The fight against foreign developers buying Caribbean beaches

An important development from the financial markets: The fight against foreign developers buying Caribbean beaches15 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleChelsea CoatesBBC World ServiceBLRRCLocal campaigners in Barbuda say they are losing access to the island's beachesOn the small Caribbean island of Barbuda, the Pink Sands Beach Bar played host to locals - and the occasional tourist - for more than 20 years. "It was a very warm place," says Miranda Beazer, its former owner, describing how people used to gather there to play dominoes, or to relax after church on Sundays. Named after the rose-tinted sand it stood on, the bar was a cornerstone of the local community, until Hurricane Irma hit the island in 2017, when all of the roughly 2,000 Barbudans were evacuated to sister island, Antigua.

Miranda's bar - and her house - were destroyed. "There's nobody that was unscathed... I cried for two weeks," she says.

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Before the bar could be rebuilt, her husband died. Foreign developers started to offer her large amounts of money for her plot - but she refused them all. "It's not the money that I'm after," Miranda says, "I actually want to retain my land.

"Miranda BeazerMiranda is locked in a legal dispute to access what she sees as her landThen, the bulldozers came. What remained of the bar after the hurricane was demolished by foreign developers, Miranda alleges. Since then Miranda has been fighting a legal case to regain access to what she argues is her land.

However, this is complicated by Antigua and Barbuda's property laws. Land ownership in Barbuda is collective, meaning that individual citizens have the right to occupy a plot of land by applying for a lease, but technically, they do not privately own it. Instead, all land is owned communally, and citizens share the collective right to be consulted and to have the final say on major developments.

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The ownership system was established after slavery ended in Barbuda in 1834 and was officially recognised by the government of Antigua and Barbuda in 2007, when the Barbuda Land Act was passed. Miranda says she owns the lease to 30 acres of coastline, but currently she only has access to eight. The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), a network of lawyers that is supporting her, says the rest of the land is being illegally occupied by foreign developers Murbee Resorts and Peace Love and Happiness (PLH).

Getty ImagesIt is easy to understand the allure of Barbuda's beachesIn a statement, Murbee says that it is a legal lease holder in Barbuda and "has not carried out construction activity on any land for which it does not have legal authority to do so, or at all". PLH says it "does not and has never" occupied the land, and has "strictly followed" all agreements since entering a lease for land in Barbuda in February 2017. But Miranda says, like many other Barbudan campaigners, that she remains committed to fighting for access.

Financial markets are tracking the development closely as investors assess the likely impact.