Golding rings BP spill alarm bell

CMC

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

PRIME Minister Bruce Golding has warned that the spreading BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has the potential to threaten the “life blood” of Caribbean countries, particularly The Bahamas.

Golding was speaking as he opened the Fifth Caribbean Environmental Forum in Montego Bay yesterday.

Bahamian foreign minister Brent Symonette had raised the issue at a June 10 meeting of Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) foreign ministers and US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton in Barbados.

Some experts fear the current hurricane season could help spread uncontrolled spillage eastward and in the direction of the Bahamas chain of islands.

Golding told his CEF audience the Gulf of Mexico disaster was one example of “man-made disasters which we have nothing to do which but which (have) so much to do with us [in the Caribbean]”.

The prime minister argued that the region had over the years done much to cope with a mix of natural and man-made threats to the environment.

He cited as one emerging feature, the presence of “a healthy and growing community of civil society activists and NGOs that serves as watchdogs and constructive and necessary irritants to safeguard our environment”.

Golding also spoke of the “tension and conflict” between the development needs of Caribbean countries and the use if sound environmental practices.

“Policymakers do not have the luxury of choosing between the two,” he said. “The well-documented concept of sustainable development does more to define the problem than to resolve it.

“We often find ourselves hapless victims,” he said, “investors will come to our islands to undertake projects that are difficult for us to resist.”

Golding said foreign investors often brought projects that “create jobs and inject foreign exchange that we so desperately need but which will not meet the environmental standards of their own countries.”