Two peas in a pod

Can any agenda be genuinely progressive without taking the health and integrity of the natural environment into account? The People's National Party (PNP) claims that its 'Progressive Agenda' represents a set of principles to be followed in preparing a manifesto for the coming general election. Since concern and care for the natural environment is missing from its 'Progressive Agenda', we can expect no better respect of the natural environment from a future PNP government than we saw in the past.

In these matters, you have to pay attention to actions, not words. In the 1990s and early 2000s, when I was head of an environment and development non-governmental organisation (NGO), we responded to the Government's call for NGOs to enter into a partnership with them to manage national parks, marine parks and protected areas. We did our part, and we (naively) believed that the Government would keep its promises.

We took an interest in the natural resources of south Clarendon and south St Catherine - the extensive dry limestone forests, mangroves, seagrass beds, coral reefs and cays of the Portland Bight area, with their native and endemic wildlife. Most of the land was owned by the Government, which gives it full control over what can take place there.

We prepared a management plan (which was accepted) which included sustainable community and nature tourism development, and we sourced millions of US dollars in funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the IDB. Hundreds of sustainable jobs would have been created, and hundreds of families would have been able to lift themselves out of poverty.

Broken promises, lost opportunities

The PNP Government broke almost every promise made to us. Although after six years of planning, the PNP created (in law) the Portland Bight Protected Area (PBPA) in 1999, and after four more years contracted us to manage it, the party did little else and, in fact, was obstructionist. Despite agreeing to put regulations in place to determine what can and cannot legally take place in the protected area, the PNP did not; no regulations meant no power to enforce and to implement the management plan.

Their lack of commitment and support meant that the GEF could not give us the funding, and a great opportunity was lost.

Twelve years later, the PBPA is protected in name only; no protection is in place, over and above what is available anywhere else in Jamaica. The same is true for the Palisadoes-Port Royal Protected Area - an enduring shame still hovering over the PNP's disastrous, unprogressive 17-year run.

The current Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government is no friend of the natural environment either. When it first came to office, it invited environmentalists to Jamaica House, and promised us transparency and a change of course from previous practices. If anything, things have got worse! We have had three environment ministers in four years, and still there are no protected-area regulations.

This Government has sent in bulldozers to dig up and destroy the natural environment in the Palisadoes-Port Royal Protected Area, building a quite unnecessary four-lane highway. The fact that there are no protected-area regulations means that the Government is not breaching any.

Controversial resort development

And now the latest madness: a private investor has approached the Government with a plan to build a 'resort development' on two of the small coral cays within the Portland Bight Protected Area. The ownership of these cays is vested in the commissioner of lands, and held in trust for the people of Jamaica. The private investor is asking the Government to turn these two cays over to him, so he can build a 'resort development' in the middle of a fairly pristine protected area. The fact that there are no protected-area regulations means that the Government is free to give away our valuable wilderness areas to private developers.

The commissioner of lands is entertaining the request; I thought it should have been turned down out of hand. Some years ago, we had asked the Government to vest all the PBPA wilderness lands in a Protected Area Lands Trust, which would insulate them from just such a situation. We were assured that it was not necessary, since the commissioner of lands would protect their conservation status.

And the NEPA-NRCA is entertaining the request, and terms of reference for an environmental impact assessment have been prepared (see http://www.nepa.gov.jm/tors/St.Catherine/Big-Little-Pelican-Cay/tor-eia.pdf).

It is at a time like this I wish we had campaign-finance legislation that required full disclosure, so that I could check whether this developer is a big donor to the party.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a natural resource manager. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.