Local people opposes the construction of Luxery Villa in Saint Lucia, fears the safety of indigenous site

Local advocates in St. Lucia are concerned about the safety of an Indigenous funeral site and the lands encompassing it due to the formation of a sprawling luxury golf resort by the team of developers behind two famed programs in Nova Scotia.

The Cabot Saint Lucia design consists of an 18-hole golf course, hotel, villas, and convenient private lots comprising 152 hectares of land in the Cap Estate area on the Caribbean island’s north tip.

Construction is now moving for the resort, which will be Cabot’s first golf course away from Canada. Two of this development’s major investors, Canadian Ben Cowan-Dewar and American Mike Keiser, were co-founders of the award-winning Cabot Bonds and Cabot Cliffs courses in Cape Breton, N.S.

While Cabot Saint Lucia’s recently named CEO Kristine Thompson stated the answer in St. Lucia to the design has been “overwhelmingly decisive,” some local advocates are showing resistance to it because of its position on an Indigenous burial site, its closeness to many public beaches, and its possible environmental influence.

The Indigenous burial section was created in January 2009, after extended tourism, natural erosion, and 2007’s Hurricane Dean opened skulls, bones, and other artefacts from an early Indigenous settlement in the soil.

Dutch archaeologist Corinne Hofman including a team of researchers revealed the burial site when they travelled to St. Lucia to excavate the remains and protect them.

She said they found 52 burial situations including human remains dating from approximately AD 1100 to AD 1500, with the preponderance of them from between AD 1200 and AD 1300.

While the remains they collected in 2009 are currently being stored at a plant in St. Lucia, Hofman understands there could be more osseins in the area.

Laurent Jean Pierre, a part of the St. Lucia Archaeological and Historical Society (A&H) who has Black and Natural heritage, announced he too is assured there are more remains at the location.