Peter Espeut | Farmland into housing, hotels

Some decisions that ­governments take are ‘no turning back’ decisions. They so change the physical landscape that, should negative impacts result, the damage cannot be reversed. All of us need to be vigilant so that such decisions are not taken, of if taken, are not implemented.

Such a ‘no turning back’ decision was the plan to convert the Goat Islands into a shipping port-cum-residential enclave, and who knows what else. The dredging of Portland Bight, which would be required, would damage the benthos of Jamaica’s largest embayment forever! Happily, the Government changed its mind, and the Goat Islands are to become a wildlife sanctuary.

Jamaica’s rising population need clean freshwater for personal and household purposes, and any ­government decision which would reduce the quantity of water ­available to present and future generations for the sake of short-term gains must be challenged and fought by well-thinking Jamaicans.

The undertaking given by various governments that there would be no mining in the Cockpit Country was welcome. The Government’s attempt to claim that they will keep that promise by declaring a small no-mining area within the large Cockpit Country is pure ginnalship, and well-­thinking Jamaicans continue to insist that the original promise must be kept. Our water resources are not so abundant that such a large watershed can be permanently destroyed by mining, which is of only fleeting benefit to a few.

FOOD SECURITY

Every nation seeks to be able to feed its population with as few imports as possible for balance of payments reasons. But a much more important reason why an island like Jamaica should seek to be able to feed its residents is food security. In times of war or ­international calamity when imports of foreign foodstuffs are reduced, a country that cannot feed itself will suffer food shortages and real hardship. A policy of ‘eat what you grow, and grow what you eat’ is only common sense.

Not all of Jamaica’s land is arable. Jamaica is mostly limestone, and our acreage of cultivable fertile soils is small. It is well-known and accepted that if we convert good agricultural land into housing and hotels, we are foreclosing on our future options to feed ourselves. This is why early in our political independence (1966), Jamaica passed a Land Development and Utilization (LDU) Act and created a Commission (the LDUC) to ­prevent us heading down that slippery slope.

But what if it is the Government that wishes to convert good agricultural land into housing and hotels? Can a government agency comprised of political appointees halt ill-conceived ‘no turning back’ government projects? Can the Jamaican Government police itself?

The LDUC has been merged into the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), a toothless government agency which so far has been unable to resist political pressure to issue permits for unsustainable ­activity. Quite against its mandate, the NEPA/LDUC has given permission for the conversion of the prime agricultural lands at Bernard Lodge and Innswood into housing.

All well-thinking Jamaicans should rise up and fight against this short-sighted ­politically-driven plan to create large ­housing schemes which have the potential to become new garrison communities.

I notice that earlier this week, ground was broken for a new hotel project at Llandovery in St Ann on over 200 acres of prime agricultural land. The hotel will be appropriately named – Sugarcane Bay – as Llandovery was one of the oldest Jamaican sugar estates in continuous production (since 1674), and was probably also a sugar estate under the Spaniards.

Charles Johnson, a bookkeeper on Llandovery estate, wrote the following in 1832: “The estate on which I was placed was possessed of nearly four hundred slaves and three hundred working cattle, and made, yearly, five hundred hogsheads of sugar, and fifty ­puncheons of rum”.

It seems to be the policy of this Government to convert good agricultural land into housing and hotels. The next thing they will announce is the repeal of the LDU Act and the dissolution of the LDUC. They may as well, for they are useless to bind the strong man.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and sustainable development scientist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com