Cockpit Country defenders reschedule march on Parliament
Published:Friday | September 6, 2019 | 12:16 AMAdrian Frater/News Editor
Western Bureau:
The planned anti-bauxite mining protest, which was slated to take place outside of Gordon House on Tuesday, was belatedly called off after organisers realised that lawmakers were on a break. They now intend to turn out in their numbers outside Parliament on September 17.
The protest is aimed at getting the Government to reverse its position to allow mining outside what it has deemed the so-called protected area of the Cockpit Country.
Residents and the Cockpit Country Coalition, which features environmentalists, residents, small business groups, Maroons, and members of the Rastafarian community, are disputing the boundaries the Government has created.
Environmentalist Hugh Dixon, who has emerged as one of the leaders in the movement to protect the Cockpit Country, which produces 40 per cent of the nation’s domestic water and is rich in medicinal plants, says the protest is to make a profound statement to the Government that any intrusion into the disputed area would be ill-conceived.
“The aim of the demonstration is to make a firm, resounding, and decisive statement to the Government of Jamaica that the residents in Cockpit Country, the diaspora, and our resting ancestors are diametrically opposed to any form of mining in the Cockpit Country landscape,” said Dixon.
“The message to the Government is to withdraw the ill-conceived ‘Cockpit Country Protected Area Boundary’ presented in Parliament on November 21, 2017, which was designed deliberately by Government to facilitate the mining of rich bauxite deposits known to be in Cockpit Country landscape and starting with the mining of Special Mining Lease Area 173,” stated Dixon.
“We are calling on the Government to replace the Cockpit Country Protected Area Boundary with the Cockpit Country Stakeholders Boundary, which was recommended as the outer border of the Cockpit Country landscape in the 2013 islandwide public consultations report on defining the Cockpit Country boundary, which was done by Professor Dale Webber.”
At the September 17 protest, members of the Maroon community are expected to sound their sacred abeng, which their ancestors used to send messages and which was an important communication instrument in their wars against the British.