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Holness calls for ‘environmental informers’

Published:Thursday | October 28, 2021 | 1:48 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural Juliet Holness as she makes her contribution to the 2021 Constituency Debates on Tuesday.
Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural Juliet Holness as she makes her contribution to the 2021 Constituency Debates on Tuesday.

Member of Parliament (MP) for St Andrew East Rural Juliet Holness has issued a call for her constituents to become environmental informants by bringing to the attention of the relevant authorities any activities which may contribute to global warming or which do not conform to good environmental stewardship.

This is because the challenges facing the constituency are many, with environmental weaknesses compounded by years of infrastructural neglect contributing to major road breakaways, with the recently repaired Gordon Town main road being a prime example. Repairs to the breakaway were completed at a cost of $187 million in record time and under budget, Holness told the House of Representatives on Tuesday, while participating in the Constituency Debate.

In November 2020, this critical stretch of road was damaged due to severe weather conditions associated with Tropical Storm Eta and became an immediate priority for repair, as lives and livelihoods were threatened. In fact, the largely farming constituency is characterised by steep, winding roads, with some homes precariously perched on steep hillsides.

With COP26 set to get under way in Scotland at the end of the month, where world leaders, including Prime Minister Andrew Holness, are expected to discuss the most critical climate change issues, with global warming topping the agenda, the MP urged her constituents to consider resilience, sustainability and safety in their choice of spaces to build homes.

“We continue to keep it real in expressing grave concern for persons choosing to establish residences in unstable or ecologically vulnerable areas because for far too long irresponsible leadership has encouraged this. Citizens must exercise collective responsibility for establishing sustainable and compliant communities.

STRATEGIES

“In this information age, our people need to become informants, informers, and information agents, as we inform each other of the dangers and risks of settling in these vulnerable areas, sharing mitigation strategies, as well as informing government representatives and agencies where these settlements have begun, or seem to be developing, so that we can engage in early intervention. Caribbean Terrace has been a long-standing challenge due to the adverse effects of climate change and its associated environmental issues.”

In a recent interview with The Gleaner, Parris Lyew-Ayee Jr, executive director of the Mona Informatics Institute at the University of the West Indies called out politicians on this very issue of people being allowed to build their homes in at-risk areas. He argued that given the size and topography of some constituencies, it would be foolhardy to allocate the same resources to all of them.

“You cannot have a uniformed flood mitigation plan across all 63 constituencies, when constituencies are differentially affected by natural hazards. You’re trying to give everybody 63 even pieces of the pie, but that’s not going to mean anything. Large constituencies, large parishes, large communities have different incipient risks than other areas. Nature doesn’t care about your politics and some constituencies are larger than the parish of Kingston, so we have to understand that kind of response,” he declared.

“The argument about squatters living in hazard-prone areas needs to come out of the political arena. Is their vote more important than their lives and investments and all that kind of good stuff? Is the continued bailing out of people who choose to put themselves in harm’s way going to be tolerated?”

Meanwhile, Holness said that she would continue to advocate for and support projects to improve the environmental sustainability of her constituency.

“We are proud of our tree-planting programme and plan to expand it, as we understand the significance of trees in preventing soil erosion as well as for water supply. We understand the importance of East Rural as a critical watershed for Kingston City and, therefore, how important functional distributaries including our rivers are to this process. We welcome the announcement of $200 million in river training under the Serve Jamaica fund and have advocated to secure sections of Cane River and Craig Hill through these funds.”