BY PETER LAURIE

HACKLETON'S CLIFF is a marvel of nature.

The cliff, created by the break-up of the coral limestone crust of the island, rises majestically almost 1 000 feet above the Scotland District, running in one unbroken stretch from near the parish church of St John to the Signal Station at Cotton Tower Hill, St Joseph.

From the cliff top, which is overgrown with bush, you get glimpses at two or three points of the Atlantic coast. If the bush were cleared you would enjoy a spectacular panorama of the rugged, windswept east coast from Ragged Point Lighthouse to Pico Tenerife; a view so breathtakingly scenic that it would be unequalled anywhere else in the Caribbean.

I have a vision for Hackleton's Cliff.

Rather, I have a nightmare and a dream.

The nightmare goes like this. The bush is cleared (the land abutting the cliff top is mainly in agriculture and is privately owned as far as I know). The magnificent view is revealed. Private developers construct luxury villas/town houses (starting at

US$1 million) in a gated community, adjoined by a small golf course and artificial lake. Huge profits are made and go into a few pockets. Par for the course.

Result: The people of Barbados are deprived of enjoying a great natural heritage, which is reserved for the super rich of the island and wealthy foreigners.

Now for the dream. The Government enters into an entrepreneurial partnership with interested business interests (with shares open to the public) to acquire a wide strip of land along the cliff top to create a heritage park (present land owners might be offered equity in the project if they are interested) catering to Barbadians and visitors alike.

It has to be a joint partnership between the public and private sectors, because Government is clueless when it comes to either seeing or exploiting successfully the full commercial possibilities in a project (Harrison's Cave, Pelican Village and the Concorde are good examples. Another is the wonderful boardwalk alongside the Careenage on which you cannot purchase so much as a cold drink or a coffee).

Business, on the other hand, is so fixated on short-term profit that it rarely thinks of the environment or the common good in a project, or even imagines that promoting the common good can yield more profit in the long run, that is, business is prone to killing the goose that lays the golden egg (e.g. any number of private tourism developments).

The public-private entity creates a park that is imaginatively designed and landscaped by our best architects. It includes a toll-based drive-through with parking set well back unobtrusively from the cliff.

Along the cliff edge there is a walking and cycling path with several cantilevered look-out points, at least one restaurant and two bars/rum shops, arts and craft and souvenir shops, and other vendors of fruit and vegetables who are not tucked away behind God's back as is our usual practice (what do we have against vendors in this country?)

There are also several picnic spots, an entertainment venue, and a museum devoted to the "Red Legs" of Barbados. Hiking tours are organised along the existing five trails down the cliff to the extensive forest below.

It requires little imagination to see all the spin-offs and opportunities for making profits.

The development might be phased - starting simply and building to critical mass.

The point is: we could create a beautiful park around an exquisite natural wonder that would be a great tourist attraction, a place for enjoyment and relaxation for Barbadians, and a commercial success, integrating rural development with tourism.

That is my dream.

But I'm too old to believe in dreams anymore.

I know with a dark sense of inevitability what will happen.