Peter Espeut
A CATCH-PHRASE from the '90s which has carried over into the new millennium is "sustainable development". Indeed, the adjective "sustainable" has become attached to all sorts of nouns, like "sustainable tourism", "sustainable forestry", "sustainable fishing", "sustainable financing". But I remain convinced that there are too few people who seem to know what sustainability means.
Sustainability has to do with the future. Sustainable wood production, for example, or paper production or furniture production has to do with the ability to continue doing what you are now doing for the next 20 years, 100 years, 500 years, without diminishing the natural resources, locally or overseas, on which you depend.
I remember going to a seminar at JAMPRO some years ago where they were talking about sustainable mining. Of course, there is no such thing. No ore, whether bauxite or gold, will last forever; one day it will be finished. Mining and sustainable development are incompatible concepts.
BALANCE
Some people have the big misunderstanding that sustainable development is a "balance" between the concerns of the environmentalists and the concerns of the "development" advocates. I heard that said on the 'Breakfast Club' yesterday. This is a false notion. A balance would mean that sometimes the environmentalists win and sometimes the "development" advocates win. You protect some environment this time, you destroy some the next time. This is not sustainable. In fact, it would fit the definition of "unsustainable development" which is actually an oxymoron. I support the view that "if it ain't sustainable, it ain't development". With this approach, eventually you will have nothing left to protect.
This approach also gives the word "development" a bad name.
SOUTH COAST DEVELOPMENT
Some years ago the government took the good decision to prepare a plan for the sustainable development of the south coast, and they borrowed tens of millions of dollars from the Inter-Development Bank (IDB) to conduct it. The timing was good, for tourism had destroyed much of the natural environment on the north coast, and the concern was that the same thing should not be allowed to happen on the south.
The study recommended that the tourism product offered on the south coast should be different to the product on the north; it should not be high density and should have a small environmental footprint so that the natural character of the south coast would be maintained. The Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development developed by the Ministry of Tourism is consistent with the recommendations of the South Coast Sustainable Development Plan (SCSDP).
The ink was not even dry on the two documents before the Sandals Whitehouse project was developed, which contravened the policies contained in both documents. A highly placed government official admitted to me that the Whitehouse project was "a travesty". Recently for other reasons, some people have begun to refer to the project as "Scandals Whitehouse"; but if you ask me, the real scandal of Whitehouse was the flagrant shelving of the concern for sustainable development that the project represents, despite the tens of millions of dollars spent (clearly wasted) to prepare a sustainable development plan. And to make it worse, it was taxpayers' money which was used to build this travesty. We cannot even blame the rapacious private sector for mashing up the environment.
It is not only its own sustainable development plans that the government ignores; it also ignores its own procedures with respect to granting permits for so-called development projects. Both the dumping up of Kingston Harbour alongside Fort Augusta, and the construction of shrimp farms at the mouth of the Rio Minho, received their permits without any public meeting taking place. I have often said that the Jamaican government itself is Jamaica's Environmental Enemy Number One!
EXPECT MORE
Now that the door has been opened by the government for unsustainable tourism on the south coast, we can expect more. God help us!
Of course, unsustainable development on the north coast has not ceased. You would have thought that having destroyed so much of the north coast coral reefs, wetlands and forest cover, the government would make a special effort to conserve the last remaining natural areas there. No such luck! The beautiful coastal dry forest and salina at Pear Tree Bottom will now give way to another hotel. In my experience, the reefs off Pear Tree Bottom provide one of the best opportunities for scuba diving in Jamaica. I shudder to think what will become of them once channels for boating, water skiing, parasailing and jet skiing are blasted.
At the same time, a new hotel at Harmony Cove, oil exploration on Walton Bank and bauxite mining in the biodiversity-rich Cockpit Country have been announced as done deals without any environmental impact studies having been done.
So much for sustainable development!
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
