WESTERN BUREAU — Mosina Jordan, mission director at the United States Agency of International Development (USAID), has reaffirmed her organisation’s commitment to supporting a relationship tourism and the environment activities, in order to achieve sustainable economic development in Jamaica and the rest of the region.

“USAID has been working with our partners to help Caribbean countries harness tourism’s benefits and incentives in a way that is environmentally sound and economically viable, as well as socially responsible and culturally appropriate,” she said.

“I would like to reaffirm USAID’s commitment to making a difference, to protecting the natural resource base and to ensuring that the work we are doing will hold promise for a viable future,” Jordan said.

The USAID director who was speaking yesterday at the official opening of the Green Hotel Conference and Exhibition in Montego Bay, said the USAID’s approach to sustainable tourism involved a number of “inter-related” issues. She listed the promotion of environmental management systems in the sector to include the adoption of voluntary certification schemes like the Green Globe 21 hotel certification programme, as one of the issues.

Since 1998 when Negril Cabins became the first hotel in the world to be certified under the programme, 25 other Jamaican and Caribbean hotels have been certified through the Environmental Audits for Sustainable Tourism (EAST) project.

Ten others are to be evaluated for certification before yearend.

EAST was launched in 1997 to prove the benefits of improved environmental management in the hotel and manufacturing sectors. The first phase saw 14 Negril hotels subjected to environmental audits, training in environmental management systems and the audit of 10 manufacturing facilities in Kingston/St Andrew.

Then in 1998/99, the USAID funded programme was extended to include additional hotel and manufacturing audits, the Green Globe 21 certification programme, economic incentives and financial analysis and the development of an institutional plan for the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association to sustain the project’s efforts.

Jordan said yesterday that the task of implementing environmental practices inside the industry was one that required the exercise of “corporate responsibility”.

“The importance of corporate responsibility cannot be overemphasized,” she said, adding that it extended beyond a willingness to adopt voluntary certification programmes.

“(It) also means the incorporation of local communities as equal partners in the process… (It) is the concept that enterprise is accountable for its impact on all relevant stakeholders… the continuing commitment by business to behave fairly and responsibly and contribute to economic development…” Jordan said, adding that the time to act was now.

“As much as this green hotel conference and the worldwide summit on sustainable development provide a good opportunity for reflection, its also time for implementation of the policies and practices of sustainable tourism development and the achievement of concrete results,” she said.