Environmental collapse imminent at Levera!
Message to Spicemas enjoyers on our dwindling natural heritage
Aerial view of Levera, August 2025, showing progress of development and new land cleared encroaching upon the Ramsar site boundaries
Levera, St. Patrick. August 2025 — The Ramsar site at Levera in St Patrick is Grenada's sole designated Wetland of International Importance. The site includes the entire Levera beach, Levera pond and the surrounding mangroves, and it extends offshore to encompass Sugar Loaf island and the adjoining marine environment. It was designated in 2012 under the former NDC administration – just thirteen short years ago. Given the current pace and scale of development at Levera, we are no longer confident that the natural environment will survive another 5 years – much less reach to 2030, the year by which Grenada and many other nations have pledged to protect 30% of their biodiversity.
A recent visit to Levera over the Emancipation weekend revealed extensive new land clearing by the developer Heng Sheng (Grenada) Development Pte. Ltd around the pond, along the hillsides and up to the coastline – leaving only a small strip of coastal vegetation to protect the beach. After reviewing the planning documents, GLA revealed back in a 2023 article that sections of the planned golf course would encroach into these sensitive areas. Once this coastal vegetation is removed – an action that is illegal under Grenada's Integrated Coastal Zone Management Act – Levera beach will be vulnerable to accelerated erosion and could become unstable.
The Government of Grenada has been warned many times over the years about the impacts of developing the environmentally sensitive areas at Levera. During one of the first attempts at development, the Government requested additional assistance from the OECS Natural Resources Management Unit (NRMU) to review the initial Environmental Impact Report that was done for the development and golf course in 1998. The NRMU found that the report fell far short of the requirements and did not provide sufficient data and analysis to inform a grant of planning approval (sounds like déjà vu!). The Unit made multiple recommendations to conduct a much more comprehensive assessment for the site as part of a full environmental impact assessment (EIA), recognizing its importance even before it was designated a Ramsar site years afterward.
In the ongoing environmental case that GLA filed, our members reviewed the second EIA which was informed by the NRMU and noticed that it had made strong recommendations, including ones saying that any buffer between the development and the mangroves and pond should be over 100 m. It also recommended that a buffer between the beach and the development be at least 100 m to protect against erosion and to protect the nesting turtles. What GLA saw through the planning documents we eventually received was that a mere 10m buffer was being approved for this current development, a billion-dollar development by developer Heng Sheng which dwarfs the previous attempts at development in this sensitive area. We also wrote about our troubling finding that the Government had entered a confidential MoU with the developer and that the Ramsar boundaries were being changed in favour of the developer.
GLA wrote multiple recommendations about the inadequate buffer and other environmental failings to the current EIA practitioner for the Levera Development, Niles and Associates; we wrote to the Head of the Planning and Development Authority, released a public article about what we found, and also wrote directly to the Ramsar Secretariat (https://grenadaland.org/blog/glas-letter-to-the-ramsar-secretariat). GLA also conducted and released an extensive review of the Levera EIA - which we relied on heavily in our court case. To date, nothing has been done by the developer or the Government to curtail or mitigate damage to the site.
From the documents released in GLA’s court case, we saw evidence that the Planning and Development Authority ignored internal advice from its own officers and technical review committee, including a previous CEO of PDA, who acknowledged that Heng Sheng was causing ongoing damage to the mangroves and that a proper land survey had not yet been done for the development to demarcate the boundaries of the Ramsar site to avoid encroachment.
Earlier this year, Heng Sheng was also investigated for illegal discounting and underselling, during which their membership was suspended. After a three-month investigation, the case has been resolved and their membership reinstated in June 2025, but the many environmental concerns around the development remain.
Levera pond and damaged boardwalk and tower - 1 year after Hurricane Beryl, August 2025
Last July, Hurricane Beryl raged through St. Patrick and Levera. The hurricane tore up this area, causing almost all the mangroves surrounding the Levera pond to be felled or broken. The boardwalk was severely damaged and the small tower at the end of the boardwalk was destroyed. It has been over a year now and the Levera Pond Protected Area, part of the Ramsar site, remains in a forlorn state. The mangroves appear broken and bleached and have been slow to recover. To add insult to injury, there have been reports of damaging fishing practices being used in the pond recently - by persons who are essentially casting a dragnet to attempt to catch all the fish in the pond (https://nowgrenada.com/2025/05/unsustainable-fishing-activities-in-levera-pond/).
Who from the Government is overseeing this internationally significant area and allowing this to happen?
Hurricane Beryl also damaged the Levera Beach itself, causing turtle nests and eggs to be washed out of the beach. This could have serious implications for future turtle populations of both leatherback turtles and critically endangered hawksbills at Levera as the majority of nests may no longer have been viable and baby turtles would not have hatched and returned to the sea. Ocean Spirits was forced to curtail their activities due to the chaos caused by Beryl. They chose instead to support the local communities in Sauteurs and other surrounding areas in getting back on their feet after the hurricane. Recently, SPECTO announced that the turtle nesting season this year was disappointing in terms of numbers and had to curtail the turtle watching tours (https://nowgrenada.com/2025/06/closure-of-2025-turtle-watching-tours-at-levera-beach). Is this a sign of things to come?
Large areas of land are also being actively clear cut all the way up to Rose Hill. There are absolutely no mitigation measures in place, such as silt screens to prevent runoff of topsoil and other pollutants into the Levera pond. With the removal of the natural vegetation, the heavy rains in the wet season are likely to impact the pond with excess sedimentation which could lead to algal overgrowth and eutrophication leading to mass death of any remaining life in the pond. There is no evidence of any environmental management measures or plan being implemented to prevent this.
Message to the many enjoyers of Spicemas 2025
To all people coming for Carnival, whether you are returning Grenadians or first time visitors - after the festivities, take some time to see for yourself what is happening to these once beautiful places in Grenada. Is this why you came to Grenada? Was it to come to a foreign-owned casino and golf course or was it to see the unique natural beauty provided by the turtles, birds, mangroves, and marine life?
To fellow Grenadians, both on the ground and in the diaspora, is this the Grenada you remember, that you want your children to continue to experience in the future? Visit Levera, Mt. Hartman, and also cast your eyes at what is happening in La Sagesse, in St. David - all by foreign developers under the CBI programme. Do you feel emancipated watching Grenada's most pristine areas being turned into concrete jungles?
