Why is Government speaking at a Climate Summit while refusing to engage with local environmentalists? The Highway Reroute Movement (HRM) notes with great interest that several ministers of Government today (Monday September 22) flew out of the country to take part in activities surrounding the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The team that flew out was led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and included, we understand from various media reports, Minister of Trade Vasant Bharath, Planning Minister, Bhoe Tewarie, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Dookeran, Minister of National Diversity Rodger Samuel, Finance Minister, Larry Howai and Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine. The HRM understands that the Prime Minister will speak at a Leaders’ Forum on Women Leading the Way at an event that is supposed to demonstrate women’s leadership on climate action and put gender equality at the centre of discussions on climate change and sustainable development. The PM will also address the UN Climate Summit where she will be among those discussing reducing emissions and strengthening resilience of nations facing global warming. The HRM is fully supportive of our Prime Minister and our Government taking steps to protect this country from the multiple dangers we face from climate change and global warming. We expect that the Government and the Prime Minister will be signatories to certain United Nations documents that will seek to address the international and local issues that contribute to climate change. We would hope, however, that having made these agreements the Government will honour and follow through on its commitments and promises so as to ensure a long and environmentally healthy future for our country of Trinidad and Tobago. We hope that we can be forgiven, though, if we are skeptical and hesitant to believe that the Prime Minister and her Government will follow through on her commitments given her failure to do so with the Highway Review Committee’s Report coined the Armstrong Report. The HRM finds it ironic that the Prime Minister and her party will be discussing climate and environmental issues at an international level but refuses to do so at a local level. The Government team, it should be noted, has flown out of the country while this country is facing multiple environmental issues that remain unaddressed but which will have short and long term environmental, health and socio-economic effects on the people of this country and the sustainability of our environment and our country as a whole. We speak, in particular, of the issue of the impact of ongoing work on the the Debe to Mon Desir segment of the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway extension to Point Fortin. “She is going to take a chunk of the northern range and dump it into a valuable wetland system to destroy and fragment the economy of 13 communities. I hope someone tells the United Nations this,” leader of the HRM, Dr Wayne Kublalsingh says. As previously noted by Dr Kublalsingh, the ongoing work will “destroy over 300 homes, fragment 13 communities, destroy multi-billion and million dollar businesses, run an embankment through one of our last remaining wetland system, fragment a well-ordered street network, destroy thousands of acres of agricultural land, break up a system of commerce, land inheritance and tenure, without doing the studies to determine if this is the correct and viable thing to do.” If a Government can ignore the environmental and human impact of its so-called development work in one significant area of our small country, what more can we expect at a larger national level? There has already been talk about tar sand mining which will destroy large swaths of the environment and contribute to the polluting of our air and waterways. The mangroves in northwest Trinidad are being destroyed to the detriment of the ecological balance of the area. The La Basse in Port of Spain continues to burn and spew toxic air to the thousands of workers on the streets and in buildings in the capital city. And in the South oil spills seem to occur every other week with no real action plan in hand to deal with this. We urge the Prime Minister and her Government to keep their word on the Armstrong Report and, further, to have a team of her technical people meet with representatives of the HRM so we may seek a solution to this impasse that will redound to the benefit of the people of the area and to the country at large. Alternatively, an independent technical committee should be established to conduct a detailed review of the Debe to Mon Desir Segment of the highway. We the members of the HRM are committed to accepting compensation for our homes and lands should the independent technical review determine that the proposed Debe to Mon Desir segment meets all the statutory, environmental and social requirements and is proven to be economically feasible.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 20:12:07 +0000
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