PRIME Minister Andrew Holness’s decision to subsume the environment portfolio along with several others under the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) could hurt the country’s reputation on the international stage and could cut off access to millions of dollars in international funding, according to sector stakeholders.

The most recent People’s National Party-led Administration had an office named for environment — the Ministry of Land, Water, Environment and Climate Change. Under the current dispensation, however, there is no such designation, an obvious blow for groups such as the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust, Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), Portland Environmental Protection Association and Windsor Research Centre, which wrote to the PM last week urging him to give the portfolio priority.

“We’re breathing a sigh of relief that the environment portfolio is now to be situated in the Office of the Prime Minister following Monday’s scare that it was overlooked completely,” country co-ordinator of Panos Caribbean, Indi McLymont , told the

Jamaica Observer on Tuesday.

She was responding to the announcement of Holness’s Cabinet on Monday and a subsequent statement to the media to explain that, though there exists no defined environment ministry, its operations are to be handled from OPM, with minister without portfolio Horace Chang overseeing the broad areas of land, water and housing.

“The prime minister has taken a proactive role where environmental management and climate change mitigation efforts are concerned by situating this important portfolio in his office. With the environment portfolio in the OPM, it will benefit from effective planning and co-ordination of government activities and ensuing synergies in the land, water and housing portfolios which are also situated in that office,” the statement said.

But that arrangement is unsettling for McLymont LaFayette who called it a potentially retrograde step.

“We’re concerned that some momentum could be lost in the absence of there being a designated environment and climate change ministry, coming out of the UN climate talks in Paris in December, and the work that’s needed to be done to ensure provisions in the new agreement are realised.

“For the last few years Jamaica has been lauded as one of the few countries that has had a climate change ministry, and that sent a strong signal of its commitment to global solutions to climate impacts. We [Jamaica] are on the verge of signing a new climate agreement in Apriland that could result in accessing a lot of technical and financial resources so, if the current Administration doesn’t handle this carefully, all of these resources could be potentially jeopardised,” she argued.

“There is a lot of international respect that we now hold, certainly the Caribbean looks to us for guidance; we’re a front runner,” the Panos head said.

The Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation (C-CAM) and Jamaica Environment Trust had similar views.

“We’re happy that they’ve issued that statement to clarify things because we were most distraught yesterday (Monday),“ C-CAM’s Ingrid Parchment said of the apparent absence of environment from the ministry line-up.

“We believe it is important enough to have a stand-alone ministry, if not a minister, but I will wait and see how this all will play out. I look forward to having an early sit down with the person who is responsible for the area to see how we can partner and see things through.

Parchment listed the controversial proposed sale of Goat Islands, the progress of the Protected Areas Master Plan, and the absence of a biosphere reserve among the major topics she anticipates discussing with the responsible minister.

“We are prepared to work with whoever it is, but we want to make sure there is true partnership, because my feeling is that without proper environmental management, crime management or financial management, nothing else can happen. Environment underpins everything,” Parchment added.

For her part, JET’s Deputy CEO Suzanne Stanley said it could be argued that the current arrangement means the PM will keep a closer eye on what is happening, but concluded that not assigning environment a ministry of its own or at least pairing it with symbiotic areas suggests that the portfolio will be neglected.

“The worst case scenario is that it will not be given adequate attention and consideration which it really needs, because environment is everything. It is a critical sector that has to be considered under every other ministry, whether it’s related to physical, economic, or social development,” she told the Observer.

In his statement Tuesday, Holness argued that he has ”always expressed a keen interest in the environment, and considers good and responsible environmental management and planning as critical to facilitating economic growth and sustainable development”.