To sustain means to feed, to preserve and to support, but for Caribbean people, it means reaching a dream: to establish a region where tourism is deliberately combined with economy and ecology.

Few of its millions visitors per year have heard about this project presented by The Caribbean States Association (CSA), an integrational group of 25 countries. However, in its reach is the possibility of fully enjoying, in a near future, these paradise-like lands filled with everlasting sun and beach. As it is defined, the projected Area of Sustainable Tourism will come out of a deliberate policy created for the action of the public and private sector and from regional cooperation by means of an articulate planning in a permanent and harmonic way. Intertwining as a whole in this project are the profitable operation of the tourist sector, the forecast and effective control of its impact on other branches of the economy and the environment, the culture and the principle of sharing with the communities those benefits generated by the activity. Regarding the strategies to achieve these ambitious goals, the Caribbean area said it would guarantee that the tourist development, far from eroding it, contributes to consolidate the Caribbean identity and to protect the cultural values in correspondence with a unified but diverse image. Novel strategic elements are the participation of those communities in decision-making, planning, development and benefits of the tourist activity, as well as the development and application of models for preservation, conservation and sustainable seizing of the environment in areas of tourist use. Specialists noticed the need to develop strategies and plans of action by increasing the value of the tourist product in the Caribbean. As part of the works performed for this project, members of the CSA decided to begin the identification, undertaking a study to develop air and marine transport, and strengthening the regional interconnection of the Caribbean, as well as facilitating and intensifying the concept of multidestination.

PROTECTING THE EARTHLY PARADISE

The idea began to take shape two years ago when the Council of Ministers from the Caribbean States Association gathered in Havana and instructed the Special Committee on Tourism from the organization to present in the Third Ministerial Meeting a draft with the principles and fundamental actions for the creation of a sustainable tourist area in the Caribbean. There was a consensus from the Summit about the Earth (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) regarding the need to elaborate defined clear strategies on the small insular states -with ecological fragility and precarious economy, in many cases- which world meeting took place two years later in Barbados searching for harmony between environment and development.