D.O.E. says Dangriga Park Plan Will Undergo Environmental Clearance Process

Last week, the Briceño administration broke ground for the construction of the Dangriga Multipurpose Park. This park is designed to offer several amenities for recreational activities. However, there are concerns that the size of the park will pose a threat to the environment due to possible erosion of the coast. Chief Environmental Officer Anthony Mai says that the proposal will be adequately evaluated.

 

Anthony Mai, Chief Environmental Officer, D.O.E.

“Yes it does and in fact we’ve been in discussion to ensure that this type of project, in fact this one in particular comes through the environmental clearance process. At this point we were told that the project is being conceptualized. And everything, and so there’s a time when the proposal will come to the D.O.E. for environmental evaluation.”

 

Reporter

“Even though they already have a design?”

 

Anthony Mai

“Yes, indeed. So that’s the first step. You need to have the design, but you need to conceptualize what the design will include in terms of operations, right? And so when they have all of that together, they will come to us for environmental clearance.”

 

Reporter

“You all don’t have anything to do with the erosion aspect to some extent because one of the questions is, you are suffering from erosion, have suffered it from in the past, so how do you create such a huge development there?”

 

Anthony Mai

“The erosion issues it’s not a singular agency that deals with it. So the Department of Environment have some input to it, the mining unit, et cetera, has some input to it. Coastal Zone Management Authority, collectively we look at these things. In the past we had conducted a study by some support from the Cuban government. We have a good report and recommendation on what is affecting the erosion within that area. In fact, Currently, we have a draft terms of reference that we will finalize soon, where we want to expand the project and the assessment that the Cubans did to understand the erosion that is affecting the Placencia area and all the way down to Monkey River. What they, when we’ve met with the experts from Cuba and what they had recommended to us is that they said, listen, rather than doing this thing piecemeal, let’s do an assessment of the entire coastline. Now, that comes at a cost. And so we are in the process where. We are contemplating if we need to expand the terms of reference to include the entire coastline. And we need to discuss the cost of doing so. Because the current terms of reference that we have for Placencia and for close to the Monkey River, the cost of doing such an assessment is considerably higher. So we are weighing that in relation to having finances to do that versus doing the entire country. But it’s a concern and we are discussing it. There are discussions going on at the moment relation to that.”