US ambassador calls for protection of the environment

WESTERN BUREAU:United States Ambassador to Jamaica Pamela Bridgewater says the country should strengthen its efforts to protect the natural environment, especially in light of climate change and the country's dependence on tourism, which relies on a healthy environment for its survival.

Bridgewater made her comments during her keynote address at the Fulbright Academy's Eighth Annual Conference Summit on Global Health at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay last week.

"Environmental problems such as poor sanitation systems and practices, challenges in vector control, limited recycling, and climate-change concerns such as low air quality are cause for concern," Bridgewater said, adding that climate-change adaptation was one of two key programmatic areas of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Jamaica at present.

"Recycling and poor air quality speak to regulatory and enforcement concerns related to location of dumps, the common practice of burning garbage, and the lack of urgency to tackle these problems. Jamaica benefits greatly from tourism, and it would be wise to revisit issues such as waste management, particularly non-degradable waste and how this affects the beaches, the flora, and the fauna. It can contaminate the environment, which the tourist sector and average Jamaicans strive to maintain," the ambassador added.

Turning to the general physical health and wellness of the Jamaican population, Bridgewater said she was paying keen attention to the prevalence of preventable lifestyle illnesses. She said the main public concerns related to non-communicable diseases, endemic communicable diseases, environmental challenges, and the impact of escalating health costs on the overall economy.

"As resident US ambassador to Jamaica, I have always been interested in strengthening Jamaica's national health systems and in improving our lifestyles," she said. "These are conscious choices that we make. USAID leads the way by tracking and reporting to me the results of partnerships between the US and US-based companies and our counterparts in the Jamaican health sector.

"Our discussions reveal that there are high-risk behaviours such as poor nutrition - sometimes based on poor or uninformed choices - lack of physical activity and exercise, non-compliance with medical advice on how to take prescribed medications, and the lack of diagnosis because people simply don't seek medical advice in a timely way," she added.

The ambassador said that despite the challenges, Jamaica had made progress in some key programme areas which could aid in guaranteeing the good health of its citizens. These included improved access to health care, promotion of healthy lifestyles via public education campaigns, and agricultural improvements, including increased consumption of local foods and reduction of HIV transmission and AIDS-related deaths.

"The Government of Jamaica offers interventions such as the National Health Fund to assist with the purchase of medicine, and the average farmer produces in a mainly organic way - which is very good - using only the very basic needed pesticides," Bridgewater said.

"In the area of HIV/AIDS, this is an area of great concern to me personally because I have been charged by President Obama to tackle it through a wide range of strategies, and I had the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in Jamaica, and our multi-tiered partnerships have begun to reap results in our efforts to reduce the rate of new infections. In fact, current data shows that the Caribbean leads the world in rates of reduction in new infections and HIV-related deaths," she said.

- CG