Editorial | Keep eye on Alligator Pond

It is infrequent that Jamaicans have cause to celebrate the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) for its actions to protect the island’s environment.

They should do so now with respect to the NRCA’s, and the Town and Country Planning Authority’s decision on December 19 to deny approval for a company, Ready Sand Gravel Limited, to mine minerals at Alligator Pond on the Manchester-Elizabeth border on Jamaica’s south coast.

However, the action by these agencies – for which the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) provides the technical and administrative underpinnings – does not necessarily mean the issue is at an end. Jamaicans must therefore remain vigilant, given recent precedents of decisions against mining in ecologically sensitive areas being overturned.

Under the NRCA Act, Ready Sand and Gravel can appeal to the responsible minister, who in this case is Prime Minister Andrew Holness, although, operationally, the point man is Matthew Samuda, a minister in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation. Mr Samuda is normally level-headed, with a general commitment to environmental protection.

Alligator Pond, a fishing beach and a popular area for seafood in rustic settings, is already environmentally vulnerable. It is one of the areas of Jamaica where the shoreline is already stressed, facing, according to environmental impact assessments, the loss of much sand as it receives. That is the effect of natural occurrences, insofar as the outcomes of global warming and climate change can be deemed as such.

Indeed, it is among eight Jamaican environmental protection projects for which the World Bank is considering loans to Jamaica.

SAND DUNE

Alligator Pond’s erosion and deepening vulnerability is perhaps masked to some by the presence of towering sand dunes on its beaches, which help to protect the coastline during sea surges and storms. Those dunes, presumably, could be subjected to mining if a permit was granted.

But as the agencies warned: “Anthropogenic pressures, inclusive of the proposed activity, can potentially lead to environmental degradation, as well as negative impacts on coastal communities.”

Those arguments ought to be sufficient to close the matter. Completely!

But with respect to environmental and ecological protection, clear and obvious logic does not always prevail. Rather, the environment is more likely to be sacrificed in favour of perceived immediate economic gain. The granting of licences and permits to a company, Bengal Developments, to quarry limestone in the ecologically sensitive Dry Harbour Mountains, at Bengal, near Rio Bueno on the island’s north coast, is a case in point.

The Dry Harbour Mountains is an area with karstic features, including underground rivers, which is important to the island’s water resources. It is also home to a range of endemic flora and fauna.

In 2020, NEPA turned down the owner’s request to mine 120 acres of the over 569-acre property, from which around 40 million tonnes of limestone would be extracted over two decades. Bengal Developments appealed and Prime Minister Holness upheld the decision of one of his ministers to overturn NEPA’s decision.

OPERATING CONDITIONS

In the face of a widespread outcry, including by residents of the Bengal community who went to court seeking constitutional redress, Mr Holness announced that he had imposed 76 operating conditions on Bengal’s licences and had required them to post a J$40-million bond to correct any damage to the environment.

That bond was to have been posted in January 2021. It took three missed deadlines and six months late before it was posted.

The Government subsequently announced that the company would be offered alternative limestone sites for the disputed mining zone. Unfortunately, the Bengal issue has gone cold since an early 2023 disclosure by the then mining minister, Audley Shaw, that he was preparing to offer Bengal Developments a formal mining permit.

The Bengal matter points to why stakeholders in the Alligator Pond issue, which translates to all Jamaicans, should remain vigilant with respect to an appeal by the prospective miners. If that happens, NEPA cannot be a disinterested party, offering anodyne ‘on-the-one-hand, but-on-the-other-hand’ analyses on damage and mitigation, which, in the end, is really a loophole for mining to take place. That would not, on the face of it, be protecting Jamaica’s interest.