+- Jamericans (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard)
+-- Forum: Jamaicaholics (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard/forumdisplay.php?fid=1)
+--- Forum: Message Board (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Thread: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans (/showthread.php?tid=100366)
Pages:
1
2
long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - Sharleen - 07-02-2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/02/opinion/townsend-jamaica-iguana/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
Editor's note: Wendy Townsend writes for children and young adults, and she and her family raise lizards as pets. Her third novel, "Blue Iguana," has just been released by namelos. The opinions in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Kenroy Williams, also known as "Booms," is "Guardian of the Reptiles" in Hellshire, located near the Goat Islands in Jamaica. The region is centered in the Portland Bight Protected Area, an area of ocean and land set apart in 1999 to protect its rich biodiversity of birds, reptiles, plants, trees and marine life.
But now, the Jamaican government is preparing to sell the Goat Islands to the China Harbour Engineering Co. to build a megafreighter seaport and industrial park. China Harbour is part of a conglomerate blacklisted by the World Bank under its Fraud and Corruption Sanctioning Policy.
"They're destroying what should be preserved," says Booms, who has been working to protect exceedingly rare reptiles in the area for seven years, including the critically endangered Jamaican iguana.
The specifics of the development are being withheld, but Jamaica Information Service reports it involves dredging and land reclamation, and a coal-fired power plant built to service the facilities. Environmentalists expect the mangrove forest on the two Goat Islands to be clear cut and the surrounding coral reef dredged.
With the threat to Goat Islands looming, Robin Moore, a fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers, flew to Jamaica to record images of wildlife and people who may soon see the destruction of their beaches, mangrove forest ecosystems and their livelihoods.
In a short film by Moore, Booms talks about what's at stake: "Portland Bight Protected Area consists of a beautiful beach and things that are here in Jamaica and found nowhere else, like the iguanas ...
"When the mangroves are destroyed, the earth won't stay together and then the water will take over. And that's the problem. And we won't have any beaches, and we can't do without beaches. If we have no beaches, we have no turtles. We won't have any crocodiles ..."
Booms especially fears for the Jamaican iguanas, Cyclura collei, thought to be extinct until 1990, when Edwin Duffus found one while hunting pigs in the Hellshire Hills. The Goat Islands are right off the Hellshire coast. At the time, surveys of the area revealed fewer than 100 iguanas remaining.
Hope Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Kingston, teamed with the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas and others, set up a program to rear baby iguanas until they're big enough to be safe from predators. After release, the iguanas are tracked and observed to see how well they fare.
The number of nesting females has grown from just six in 1991 to more than 30 in 2013. About 255 head-started iguanas have been released into Hellshire, the only place on earth -- other than the Goat Islands -- that they can survive. The Jamaica Iguana Recovery Project believes the islands are the sanctuary necessary to save the animal.
During the past 24 years, millions of dollars, plus the sweat of countless biologists and research volunteers, have been invested in bringing Cyclura collei back from the brink. Although many released iguanas are breeding and nesting in the wild, the animal is still critically endangered.
Jamaican iguanas can live for 40 years or more. They distinguish between strangers and researchers who come to the forest regularly and may show themselves once they feel safe.
Imagine a 4-foot long, 15-pound dinosaur-like animal walking out of the bush, sitting down nearby, and making eye contact with you.
"There is indeed something special about making eye contact with a Cyclura," herpetologist Rick Hudson, of the Fort Worth Zoo, said. "Back in the 1990s, you rarely saw an iguana; you might hear one crashing through the bush but glimpses were a special sight. Now, you go out in Hellshire and see big healthy iguanas that are habituated and come and hang out with you. It's the most incredible story I have ever been a part of."
The Jamaican Constitution states that the nation's citizens have "the right to enjoy a healthy and productive environment free from the threat of injury or damage from environmental abuse and degradation of the ecological heritage."
Some argue the project will bring jobs, but as fisherwoman Paulette Coley told Moore: "The government claims it will bring jobs and opportunity to the area, but we are not qualified, and we are not being trained for the jobs that will need to be done. They tell us what they want us to hear, but the reality is that we will be worse off."
Diana McCaulay, CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust, says that in past projects with Chinese contractors, most of the employees have been Chinese. "What is the benefit to Jamaica? That's not clear."
McCaulay says developing Goat Islands extends the global crisis of unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. "Jamaica is a small island," she says, "but this is happening all over the world, relentless pressure for high impact development that doesn't benefit local populations, particularly those who use the resources.
"Although global climate change is a clear danger to island nations, we are still building on the coast and taking out natural protections like mangroves. Our regulatory agencies simply cannot cope, especially with players like China who have huge financial resources and care little about the environment."
The rediscovery of the Jamaican iguana and the success of the recovery program has generated a huge conservation movement that draws international funding and ecotourism to the West Indies.
This ecotourism could be developed. In 2012, tourism contributed close to $4 billion to the economy of Jamaica and 25% of jobs in the country are tourism-based.
Tourists travel to see unspoiled beaches and native flora and fauna, and ideally, to see people living in a healthy relationship with their land. But if the Jamaican government sells out to Chinese developers, reversing its environmental protection laws and going against its own constitution, it will send the message that investing in tourism in Jamaica is unwise.
There is still time to help the Jamaican people save their national treasure. Both Jamaica and China care about international opinion. Letters expressing concern and signatures on a petition may persuade Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller to stop the proposed development.
Of his work as guardian of the reptiles ,Booms says, "My family and friends? Some of them think it's awesome. ... Some of them ask me if I really touch the lizards and some think I'm crazy when they hear about the crocodiles. But the truth of the matter is that they don't understand, and I know that. 'Cause if they were here like me, they would understand. We are at one with nature."
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - JonTom - 07-02-2014
Thanks Sharleen.
I would've changed his words from
"Now, you go out in Hellshire Hills and see big healthy iguanas that ... come and hang out with you."
to
"Now, a person goes out in Hellshire Hills and see big healthy iguanas that ... come and hang out with that person."
b/c I'm not hanging out with an iguana.
They're lovely/interesting looking creatures and all and certainly should be protected, but I'm not hanging with 'em.
Slightly more serious note... I hadn't noticed that the World Bank had blacklisted China Harbor. Not a good sign.
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - ohliz - 07-02-2014
(07-02-2014, 01:56 PM)JonTom Wrote: Slightly more serious note... I hadn't noticed that the World Bank had blacklisted China Harbor. Not a good sign.
Noticed that too.
This all makes me want to plan a few days in that area sometime soon. Guess a boat is required....
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - kylake - 07-03-2014
Here is a CNN article of the same story. They grow iguana's pretty big it sounds like (4 feet long).
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/02/opinion/townsend-jamaica-iguana/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - JonTom - 08-25-2014
article on a visit to Goat Islands arranged for some private sector leaders. Some made comments that have JET upset.
ONLY ANTS ON THE ISLAND - PRIVATE SECTOR LEADERS UNIMPRESSED AFTER VISIT TO GREATER GOAT ISLAND
http://www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com/caribbean-news-feeds/jamaica-gleaner/17594-only-ants-on-the-island-private-sector-leaders-unimpressed-after-visit-to-greater-goat-island
The visit was arranged, in part, by the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce and quotes its VP, who also happens to be the chairman of the Logistics Hub Committee... well, that certainly is a scientific survey.
"said Dr David Smith, vice-president of the JCC and chairman of the Logistics Hub Committee"
also note:
" It is almost as if the Goat Islands have already been sold." - bingo, we have a winner.
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - JonTom - 09-20-2016
JLP (in a letter to IMF) says it will go ahead with Goat Island/Logistics Hub. shocking. ... not.
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20160920/holness-administration-going-ahead-goat-islands-logistics-hub-plans
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - Mattjamaica - 09-20-2016
I did see a large iguana in the North of St Catherine up a tree once. Not sure if it was indigenous or an escaped pet, it surely had a big crowd gathered.
Like someone mentioned the govt was looking at Vernamfield in Clarendon for a transportation hub, close to rail, hwy 2000 and I think they were looking at another international airport, it isn't right next to the coast though so shipping may have been the issue. The original airport there had nefarious uses.
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - CardBoardBox - 09-24-2016
The reader comments in that news story are biased, one way or the other. The whole thing is very, very upsetting.
When I read one reply comment I wanted to reply, but no one in a high enough position would care.
Here is the comment followed by what I would say:
That's a broad generalization. Everything depends on what the governments negotiate. You can't look at the what happens in the Congo and assume that will happen in Jamaica.
--
Just because someone else dies from a rattle snake bite does not mean you will too. (Let's wait and see after you get bit)
The government will sell the soul of its people for a dollar.
Goat island is more about the shipping hub going to be constructed for big ships, that area which in 1957 was classified as necessary and to be protected forever.
# # #
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - rastagirl777 - 09-24-2016
Read today that the Goat Island Project has been scrapped! Jamaica said NO to the Chinese. Great news! Persistence does work - proved here and with the proposed breakwater in Negril. In a place where we seldom see any forward progress this is heartening.
RE: long article on Goat Island & Chinese plans - CardBoardBox - 09-24-2016
My orig posting here was: RG777, please edit/modify your above post and add in the reference place. I desire to read what they wrote and gather the tone/detail.
Additional text upon revison: I searched and found "it."
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20160924/govt-scraps-goat-island-project
rime Minister Andrew Holness says the Jamaican Government will not be going ahead with plans to develop a trans-shipment port and industrial park on Goat Islands in the Portland Bight Protected Area.
...
"There are other locations in Jamaica that would do less environmental damage and probably be just as good strategically," Holness said.
(more in the full story)