Martin Henry
DID ANYONE seriously believe that the 85 per cent complete Bahia Principe hotel at Pear Tree Bottom would never be completed?
On May 16, Supreme Court judge Bryan Sykes, responding to action brought by a consortium of environmental agencies, had handed down judgement quashing the environmental permit granted for the construction of the hotel. The judge ruled on grounds of breaches of procedure by state agencies, which he proceeded to lash severely.
But even then the hotel was granted a stay on the implementation of the quash order, and construction continued. Just over a month later, the same judge, hearing arguments from the hotel owners, who had spent US$62 million on the project in good faith, and from the Solicitor-General's Department acting on behalf of the delinquent state agencies, quashed his original quash order.
ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE
According to Deputy Solicitor-General Patrick Foster, "The decision is fair and balanced and took into account additional evidence which the judge did not have when he made the decision to quash the permit."
It is this fairness and balance which is gong to be important in the future as environmental concerns clash with economic concerns. Interestingly, both 'ecology' and 'economy' come from the same Greek root 'oikos' which means house. Fairly balancing housekeeping matters for the preservation of the household while using its resources to produce goods and services which the householders want is the way to go, as Judge Sykes has so reasonably demonstrated.
'Ecosystem services' has become a new buzz word in the environment and development debate. Essentially, ecosystem services consider the services people obtain from their environment, the economic and social values attached to these services and how to preserve the natural systems which provide these services.
This has to be our goal and strategy in the balancing of these two sides of the oikos. The environmental organisations which challenged the Bahia Principe hotel project need not feel defeated with the new ruling for the completion of construction of the Bahia Principe. There were major victories: Environment/ development issues have been thrust into the judicial arena where we must continue to expect fairness and balance.
NO BUSINESS AS USUAL
The state agencies for the environment and development cannot return to business as usual. Developers can no longer proceed in cavalier and haphazard fashion. The environmentalists themselves, making a great living off environmental impact assessments, are now forced to proceed with the greatest of caution, fairness and balance. And, perhaps best of all, public awareness and engagement have been given a major upward push.
Tourism and, indeed, all human action are going to continue to alter the Jamaican environment, as in the past. One other major activity, which is now the second biggest earner of foreign exchange if the drug trade and remittances are ruled out, bauxite mining, has had its own major impact on the Jamaican environment. I can't imagine anyone saying, let's not mine bauxite. But I am not very happy that so far deeper independent investigations have not been done to identify any possible relationship between bauxite excavations and the unusual floodings in central Jamaica. Compensation, and restoration as far as possible, would be in order if any empirical link is made. The fair and balanced principle of the polluter/damager pays is a powerful tool for sound environmental stewardship.
Restorative work has always been part of the legal responsibility of the mining companies. It was good, therefore, to see recently that some 30,000 farmers are on a JBI-led programme, supported by research, to grow cash crops on reclaimed mined lands.
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
