MINISTER without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation Matthew Samuda is warning that Jamaicans could be stuck in a cycle of poverty if we don’t significantly address our environmental issues.

Speaking recently at the launch of a $192-million EU/Government of Jamaica Environmental Project called ‘A Jamaican Path from Hills to Ocean’, Samuda said, “if we don’t become a centre of excellence in environmental management and in the issues related to climate change, we will not lift our people out of poverty and remain in the perpetual cycle of recovering from disasters…we have to hit every single target associated with this project. We have to work with everyone, NGOs [non-governmental organisations], environmentalists, community leaders, as we are in a race against time.”

The project will touch approximately 46 per cent of the population in some way, and its impact will be felt by those who don’t even know that it exists.

“Kingston and St Andrew is our most populous region, and in May of 2022, we had 11 per cent of our 30-year average of rainfall. Now that doesn’t mean that you didn’t have more erratic rainfall in March and April, but I’m saying that to drive it home that we are in the throes of climate change. It is not future-proofing. It is about survival today,” he stressed.

He argued that Jamaica didn’t create the environmental crisis, but he argues that does not absolve the country of our moral imperative, which, he said, involves hitting our environmental targets.

“I want to be able to go to meetings and shout at other people, too, but we have to hit our targets to give ourselves the moral authority to do so,” he pointed out.

While addressing the beach erosion phenomena at Hellshire in Portmore, St Catherine, Samuda indicated that a lot of what has happened there is a result of poor environmental practices alongside gullies and riverbeds.

“We also destroyed Hellshire, collectively, and many of us didn’t stand in the way of it. So it’s destroyed now. What we do on land affects what happens in the ocean and what we do in the ocean affects what will happen on land. The two are completely linked. The environment and ecosystems are an amazing thing to watch. They recover when we get out of their way, sometimes you can help it along, but generally the environment is resilient and it recovers when we stop being bad neighbours — when we stop being the toxic ones in the relationship,” he stated.

Having said that, Samuda admitted that work is being done to build resilience and mitigate further environmental degradation, but he argued that the initiatives are moving at snail’s pace.

“The team at PIOJ [Planning Institute of Jamaica] and the Ministry of Finance are readying the financial sector; they’re creating the fiscal space to allow for the financial response to these disasters. But there’s so much more we have to do that’s simply not enough. I’m happy that Jamaica is putting its money where its mouth is, certainly within our budgetary space, and we’re committing some funds to this, but we have to do a lot more.”

He argued, “We’re not as a global community honouring our commitments. So new commitments without honouring the past ones is not gonna halt what’s taking place, it’s gonna put small island developing states like Jamaica at particular risk.”

Jamaica is a part of the coalition 30 by 30 by 30, which means the island has committed to protecting 30 per cent of our terrestrial land and 30 per cent of our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) by 2030.

“We’ve just completed about 25 per cent with the recent declaration of 78,000 hectares of the cockpit country, something I’m particularly proud of. The truth is, we doodled for 40 years and didn’t protect any of it,” stated Samuda.