THE EDITOR, Sir:
AS I drove to Kingston from Montego Bay last weekend, after having given workshops on Jamaica's biodiversity to some of Jamaica's teachers, I was struck by the continued degradation of Jamaica's
environment.
We work with teachers in the hope that they will pass on environmental knowledge and concern to their students. However, while noting the continued large-scale construction along the coastline, I wonder if we are not already too late.
So few of our decision makers realise the importance of protecting our natural resources, and this shows in many of the decisions that they make.
Sewage treatment plants are built with only secondary treatment facilities, flushing nutrients into our seas, causing algae to grow on our coral reefs; mangrove forests and seagrass beds are plowed up so that hotels can have longer beaches, leaving no nursery grounds for fish; and forests are denuded to make way for housing developments.
NO FORESIGHT
These decisions are made with no foresight and no understanding of the long-term disastrous effects that they have on the environment. Allowing unsustainable development to occur in pristine environments ruins the very nature of the resource that visitors want to enjoy.
Which tourist will want to dive in our waters if the reefs are covered with algae and there are no fish? Who will want to climb our mountains if all the trees are gone? The long-term repercussions of these short-term decisions are many, and until the decision-makers realise this we are doomed to continue repeating the same mistakes. I hope that when we realise how disastrous our actions have been it will not be too late.
I am, etc.,
CHRISTINE O'SULLIVAN
Jamaica Environment Trust
11 Waterloo Road
Kingston 10
