, institutions, and stakeholders across the island.

THE SOUALIGA ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE STATEMENT

“At the table, not at the gate.”

Drafted live, line by line, by the people of Soualiga — “Soualigans, We Need You,” University of St. Martin, June 6, 2026

Soualiga is our home. We call it St. Martin too, but it is one island and it belongs to us. We came together, we talked it out, and we put up our hands until we agreed on what to write. Everyone in the room had the same say, whether they spoke loud or barely spoke at all. What follows is ours.

We believe …

Our land and our sea are not in the way of progress. They are what keep us healthy, what hold our culture, what feeds the economy, and what will carry us through the storms and droughts that keep coming.

The hills, the beaches, the ponds and springs, the wetlands, the reefs, the old trees — none of it is empty space waiting to be built on. These places belong to everyone, not only to people who can pay.

Our beaches have to stay open, and that needs to be enforced, not just written down somewhere and ignored. No more fences and resort gates between us and the shore.

The green hillsides, the roads with a view, the Flamboyant and the Silk Cotton trees, the village feeling you can still find in places like Colombier — these belong to all of us, not just to the wealthy.

They are worth defending. Conservation has to be done with us, not to us. We are tired of being shut out of the places we have always known in the name of protecting them.

The fisherman, the person who walks the hills, the elder who remembers where the spring used to run — they know things no consultant flying in for a week ever will. We belong at the table, not at the gate.

We are losing …

We are losing the island to building that no one is checking. High-rises and construction on the hillsides are changing Soualiga faster than the law can keep up. The hillsides give way and slide.

Views that used to be everyone’s get walled off. The open spaces and the village character are going. We are losing because the rules are weak. Sint Maarten is still the only place in the Dutch Caribbean where a big project can go ahead with no one studying what it does to people or nature first. Every other island requires that study.

We do not. And the good laws we did inherit, the ones meant to protect beaches and hillsides and trees, were never made national law and are barely enforced. We are losing our water.

French Quarter once had public pumps and springs that gave everyone cool, clean water for free. They are gone. We live on a tropical island and still have to buy water in plastic bottles that cost us money and are not good for our health. We know the old ways worked: when Irma knocked out the main system, it was the old wells that kept the water coming.

The fresh water under our feet has never even been mapped properly, let alone looked after. Some of it is already gone and we are losing our voice in any of it. One island, one ecosystem, but two governments that do not run it as one.

Managers get sent in from outside, stay a while, and leave before they learn the place. Underneath all of it is a longer history: colonialism cut us off from our own land, and a cost of living this high leaves most people too busy surviving to worry about the rest.

We demand …

We are asking the people in charge — the governments and institutions on both the Dutch and French sides — to act now, not later:

1. Legislate protection. Convert existing policies for beaches, hillsides, and trees into binding national legislation — and enforce them.
2. Require impact assessments. Establish a formal, mandatory Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) process on the Dutch side, so no major development proceeds without studying its effects on people and nature.
3. Protect our nature. Create a protected terrestrial national park and designate essential nature areas — including beaches and key trails — for permanent public protection.
4. Govern with us. Establish formal community councils and convene town halls so residents share real authority over the decisions that shape our environment.
5. Secure our water. Map and restore Soualiga’s springs, wells, and freshwater lens aquifer; protect them as climate infrastructure; and communicate this science openly.
6. Cooperate across the border. Pursue joint French–Dutch management of shared ecosystems and trails, and coordinated regional action on sargassum, including access to climate “loss and damage” financing for small island states.
7. Educate and transmit. Teach our ecosystems, the risks of bottled-water plastic, home filtration, and food security through fruit-tree planting — and shift schooling toward local identity, environment, and the transmission of knowledge across generations.
8. Finance conservation fairly. Build community-managed models — such as carbon-offset markets for mangroves and seagrass, modeled on sovereign wealth approaches like The Bahamas’ — so protecting nature directly benefits the people who live alongside it.

We commit …

We will write down the history of the places we love, record the damage done to them, and work to bring them back. We will keep our hiking trails open, stand up for the right to reach every beach, and keep our coast and our waters open to all of us.

We will pass on what we know to our children, so they grow up with the land and with the reasons to care for it. We will keep showing up — at every meeting and every decision about this island — and we will hold our leaders to what is written here.

The Soualiga we look after today is the one our grandchildren will inherit.