Development has to do with reordering nature to the physical and operational requirements of people who are seeking profit from their efforts. Secondary considerations come in for little, if any, consideration during the development stage. Those niceties may come later, if at all. This is what happened to Roatan. And that entailed the destruction of eons of nature's patient building.
Nature is helpless in the face of men and machines.
However, Roatan is doing the best it can under the existing situation, and in some of the less-pressured areas, the situation is still not too bad. The Hondo1 List has, from time to time, carried a good bit of material that reflects an ecological and anthropological thrust. These are the people who might presumably chart a course that could save the life of the island. Certainly there has been no shortage of conversation, earnest discussion, and a plethora of high-sounding debates over technical minutae, but there seems to be no discernible inclination to turn talk into programs and projects. This has been and is the continuing target of the lion's share of my criticism.