Businesses seen as key element for Greening Economy
The2-day seminar, which is being held at Treasure Isle, is being sponsored by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and the aim is to help better understand the economic value of the natural environment of the Virgin Islands and to help integrate that thinking into strategic decision making.
According to Premier Dr. D. Orlando Smith, the protection of the environment is one of our highest and noblest responsibilities which it’s why it enshrined in our constitution. “Yet our survival as a Territory and as a people depends on our finding ways to balance all of our responsibilities including those owed to our people whose growth and advancement, individually and collectively, depends both on how well we manage our resources and on how well we tread the middle way between protection and over-development. This is a challenge that has stumped many of the most powerful countries in the world and which has proved the stumbling block to global agreements aimed at lowering the threat posed by global warming.”
Premier Smith further said with the embracing of the tourism industry in the 1950’s and the leap to take advantage of the opportunities it could bring to the people it brought unprecedented change and unprecedented benefits to a wide cross-section of society.
“It has also brought many challenges. Between1980 and 1991, for example, our population grew by almost fifty percent severely impacting our physical and social infrastructure and dramatically raising the vulnerability of our ecologically sensitive areas. Since then, it has become clear that government’s policies and programmes must find ways to stimulate continued economic growth while remaining environmentally sensitive. We have to balance the needs of present-day Virgin Islanders with those of future generations who must not be allowed to inherit a Territory so environmentally troubled that its ability to sustain itself is in doubt."
The Premier, who also holds the tourism portfolio, said his Government is committed to facilitating the growth of a diversified economy where entrepreneurs are encouraged and assisted to become "enviropreneurs". “The protection of our environment and of our biodiversity offers us some stiff challenges but it also offers opportunities for innovators to become involved in the rapidly growing eco-sector of our economy. Five years ago, Green VI did not exist but now it collects used glass products and makes beautiful jewellery and art from items that we used to throw away. Twenty years before that our national hero, Noel Lloyd, began using discarded metals to make sculptures of found art.”
He also said the foods, drinks and other products which are imported into the VI at great expense from other countries also exact an environmental cost which will, arguably, be felt most deeply by small island nations such as the VI and its Caribbean neighbours.
“Improving our sustainability must therefore also mean improving the sustainability of our supply and ensuring that the products we import reach our shores with the smallest carbon footprint possible. Where possible we will facilitate our businesses and our tourism properties to source their food and other requirements locally. Where that is not possible our next best option is sourcing our needs from our closest regional neighbours. To that end, governments of the Caribbean must begin to work together to enable this heightened cooperation and turn the challenges posed by economies of scale to our advantage."
Minister for Natural Resources and Labour Dr. Kedrick Pickering also emphasised the need for businesses to buy into the initiative of going green including by ensuring that their products are environment friendly and promotes saving energy as solar water heaters, which he said there some 50, 000 installed in homes in Barbados and which saves the country and individuals lots of money.
He then threw out a challenge to businesses to make a greening pledge to help protect the environment. Her said businesses could do this by cutting down on waste products, water use, electricity or they could come up with their own ‘green project’.
Dr. Pickering said business would automatically save more money in going green but the incentive from Government would be an official greening seal, which would make them to be recognised as a green leader.
Earlier, Governor Boyd McCleary said the presence of Premier Dr. D. Orlando Smith, Deputy Premier Dr. Kedrick Pickering and other members of cabinet at the seminar opening spoke of Government’s attitude towards the natural environment, which he said is one of the greatest assets of the Virgin and that the Territory is heavily dependent on it for obvious reasons but it’s importance is not always taken seriously.
He also said over the next two days participants of the workshop will look at what key actions need to be taken over the short, medium and long term to ensure the environment is taken properly into account in planning the future of the Virgin Islands.
Participants of the workshop include officials from both the public and private sectors.
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