And a big part of hurricane flood mitigation is the presence of a healthy mangrove population. But, that type of vegetation is going to take a hit because earlier this month, the WWF's local rep, Nadia Bood, confirmed that almost 1,000 acres of mangroves would be destroyed if Portico's project proceeds. So how will the government green light such a project following the commitments they made to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to conserve mangroves?
Today when we asked the Minister of Sustainable Development about it, he said that "1,000 acres" is misinformation, and that the amounts stated in the ECP is significantly less.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"Firstly the information is wrong because it's not going to be thousands of acres, I think what is on the ECP is about 45 acres if I can recall."
Courtney Menzies:
"The World Wildlife Fund's local rep told us thousands of acres, that's what she told us."
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"Right, not so. I think it's 45 acres in the ECP and I think another about 65 acres in the dewatering site going out into the highway. But I may be wrong but that is that, from what I've read on the ECP, that is what's there. Somebody had posed a question earlier on whether or not we have this restoration program and we will restore so many thousand acres of mangrove but that one project will destroy 20%, that is not true. So it's going to be a lot less than that, because the restoration for mangroves out of the 130,000 hectares of restoration under the landscape program is 8,000 acres of mangrove so if you take down 100, 120 acres, then that's very small. But any amount of mangrove that is torn down is going to damage the environment some way or the other. What we really have to look at is striking that balance of what we want for our development. I'm in the Ministry of Sustainable Development, environment is under my ministry, I'm an agriculturalist and I consider myself an environmentalist but I also know that I have to eat and my children have to go to school and the economy has to grow so we have to really look at that balance of where we'll have the least effect on the environment but also be able to have a positive impact on the social side which is the human side and also the financial side because the economy is very important for us."
We note that an independent expert has confirmed the estimate of one thousand acres to be destroyed - he estimated it at 948 acres. Another group has reached the same estimate.
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