What Will Be Lost is a monthlong series of reported stories and essays exploring the ways climate change is affecting our relationship to one another, to our sense of place and to ourselves. The latest in that series is from Melissa Noel, an award-winning freelance multimedia journalist who traveled to Barbuda to look at land rights and storm recovery.
Noel is a contributing correspondent for One Caribbean Television, covering major news stories out of the Caribbean and throughout diaspora communities in the United States and Canada. She has also reported for NBCNews.com and Caribbean Beat Magazine, where she covers issues that affect marginalized communities and the Caribbean Diaspora.
Her reporting in Barbuda looks at the forced evacuation following the devastation of Hurricane Irma in 2017, the ongoing recovery and how a proposal to overhaul the island's collective land ownership threatens to undermine the island's culture and identity. The story raised the question of what will happen if Barbuda is no longer a place where Barbudans feel at home.
What drew you to Barbuda?
As a regional correspondent in the Caribbean for the past five years, I have reported on hurricane seasons that have gone from what’s typically expected to unprecedented. And families go from home- and business-owners to climate migrants after being forced to leave.
Hurricane Irma destroyed 95% of the structures on Barbuda, and every resident was evacuated to its sister isle of Antigua. Coverage of the physical damage to the island was widespread, as were stories about how quickly the affected islands across the region would be able to rebuild and begin welcoming tourists once again.
Beyond that, what I wanted to further look into was the impact on the people and culture of an island like Barbuda, which has never followed the development path of many other islands where large-scale tourism is central to the economy. And what would become of the unique cultural practice of communal land ownership, which has been in place for generations.
How does the historic communal ownership of land affect -- or reflect, perhaps -- the island's culture?
Communal land ownership is a way of life for Barbudans that has been passed down for generations. With the unique system, they have access to plots of land for a home, to farm or for commercial use.
But it goes beyond that. This communal way of life means property belongs to the people, there is no private ownership and each person has the ability to enjoy all of the island’s natural resources to fish, hunt, swim and more. Only Barbudans and their descendants can obtain land on the island. Any major developments to be built over a certain amount must receive community consensus. The lack of private ownership, however, is what Antigua & Barbuda’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, says has impeded the island’s recovery process and will hamper its growth.
How is the change affecting the island right now?
The repeal of the Barbuda Land Act has left many Barbudans feeling disrespected and disenfranchised. They say they were not included in proceedings concerning changes to the land act.
Efforts to implement private property and the construction of a new airport that cut through prime hunting and farming ground took place while Barbudans were not living on the island. It raised concerns that the post-hurricane crisis was being manipulated to carry out a land grab when this community was at its most vulnerable
Barbudans say that as they endure challenging living conditions and a painstakingly slow disaster recovery process, the central government in Antigua is focusing on bringing large-scale developments for tourists rather than sustainable recovery for its own people.
How do people feel about their future on the island?
There is worry that the segment of the population that has not yet returned may never do so because the recovery has taken way too long. Additionally, there is great concern about how the building of large-scale developments will harm the wetlands, farmlands and mangroves on an island that is vulnerable to climate change. However, those that remain vow to fight to protect the environment and way of life they hold dear. Some have even gone as far as saying that if that means secession from Antigua and no longer being a part of a twin-island nation, then so be it. | 
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