OPPOSITION spokesman on environment Dr Horace Chang has urged action on a number of areas he considers crucial to the sustainable management of Jamaica's natural environment.

His comments come as Robert Pickersgill settles into his (Chang's) old office as the new environment minister.

The first order of business, Chang said, should be the propagation of parish development orders, which will guide development islandwide.

"If you propagate acceptable development orders, bring them up to date and then implement them, that would be a major step in terms of the relationship to the built and natural environment," Chang told Environment Watch.

His suggestion is in line with the recommendation made by in auditor general's damning report — publicised in December 2010 — on the National Environment and Planning Agency's performance over the last decade.

"NEPA should finalise its draft development orders immediately. This activity should be prioritised based on the level of comparative assessed risk associated with its non-implementation," the report said.

"The TCPA (Town and Country Planning Authority) Board should define their requirements in the initial stages and conduct regular reviews of the progress of these orders to ensure that they are designed to meet expected standards and prevent unnecessary delays in the review and process," the document added.

Chang suggested as well, that the new minister — who also has responsibility for water, land and climate change — also give priority to "settling the regulatory framework for environment".

Whether this will mean forging ahead with the proposed Environmental Regulatory Authority (ERA), for which a green paper was prepared under the Jamaica Labour Party administration, or drafting a NEPA Act that would see the powers of that entity considerably strengthened, Chang said a decision will have to be made.

"Whichever way you go, we must settle that statutory framework which is still a little bit too loose to ensure we have effective monitoring... A lot of our citizens like to agree with effective environmental management — excepting for me (with themselves as the exception). So the monitoring and implementing of the act are critical to ensure it is properly administered and effectively implemented," he said.

There has been much debate over whether the island should proceed with the ERA, the green paper which proposes, among other things, to transfer NEPA's enforcement and monitoring functions to the new entity.

Environmentalists have opposed this, noting their preference for a return to the way things were prior to 2001 when the Natural Resources Conservation Authority, the TCPA and the Land Development and Utilisation Commission were merged to form NEPA. Still, they admit the set up then is not without its inadequacies. However, they have insisted that it warrants correction — not the establishment of a new entity.

Chang said that steps must be taken, too, to protect the island's coastlines.

"The current damage being done to Negril beach (for example), which I don't think is fully appreciated by the major stakeholders or the country, is a high risk. At the rate we are going, we could lose Negril beach in a very short time — within our lifetime — because of improper planning and development over there," he said.

"I think, given the importance of the resort industry in our economy, we ought to ensure that the coastline is properly managed. And I don't mean going out there and building up all sorts of things; I mean protect it as it is to ensure that development takes place in a manner that will ensure the coastline is sustainable," Chang added.

"There are many other things to do in environment, but I think that if these three things are done with immediacy then we would have laid the foundation for sustainable development," he noted further.

Meanwhile, as evidenced by his going on record with what he believes should form a part of Pickersgill's priorities in the coming months, Chang said he would not be silent on the environment.

"It is an area that I think is evolving and I will be making both positive and constructive contributions in terms of comments and new direction that we might have to take as well as reviewing all the policies very critically in the environmental section," he promised.

"As I oft repeated during my short time in the ministry, we are a small-island developing state. We are not going to get any bigger and one of our major natural assets is our environment. If we destroy it, we will end up in poverty. If we treat it well, we will not only live a better quality of life, we could end up being much richer if properly developed in a sustainable economic way," Chang said.

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