by Nicholas RAINER

Lights, camera, action! The ecological blockbuster of the century, known tentatively as the ?Chronicle of a deforestation foretold?, will be premiering in an endemic forest near you in around two weeks? time. The release date has been fixed by the Road Development Authority; so don?t mortgage your house on its accuracy. At any rate, this rumble in the jungle, so to speak, should not be missed.

After all, how often do you get to see four hundred-year old trees being uprooted by mechanical animals bent on clearing the way for a tar serpent that nobody really wants? Fortunately, for a country that has less than 1.5% of its endemic forests left, the answer is not often. Ah, if it weren?t for life?s small mercies.

Government has pinned much hope on the event as it is counting on its insidiously-led forest-free island campaign to pave the way for its overarching, yet inchoate, ambition: that of making Mauritius a duty free island. Indeed, ridding the country of its trees may, with a little imagination, provide valuable lessons for ridding the country of taxes. After all, both are wonderful examples of trying to solve existing problems by creating new ones. The result, in both cases, will be a non-entity.

Are we, as the prime minister modestly claimed, ?the best-managed country in the world?? The answer is, most definitely! The government is blazing forward (and razing forests on its way) to attract foreign investors to the country. Integrated Resort Schemes, for example, will allow filthy-rich foreigners to purchase land in Mauritius. An inherent shortfall of this concept is that no one in his/her right mind will want to fork out $650 000 for a pad on a concrete-smothered island that increasingly resembles ? crime, pollution and all ? the cities they are trying to flee. Let?s not forget about the fact that jetsetters spend very little time in their fifth homes so that no one, except the promoters of course, really benefits from the scheme. Management doesn?t get any better than that, now does it?

The SIDS conference, it seems, was all about long-winded speeches about lofty ideals, such as sustainable development and the importance of protecting the environment. Tedious indeed. Yet, the fact of the matter is that countries the world over are having to balance ecological considerations against developmental ones. Brazil, for one, is planning to build a highway to Peru?s Pacific coast. Needless to say, the highway will affect great swathes of endemic forests. Yet it will also boost Brazil?s soya exports to Asia and give a new lease of life to one of Peru?s poorest areas. A true dilemma.

The southeast highway, on the other hand, will further marginalize the country?s poorest region. Tourists will no longer stop off at the dozen or so small villages on the south coast on their way to and from their hotels. What is more, the international experts, who recently conducted a survey of the RDA?s two routes for the highway, estimated that the cost of mitigation measures for the environment will amount to Rs 500 million. The Mauritian taxpayer will not only have to fork out Rs 1 billion for a highway that he doesn?t want, he will now have to pay an additional Rs 500 million to protect the environment that the highway destroyed in the first place! Preposterous! Wasting our hard-earned contributions on hare-brained schemes is one thing, but telling us that Mauritius is the best-managed country in the world is another. Will the last person to leave the island please switch off the lights?