Peter Espeut I DID not have a column last week, so please allow me to wish you a Merry Christmas! Yes, we are still in the Christmas Season; of the twelve days of Christmas we still have six left (Christmas ends on January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, the celebration of the coming of the three wise men from the east).
Make no mistake, despite our legion of churches of all stripes, Jamaica is now almost fully a post-Christian society, and Christmas has precious little left of its religious meaning. It has largely been co-opted by our merchants and media as the season for an orgy of commerce and trade and advertising. Once people stop buying and advertising, Christmas has ended de facto, no matter what the religious traditions. It is the Church's duty to rescue its heritage from those who have debased it.
How time flies! Already it is the end of the second year of the Twenty-First Century of the Christian Era! And what a time it has been for the environment! We have had four Ministers of the Environment in three years with corresponding policy flip-flops and environmental destruction.
In 2000, we lost Minister of the Environment and Housing Easton Douglas over his distasteful scheme to build houses in Hope Gardens. Thankfully that Ministry - riddled with conflicts of interest - was abolished and the portfolio of the environment was married to 'Land', but in such a manner that even more conflicts of interest have been created. The Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) has been completely castrated and hamstrung by its parent Ministry, and has been decidedly ineffective at environmental conservation (a member of the NRCA board once irreverently advised me that the NRCA actually stands for 'Not Really Conserving Anything' - and I agree!).
It was such a shame to see the political career of that real gentleman - the Honourable Seymour Mullings - end in such failure. On his way out of the political arena, as interim Minister of the Environment he was simply unable or unwilling to deal with the anti-environmental forces which had taken hold of his Ministry, and he found himself presiding over the unholy administrative merger between the NRCA and the Town Planning Department to form the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), which only deepened the conflicts of interest between environmental conservation and unsustainable development. (That same irreverent person claims that NEPA really stands for 'Not Even Protecting Anything').
Next up to bat was the promising Minister Horace Dalley, who unfortunately, did not understand the meaning of sustainable development. Had his testosterone levels been higher he might have made a difference, but he found himself faced with situations he chose to treat as fait accompli.
His name will go down in history as the Minister who signed the permit for the dredging which destroyed both the historic Gun Cay and the fishing and shrimping grounds of hundreds of fishers. The real test of impartial government is how well it regulates itself, how well one department of government is able to keep other ministries and departments in line by applying the same objective guidelines which apply to the private sector.
This heinous destruction of the environment and the livelihoods of thousands of Jamaicans in 2002 is a clear indication that the environmental regulators cannot withstand the pressures which come from powerful government agencies like the Port Authority. It was shameful that the permit to dredge was granted by Minister Dalley without the required public meeting to expose the plans to the stakeholders. In some other countries, this would be considered ultra vires and cause for court action.
For me, the 2002 prize for Environmental Destruction goes to Minister Horace Dalley and the Port Authority of Jamaica. They are in good company; previous winners have been the UDC, Jampro and the developers of that ugly housing project in Long Mountain.
Speaking of which, I have never understood why every hare-brained scheme which requires government land to come off seems to get government support - and the land. What is the imperative to facilitate these get-rich-quick schemes? I have no idea, but there are rumours. Now we hear that the upscale houses are not selling well. Poetic justice!
The new Minister of the Environment, the Hon. Dean Peart, is barely on the job, so one must not rush to judgement; but one hears that he is cut from different cloth than the others; if true, it would be a breath of fresh air so rare in our polluted atmosphere. We must give him time to find his feet, and we sincerely hope 2003 will turn out to be a better year for the environment.
Please allow me to wish you all a Happy New Year! I would like to think that things could not possibly be worse, but I have lived long enough (I will be fifty this month!) to know that no matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. But let us not bring any negativity of our own into the new year; we may well find that enough of that is generated as 2003 advances.
Peter Espeut is a Sociologist and Executive Director of an Environment and Development NGO.
