Mr. Bernier, a businessman on the island of Jost Van Dyke says the island's basic necessities need to be addressed to help improve the quality of life for residents and enhance the island's tourism product.

Speaking to Virgin Islands News Online in an exclusive interview, Kent Bernier who is the owner of Guavaberry Farm, a striving tourist attraction on the island, said the Government of the Virgin Islands, the Tourist Board and Ports Authority are the stakeholders and need to work together to keep the quality of life that everyone has been yearning for on the island.

Mr. Bernier had recently spoken at a tourism stakeholders workshop where he expressed concern for the basic needs to be addressed and remedied on the island.

Kent Bernier, businessman and owner of Guavaberry Farm on Jost Van Dyke.

Among them are the road infrastructure and public restroom facility on the island.

“We get 150,000 guests per year that we can account for and we feel we need to have proper rest rooms where people can use in comfort without any heart ache. There is also dredging maintenance issues for proper accommodation for the ships and properly managing the infrastructure.”

As it regards the conditions of the road which residents have been complaining about for several years, Mr. Bernier said he is aware that the government is making provisions to have the conditions improved as they were recently on the island assessing the infrastructure to begin addressing the matter.

Another area of concern the businessman pointed out is the need for a back up power generator for the island and proper emergency medical facility such as an ambulance with equipment including cardiac machines.

“We would like to have an emergency ambulance, to take care of residents and visitors, cardiac machines, for heart attack patients, a lot of elderly people come and we have a lot of cardiac patients. What we are concerned about are those are the standard essentials, I would say basic equipment that we should have,” he said.

Caution about density and building

The businessman who is highly concerned about maintaining the island’s natural environment which is pivotal to its tourism product, said what is recommended is for the authorities to be careful with the density and new infrastructure on the island.

“If we build up to 200 homes on the front of Jost Van Dyke it cannot take that much impact on development. We have to have what we call smart growth where base on the land mass we should only put in x amount of development.”

“What we will recommend to our visionaries is to say to them we have to be careful with the density and buildings because we don’t want to have sewerage run off in the waters and such issues, whatever has to be done have to be environmentally friendly,” he continued.

Mile of Trees

As part of an initiative that he has been brainstorming to beautify the island, Mr. Bernier would like to start what he calls a “Mile of Trees” on the island.

Part of the attraction at Mr. Bernier's Guavaberry farm on Jost van Dyke

“The vision for Jost Van Dyke right now is a mile of trees, our vision along with our partners, we are trying to raise capital and get trust fund monies to plant the guard rails. We are hoping to acquire the miniature orleanders and creating a trust that say mile of trees to plant up the whole of Jost Van Dyke and also to put in flamboyant trees.”

In addition, he said a recycling programme will also be timely for the island as presently burning of garbage takes place in the front of the island and plans to appeal to his colleagues and neighbours to start the recycling drive.

The businessman said there is nothing in Jost Van Dyke that cannot be addressed by the residents who just need to supported and educated.