NASSAU, Bahamas, CANA:
ajor developers with an eye on the Bahamas will have to meet strict environmental standards, the Nassau Guardian newspaper said Friday.
The standards will be applied across the country, the paper quoted Governor-General, Sir Orville Turnquest, as saying.
"The guidelines will apply to projects such as tourist developments in the Family Islands, industrial developments, dredging operations, and marina construction," the paper said in its Internet edition.
Officially opening a one-day marine conservation and development workshop at the College of the Bahamas, the Governor-General said guidelines were "intended to simplify the procedures developers have to follow and to allow for consistence of standards across the entire Bahamas."
Special attention is being paid to waste disposal, wetlands, wildlife habitats, ground water and coastal zones.
In the case of the large projects, the Government has required full independent audits that are reviewed by specialists in those areas.
Sir Orville also announced that the Government is set to launch a nationwide coastal zone management strategy in the wake of massive coastal destruction wrought by the powerful Hurricane Floyd last year.
When Hurricane Floyd slammed into the Bahamas nearly a year ago, it tore up the coastal areas in all of the affected islands, the paper said. The deadly hurricane left a huge clean-up bill, estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
"While progress is being made in identifying solutions to the complex problems confronting coastal waters, further progress requires fundamental research in a number of areas to address threats such as widespread over-enrichment and habitat degradation," Sir Orville said.
At present he said, research programmes concerned with coastal systems and related processes are not guided by a comprehensive framework. "Such a framework could assess scientific priorities related to the most serious problems and optimise co-operation and co-ordination among federal agencies, states, local communities, and the academic community," Sir Orville told the scientists.
Although significant advances in the scientific understanding of coastal ecosystems has been generated from numerous studies of specific systems during the past four decades, he said, the resulting knowledge of the fundamental properties and processes of coastal ecosystems suffered from the fragmented regional nature of these studies.
Sir Orville told participants that the Government is "about to engage in a nationwide coastal zone management strategy following Hurricane Floyd. Developments on the coast have significant impact on marine life and coral reefs," he added.
Taken from the Sunday Gleaner
