Peter Espeut
IT HAS now been half a year since Hurricane Ivan wreaked havoc in southern Clarendon, six months since the ten-foot-high storm surge raged through the homes in Portland Cottage built on the fringe of the West Harbour mangrove killing eight and leaving thousands homeless.
In three months time, the 2005 hurricane season will begin, yet the plans for the relocation of those dislocated by Hurricane Ivan are yet to be implemented. Why is the Office of National Reconstruction (ONR) moving so slowly and wasting so much time?
Let me put it down to the newness of this sort of thing, and the lack of the government's experience in working with NGOs and local communities.
I was happy to be shown the plans for the relocation sites in Portland Cottage and Rocky Point, Clarendon and to be asked my opinion on their suitability.
Even though no permission for construction has been given by the NRCA/NEPA, when I arrived at the Portland Cottage relocation site two months ago, a bulldozer was already hard at work ripping up the limestone forest. I suppose my opinion was not really needed.
ONE FLOOD-PRONE AREA TO ANOTHER
At the Rocky Point relocation site, local residents had they been asked could have volunteered the information that the whole area had been converted into a vast lake by flood waters from the heavy rains of 1986, cutting off Rocky Point from the rest of Jamaica. The resourceful residents of Rocky Point were forced to use boats to commute to civilisation, motoring right across the proposed relocation site.
And what was even more interesting is that the drains in the area had been cleaned in 1986 in preparation for the rainy season. I really hope we do not move residents from one flood-prone area to another flood-prone area in the name of national reconstruction.
NON-CONSULTATIVE APPROACH
I was pleased to learn that the ONR has plans to improve the infrastructure at the fishing beach at Portland Cottage (called Barmouth), and asked to see the plans.
Permission was readily given, and I learnt that the plans have already been submitted to the NRCA/NEPA for their approval.
I went to a meeting with the fishers of Barmouth last week, and was emphatically told that they have seen no plans for their beach, and have not been consulted.
When I enquired of the ONR whether I could bring along some fishers to peruse the plans, I was told that that was not necessary, as they would be consulted after the approval had been given.
I suggested that a better approach might have been to consult with the fishers before submitting the plans for approval, so that their suggestions (and preferences) might be incorporated into the plans. I was told that this was not the normal procedure followed by the ONR.
So much for a participatory approach! I thought we had moved beyond the top-down non-consultative approach?
Most of the government departments I deal with are very good at consultation and stakeholder participation, but clearly the old ways are very much alive in some other agencies.
The fishers of Portland Cottage are really suffering. The storm has silted up the narrow channel giving them access to their fishing grounds, and walking through deep mud they have to drag their boats a long distance before they can start their engines.
Already a poor area, some of the residents in their desperation have sought to cut a road through the wetland to deeper water, damaging many mangroves in the process.
Ill-conceived? Yes! Understandable? Of course!
OFFICIAL NEGLECT
Nevertheless, I believe I have persuaded them to hold off and wait for the ONR to consult them and for their channel to be deepened. This damage to the environment and to people's livelihoods could have been minimised or eliminated if ordinary processes of consultation and public participation in decision-making had been employed. Even now it is not too late.
Official neglect which allowed hundreds of homes to be built in the back of the West Harbour wetland, on captured land, in crocodile habitat, without proper sanitation, has resulted in unnecessary loss of life and property, and unnecessary hardship.
Some disasters are said to be acts of God, but some are definitely are man-made. I had expected that in the aftermath, at least guilty consciences would have forced a better performance.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
