Minister of Education and Attorney General Alfred Sears moved the Bill which calls for the establishment of a Clifton Heritage Authority to hold, maintain, preserve, promote and develop Clifton Heritage as a national park and historic site.<\/P><\/p>\n
In addition, the authority would be responsible for the running and management of the site and to establish a cultural resource centre which would promote the site’s history.<\/P><\/p>\n
The cost of acquiring the property and completing the project is still under negotiations by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister.<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr Sears said the Bill is extremely timely as Clifton is an important part of the county’s patrimony.<\/P><\/p>\n
He noted the site’s rich cultural history as the only known multi-cultural historical and archaeological site in the country.<\/P><\/p>\n
“The sites still preserved at Clifton may represent the last opportunity to learn about the daily lives of the people who first made the island their home,” he said.<\/P><\/p>\n
According to Mr Sears, Clifton can become a “living museum” catering to Bahamians and tourists alike.<\/P><\/p>\n
He noted that in addition to preserving the pre-historic and historic sites, the wetlands, marine environment, bird life, and other wildlife and trees and forests must be preserved.<\/P><\/p>\n
“Clifton is indeed a unique historic landscape in the country. We believe that in creating the Clifton Heritage Authority we can make a viable economic asset and at the same time preserve and showcase its historic integrity.”<\/P><\/p>\n
In seconding the Bill, Culture Minister Neville Wisdom said 208 acres of the Clifton property have been surveyed and holds the heritage of three cultures: the Lucayans, the Africans and the colonial settlers, and includes some of the last coppice in New Providence as well as outlands, a coastline and an offshore reef system “The importance of this singular site is beyond measure… In short, the site at Clifton is a meeting ground of cultural, environmental and historical significance.”<\/P><\/p>\n
He said the preservation of the site is critical to the country’s heritage and to the world.<\/P><\/p>\n
“We must move to establish Clifton not only as a national heritage site, but as a World Heritage site as well.”<\/P><\/p>\n
He added that preserving the site would also have sound economic significance to the country as a venue for cultural tourism.<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr Wisdom said a 2001 report on cultural and historic tourism reported that visitors to historic sites stay longer and spend more money than any other kind of tourist.<\/P><\/p>\n
“Visitors to historic and cultural attractions spend on average $632 per trip compared to $457 for all US travellers, and they spend an average of 4.7 nights away from home as compared to 3.4 nights for all other travellers.<\/P><\/p>\n
Heritage tourism provides for the diversification of local economies and the preservation, not destruction of a community’s unique character.<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr Wisdom said the protection, restoration and marketing of Clifton is important to the education of this generation and those to come, in every sense. It will be a living museum teaching our youngsters about themselves and their history; at the same time it will be a tourist attraction of some magnitude earning those youngsters and their families a living for years to come.<\/P>
\n
By Cara Brennen, The Tribune<\/B><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE PLP government moved a step closer to its goal of preserving the controversial Clifton plantation when debate on the Clifton Heritage Authority Act opened in the House of Assembly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}