Hope Village residents thankful for fruit orchard

Residents of Hope Village in Manchester are expressing gratitude to the National Road Operating and Constructing Company (NROCC) and its partners for making good on their commitment to replenish a fruit orchard in the community.

The residents came out in their numbers on the International Day of World Biological Diversity on Saturday, May 22, to participate in a tree-planting exercise along with members of the Highway 2000 family.

President of the Hope Village Citizens Association and Neighbourhood Watch, Verna Manning, said the community is happy for the initiative, as it will assist them in sustaining their families.

“As an association, we are extremely grateful because we believe that not only is music the staff of life, but food also, and we are very happy that they were able to partner with us and to take this fruit tree-planting a step further than the few we had, and so we are very grateful and proud for the partnership,” she said.

Manning explains that years ago, some trees had been given to the community by the then Alumina Partners of Canada, Jamaica Mining Company, now the West Indies Alumina Company, which was at the time operating the Kirkvine plant in close proximity to the community. She said that the NROCC partnership will add a more diverse mix of trees to the existing stock.

“We are expecting 400 fruit trees, including ackee, apple, plum, sweet tamarind, guava and a few others,” she added.

Councillor for the Bellefield Division, Mario Mitchell, who was also on location for the tree-planting exercise, pointed out that Hope Village, which has approximately 700 houses, was built in the 1950s, and refers to it as the first housing scheme in Jamaica. He said he is pleased with the open dialogue from the Highway 2000 stakeholders.

Mitchell indicated that regular meetings are held with NROCC and the contractor, China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), and that the idea for the tree-planting exercise in Hope Village was introduced at one such meeting. The tree-planting exercise was a joint effort of members of the Highway 2000 family, which includes NROCC, CHEC, Trans Jamaican Highway (TJH), Jamaica Infrastructure Operators (JIO) and Stanley Consultants Ltd. They were joined by the Rotaract Club of The University of the West Indies, Mona, whose members were participating in their second tree-planting exercise with NROCC. The first was a similar exercise where 400 trees were planted along the North-South leg of Highway 2000, near the Linstead Toll Plaza in Treadways, St Catherine.

Meanwhile, acting managing director at NROCC, George Nicholson, said environmental stewardship is very important to the organisation.

“It is one of the big things internally for us, where we seek to maintain environmental balance, as we try to incorporate the new environmental standard into our overall standards,” Nicholson explained.

“We are an ISO 9001 company and we’re going to incorporate, this year, ISO 14001 which looks at environmental management, so this is part of that exercise to support how NROCC operates as stewards of the environment,” he added.

Nicholson pointed out that as a matter of course, due to the building process, trees are lost during the highway construction.

For his part, managing director of TJH, Ivan Anderson, said his organisation expects to be the operator for the May Pen to Williamsfield section of the highway, “so NROCC is now doing the construction, which we expect to finish next year, and as soon as that is finished, we expect to be able to take it over and manage the highway itself. So today we have decided to partner with a number of entities in the tree-planting exercise”.

Anderson pointed to the prime minister’s tree-planting initiative as a major motivating factor for the activity.

“The prime minister, as you may recall, gave us a charge to plant one tree for every Jamaican, or three million trees over the next three years, so this is us playing our part,” he said.

Anderson indicates that each member of his team planted about six trees per person, “so we are well on the way”.

In the meantime, managing director of JIO, Angelica Wollenweber, explained that it is an annual affair for JIO to partner with TJH and NROCC on a project, and that for this exercise, she is pleased with the decision to plant trees.

“Of course, it’s a very good opportunity to be part of that, especially phase 1C [of Highway 2000], which is related to our motorway,” Wollenweber said.

She pointed out that JIO does the maintenance for TJH on the T1 and T2 motorways, and that this includes greenery and toll collection.

President-elect for UWI Mona Rotaract Club (2021-2022), Joshua Anderson, said that environmental advocacy is a major focus area for Rotary International and, by extension, for the UWI Mona Rotaract Club, “so for us, participating in an event like this is just natural”.

“With new developments, we have to have replenishment of the environment, because building roads and highways takes its toll on the environment and we cannot focus just on the economy and not on sustainability. It is imperative that we educate others and participate in these activities as citizens of Jamaica,” she said.

Environmental manager, NROCC, Errol Mortley, told JIS News that the Melrose Hill Bypass encroaches on an existing fruit orchard in the vicinity of Hope Village, and that the aim of the exercise is to replenish that fruit orchard.