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Last Updated: Nov 29, 2019 - 2:53:25 PM |
 NGO calls for prompt Parliamentary debate; immediate enforcement of long-awaited legislation
STATEMENT
Save The Bays
Save The Bays congratulates the government for tabling a suite of Environmental Bills in Parliament and looks forward to seeing them become enforceable law in the very near future.
The enactment of overarching environmental legislation has been a key objective of STB since its inception in 2013; an essential aspect of our ongoing fight against the scourge of unregulated development and a cornerstone of our advocacy for good governance in the Bahamas.
For far too long, investors have been allowed to destroy our country’s sensitive ecosystems and ruin our natural resources which are supposed to be the patrimony of future generations of Bahamians. Even worse, while laying waste to land and sea, many of these large-scale projects, often spearheaded by speculative developers, forever alter the face of our communities and skew local job markets only to falter within a few years leaving Bahamians high and dry.
The FNM government and Minister of Environment Romi Ferreira, a former STB director, are to be commended for undertaking this process. The days of the Bahamas being the Wild Wild West of development must come to an end.
It is our hope that the the Parliamentary debate on these Bills will proceed with urgency and that once passed, they will be brought into force immediately – unlike the previous administration’s Freedom of Information Act, or the pledge to give statutory protection to Marine Protected Areas. Both initiatives, unfortunately, remain in limbo and for the moment at least, are not worth the paper they are written on.
We also hope that the associated penalties will be enforceable, unlike the Blackbeard’s Cay case, in which the court ordered the area remediated to its pre-development condition, but the developer was able to simply ignore the ruling. Such brazen affronts to the new environmental laws must not be tolerated.
STB’s board and legal team are currently reviewing the Bills and will present government with any recommendations as soon as possible.
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