Dear <<First Name>>,

Thanks for reading the Island Innovation newsletter! If you were forwarded this email or accessed it through a link, don't forget to subscribe here and stay up to date on the latest sustainability news from islands and remote regions around the world.

This week's thought: What is "paradise"? And who gets to experience it?

People often tell me how lucky I am to be frequently traveling to “paradise”, visiting some of the most beautiful islands in the world. And I know it. 

But isn't paradise in our imaginations? The term impacts our relationships with islands - for both visitors and residents. It implies a site for adventure, hedonism and exploitation. Paradise can be cultural supremacy.

↪ Read: Rewriting Haiti's Narrative: Ten Haitian Entrepreneurs Helping To Reinvent Their Nation

Islands are conceived in the popular imagination idyllic with abundant natural beauty. They are envisioned as utopias, enhanced by distance and small size. Paradise was first coined by sailors, colonists and missionaries after months at sea, finally able to stand on dry land.
 
Yet islands have also been places to hide dark shame: slavery, prisons, massacres. The imagined idea of paradise can perpetuate exploitation and disguise deep global inequalities that allow foreigners to fly in and play in landscapes in ways that may be unavailable to local people. 

Island communities so often have an outsider narrative imposed on them that revolves around a tropical paradise. This can mask the realities of the issues that they may be facing. Even islands in colder regions fall into this trap, treated as a pristine playground for others to enjoy.

↪ Read: The Electric Vehicle Revolution Is Alive In Barbados

This is a point made by the Antiguan author Jamaika Kinkaid in her essay "A Small Place" - a searing critique of the colonial nature of Caribbean tourism through the eyes of a returning emigrant. By emphasising natural beauty at the expense of residents dealing with their day-to-day lives, we obscure their problems.

This drama recently played out with the political discussion in Tobago, where a new 750-room all-inclusive resort has been under much scrutiny and was recently scrapped due to local concerns. Despite the obvious jobs and tax revenues that would arrive, clearly other issues were of higher priority.  How do we measure benefits from tourism when much of the money goes elsewhere?
 
Am I trying to degrade the beauty of (tropical) islands? No. Am I discouraging you from visiting? No. But perhaps think about who benefits from the word "paradise" and who ultimately gets to experience it.

↪ Listen: Interview with James Ellsmoor on Sense & Sustainability

Please take advantage of discussing today's topics further in the members-only Island Innovation Facebook Group. The next newsletter will be out in two weeks and focus on that 'scary' new technology known as "blockchain" and its applications for island communities.... quite a different topic from today!

Thank you for reading,
James Ellsmoor

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Energy Stories

Interesting stories about energy from around the world: 

• 5 TED Talks about energy to start your 2019.
• New Zealand's Waiheke Island is set to become the world's first to use only electric vehicles.
• Clean energy reforms in Maine are helping to bridge access to clean energy access for remote island communities.
• The Isle of Eigg hosts a hybrid microgrid which incorporates flywheels and ultracapacitors for high power functions.
• Rural communities in the Southern USA are calling for more involvement in rural electric co-ops that charge some of the country's highest prices.
• The Republic of the Marshall Islands launched its roadmap to completely decarbonize its electricity sector by 2050.
• A private, solar-powered resort opened on Lhaviani Atoll in the Maldives and will run without diesel backup.
• Saint Lucia calls for greater Caribbean cooperation on geothermal development - an untapped opportunity in the region? 

Knowledge Sharing For
Small Island Developing States (SIDS)

Other stories worth sharing

A selection of stories relevant to innovation and sustainable development from around the world:

• Branson's Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator names new CEO
• The "Aging in the Arctic" project exchanges knowledge and experiences between Nunavut and Greenland regarding health and older people.
• A campaign to promote the culinary culture and local products of the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina: Slow Fish Caribe.
• Belize and Guatemala are the latest countries to join UN Environment’s Clean Seas campaign to ‘drastically reduce the consumption of single-use plastics and eradicate the use of microbeads’.
• Increasing numbers of young people are choosing to live and work in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, it has been suggested.
• A new study shows mercury pollution present a major threat to women and children in SIDS.
• The influx of sargassum seaweed to Caribbean waters since 2011 has resulted in a catastrophic hit to the livelihoods of Caribbean fisherfolk.

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