Why is it that when a person defaces a building it is called vandalism, but when one obliterates nature its “progress”? That is one of many thoughts running through my mind as I listened to Prime Minister Christie speaking on 102.9 FM on Sunday, January 9th.
Host Charles Carter opened the show by congratulating Mr. Christie on his “embracing as many strands of opinion” to build a better country, I sat bemused listening to the “I’s”, the “My’s” and the “me’s” emanating from the Prime Minister.
It has only been some 2 ﾽ years since the Prime Minister talked about the inclusive government he would lead if elected. “Our Vision for the Bahamas will constitute a covenant with the people, is inclusive of all Bahamians”, the Prime Minister proclaimed in “Our Plan.” ﾠI speak from my own experience as one who has systematically been excluded from most environmental discussions. ﾠThe latest set of betrayals has come as no surprise.
After riding the wave of enormous sentiment expressed by the public to save Clifton, the PLP government has conveniently forgotten and ignored the people and the promise they made. ﾠThe continual dismissal of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet of issues and concerns regarding the environment flies in the face of reason and belies and belittles the enormous challenges our environment faces.
I would have hoped that this Government would have been astute enough to realize that they should follow the public’s wishes, as they did with the Clifton issue. ﾠI would have hoped that they might have kept that lesson firmly before them and continued to gain the people’s trust and admiration.
In the disappointing 2 hours on ISLAND FM’s Parliament Street, the Prime Minister never spoke of any initiatives his Government was taking to protect the environment. ﾠWhat he did speak about at length was the various projects his government had given permission to proceed with, the majority of which most Bahamians know nothing about, but which will impact their lives forever.
LNG and Fairy Dust
On Earth Day last year Mr. Christie was quoted in Parliament Square by the Guardian saying, “We are just not another country looking for revenue opportunities. We are another country, whose primary industry is tourism, and therefore we cannot afford to mistakenly and inappropriately agree to developments and industries that are inimical or inconsistent with the best interest of our tourism industry,”
On Sunday’s show the Prime Minister said “I’ve indicated previously and clearly with the intention of, if the environmental studies indicated that those facilities can be safely and securely placed in the Bahamas, the Bahamas will stand to gain from a significant amount of revenue each year from their presence here in the Bahamas.” What miracle of science or fairy dust sprinkling has occurred in less than a year that have now made all these concerns disappear?
The fact that the following environmental and social issues have never been addressed or explained by the government demonstrates that this project should not be allowed to proceed:
* There has been inadequate access to the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA). To date, the EIA for AES was open to the public for 20 days in Bimini and New Providence. The Tractebel EIA was only available in Grand Bahama. As a Bahamian I want to look at ANY development ANYWHERE in this country and it should be made available to anyone that wants to review it. The Bahamas is a signatory to Agenda 21 which requires the government to ensure that the public is involved and integrated in the environmental impact process * reEarth submitted over 130 questions to the BEST Commission regarding environmental concerns. To date there is no way of knowing if ANY of our concerns have been addressed as there has never been a response to letters written to the Ministry of Health and the BEST Commission.
The Prime Minister was also asked why we should allow this industry when we don’t have the regulatory structure or the expertise to deal with it. He responded, “With respect to our capacity to regulate and monitor it -well, it goes without saying you know I mean there has to be a beginning somewhere. We didn’t have the capacity to do all sorts of things when we became independent. People were saying you can’t become independent cause you can’t govern yourself, you can’t regulate yourself. Well that’s a simple matter of having regulatory laws put in place, a regulatory regime put in place and having people working for the Bahamas government who will assist us in monitoring it.”
So we are going to be importing labour to do these jobs? How do Bahamians benefit from this industry? Certainly not because of job creation. It is not as simple as putting a regulatory system in place -The Bahamas can barely develop relatively “benign” tourist resorts without severely impacting the environment – now this government is suggesting that we should boiler plate laws and the environment will be safeguarded? The government’s lack of ability and or desire to involve its citizenry in the public process of development does not bode well for its ability to implement and monitor the laws needed to develop and monitor these industries
The Prime Minister continued, “So, yes, when approval is given there will be a regulatory regime in place. We will be able to govern, monitor and regulate what is taking place.”
Approval should not be given without significant public review being made to these laws the government is suggesting, and the LNG terminals cannot be given the green light until this process has been completed.
If these plants are so benign why don’t they put them on American soil? Across America, from California to Florida, from the US borders of Canada and Mexico, LNG terminals are being challenged and their citizens are rejecting them. Why then is the Bahamas accepting them with open arms?
American companies should not be destroying our country for American energy needs, especially when they have natural gas supplies of their own which they choose not to exploit.
Sam Duncombe
January 31, 2005
Sam Duncombe is the founder of the environmental organization reEarth. reEarth is a nonprofit, environmental watch group founded in 1990 dedicated to increasing public awareness and understanding of environmental issues.
