Replanting programme needed for highway
published: Friday | September 19, 2003
THE EDITOR, Sir:
I READ recent e-mail correspondences within the St Ann Environment Protection Association/ STEPA complaining about the loss of the beautiful mature Ficus Trees lining the main North Coast Highway in Runaway Bay. I drive by there at least four times daily as I transport my son to and from school daily, and am also saddened by the loss of these majestic trees.
The highway is necessary, and I appreciate that they seem to have adjusted the course and saved the beach area by Pear Tree Bottom, and the historical town and buildings in Rio Bueno ... Congratulations! What I would like to see done, and I am sure many other Jamaicans and tourists would too (judging from the heated e-mails within STEPA and elsewhere) is to see a programme of replanting these Ficus and other trees (as I see being done at Tryall, and Half Moon) and the planting/landscaping of the highway as it passes through major towns. How nice it would have been if the Government had planted a cotton tree to replace Tom Cringle's Cotton Tree which many of us grew up knowing on the Mandela Highway, or a new Guango Tree (better located) to replace the one taken down at Liguanea, or the one blown down by Hurricane Gilbert at the Ministry of Education.
Who in Government is batting to landscape our environment? Where does this responsibility lie, if anywhere? Why do billboards take over our new highways instead of trees and shrubs. Who in Government allows this by default? The recent Cabinet Retreat spoke of the importance of tourism, so let us take it seriously and look to see how, and through whom we can beautify our highways and towns through trees and landscaping to enhance our daily lives and add to the Tourism Product.
Let us not just take down trees, but replant as we expand our asphalt and concrete developments.
