My family and I moved to St. Maarten in August 2007 and have worked there since then. As a science teacher with an environmental background, I can say that what so many of you have described as a paradise isn’t really true.

The color of the ocean around St. Maarten is amazingly blue-turquoise, but most of your reefs are already destroyed, killed by the overdevelopment of the island.

Phillipsburgs (capital of the island) is welcoming visitors & tourists with an overfilled dump -that is sometimes on fire-. What a view!

In low season, the newspaper is already advertising water shortages on the island, but every single resident has a swimming pool in their backyard.

Every big downpour, warnings of flash flooding are in effect, because you cut most trees on the island and replace them with concrete streets and more houses.

Then, there is a list of absolute careless attitudes from the government, residents and tourists:

• Your water is produced by desalinating sea water, and you are burning 180 000 liters of Diesel a day to produce the energy needed. (yes! I've visited GEBE with my students) Ever heard of global warming folks?
• The traffic on the road is ridiculous. It takes over 1.5 hour on some days to travel from Cupecoy to Phillisburgs. The average km/h driven in the traffic is worst than some big cities like New York or Toronto.
• You are still cutting more trees, breaking more rocky ground to build more houses! Enough! Concrete does not replace trees!