St Helena, which is a British dependency, has dependencies of its own - one of which is Tristan da Cunha. Tristan is relatively rich thanks to a lucrative lobster industry. Why not St Helena too? Well, there was a St Helena lobster development project, about 20 years ago. Courtesy of a British government development aid project, a boat was sent out, with equipment and a trainer to teach the local fisherman how to catch lobster. Within a few months the "industry" had blossomed and then died. The lobsters had been fished out. There has been no lobster fishing industry since, although the odd lobster is caught occasionally. St Helena's local waters are relatively barren and cannot support concentrated fishing of particular species.
Lesson: if the local people have not been exploiting a particular resource, there may be a good reason. Read Jared Diamond's "Collapse" for more drastic examples of how societies have destroyed the environments in which they lived. (The first several pages are available online.)
Why write about St Helena, which is a 39-square mile British dependent territory located in the middle of the South Atlantic, with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants? Because it is one of the most aid-dependent economies in the world. Because there have been many attempts to develop the island's private sector and the aid business has not always been good at learning from experience. If we look closely, we are humbled by history. Above all, because St Helena is a wonderful place. Tapping into the seam of stories about St Helena gives one a feeling similar to which the geologist who discovered Botswana's first diamond mine in 1967 must have had: the excitement at finding little gems which can bring a lot of pleasure to people. More about St. Helena.
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