The difference between Belize and Jamaica

Friday, February 17, 2012

Dear Editor,

I wish to comment on your February 6 editorial, "How Belize is showing up Jamaica". You correctly pointed out that Belize "boasts large untouched forests occupied by a wide variety of flora and fauna", and made the connection between a healthy environment and a thriving eco-tourism sector. Unfortunately, Jamaica cannot boast a single large, untouched forest, and put bluntly, we don't have the quality product of a Belize.

But in terms of competing on the eco-tourism market, and certainly in terms of comparisons to Belize, your editorial misses the mark. The main problem in Jamaica is loss of natural habitats. It was therefore disappointing that you hailed the The Florence Hall development as the "path" we should follow. This development will result in the loss of a coastal limestone forest adjacent to an important portion of the island's coast... to make way for a potential 3000 new residents. The developers have hired environmental and engineering consultants to develop a "constructed wetland system" to deal with all the human waste. But whereas eco-tourists might want to see a rehabilitated limestone forest, they most assuredly will not travel to Jamaica to see a sewage pond.

There is a big difference between a natural forest featuring indigenous wildlife species and a subdivision built over a (former) limestone forest, however sound the sewage arrangements may be or seem. Given the potential for sea-level rise, associated with climate change, increased storm surge and the growing threat of tropical storms, how safely contained will all the in-treatment sewage be?

Let's face it, Jamaica is desperately overcrowded. Belize has a population density over an order of magnitude smaller than JamRock's, at around 15 people per square km, vs the 250 per square km on Jamaica. Not surprisingly, land is in short supply on Jamaica, and we need to save every square metre of the natural environment that has not already been converted to agriculture or other development. A new residential development does not represent any sort of promise for the future of eco-tourism.

Dr Byron W Wilson

Senior Lecturer, Conservation Biology

Department of Life Sciences

UWI, Mona

byron.wilson@uwimona.edu.jm