Cayman News Agency: Destroying the NCC is destroying the NCA through the backdoor

#DontPaveParadise wrote: Over the past month or so, there have been a number of news articles, social posts and widely circulated email messages suggesting that the UPM government would amend the National Conservation Act (NCA) or hastily amend Schedule 2 of the Act, which deals with the composition of the National Conservation Council (NCC), without bringing the matter to Parliament.

It is unclear what the government is considering doing, as it discusses the issue primarily behind closed doors, which may or may not be attended by some of Cayman’s largest developers. However, current cabinet ministers have made a number of public statements suggesting that the government wants to change the composition of the NCC in a number of key ways.

We believe that in this case, there is no smoke without fire. We have learned from inside sources that UPM is indeed about to change the composition of the NCC, thus making the NCA an almost useless legislation.

Currently, the NCC is composed of 13 voting members. Schedule 2 of the NCA states that of these 13 members, five include the Director of Environment, the Deputy Director of Research at the Ministry of Environment, the Director of Agriculture, the Director of Planning and a person nominated by the National Trust for the Cayman Islands and appointed by Cabinet.

The remaining eight council members are appointed by Cabinet, with at least four having relevant scientific or technical expertise. In addition, the eight council members must include one from each of the historic districts of the Cayman Islands, which include West Bay, George Town, Bodden Town, North End, East End and the Sister Islands of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman.

We understand that UPM is considering removing the voting rights of NCC civil servants and removing or weakening the voting rights of those with scientific or technical knowledge on environmental issues. This would empower political appointees who may know nothing about environmental issues to push UPM’s development agenda with little or no regard for potential impacts on the environment.

The government will try to present this change as a compromise to amend the NCA, but don’t be fooled by this sleight of hand: abolishing the NCC is abolishing the NCA through the back door.

Since the NCC decides which projects will have, or may have, a significant impact on the environment, and therefore require an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) prior to planning approval, a politically appointed committee with no scientific or technical expertise may never deem it necessary to conduct another EIA. It may deem that no development has the proper conditions for an EIA, or even if it does, it may refuse to approve a development because it may cause damage to our protected areas or critical habitats.

If this happens, the NCC will become little more than a rubber-stamp agency, and the NCA will become a paper tiger, or worse, a dishonest piece of legislation that paves the way for the kind of environmental destruction and species slaughter that the law was designed to protect against when it was passed.

The NCA will be a Trojan horse – looking like a gift from the outside, but the rubber stamp within will invite the invasion of continued development, resulting in more concrete, more people, more traffic and the degradation of the Caymanian way of life.

What is particularly worrying about potential changes to the composition of the NCC is that there is no need for this unless the Cabinet itself or its financial backers have an agenda that goes against the spirit of the NCA.

Going back to 2016, when the NCA came into full force, the NCC refused just nine planning applications out of more than 11,000 where it was clear that the proposed development would have a significant impact on the environment as a whole or on a conservation area or critical habitat for a protected species.

So why did UPM feel it had to act? Clearly, the NCA has not hindered the ongoing development boom. The NCC has only rejected a handful of proposed projects, so why is it necessary to scrap it?

Perhaps we should look behind the scenes at the rejected projects and see who is really driving Cabinet to treat in such an irresponsible and non-transparent way a piece of legislation that took nearly 15 years to pass and, in the estimation of former premier Wayne Panton, had more public consultation than any bill in Cayman Islands history.

The fact is that both the NCA and NCC are functioning exactly as intended. A minority of developers are unhappy that they are not getting the results they wanted and are now putting pressure on those they helped get elected.

Abolishing the NCC and the NCA will make it easier for them to make more money by continuing to develop in the Cayman Islands, regardless of the fact that our infrastructure is not ready for further development, our people are not ready for further development, and our remaining natural environment cannot be preserved in the best possible way for future generations.

We are not against development, nor are we suggesting that there should be no development in the Cayman Islands in the future. What we are saying is that all future development should be better planned and managed, and that the NCA and NCC should continue to require other government entities by law to consider the impact of development on the environment where the development is likely to have a significant impact.

Only by following the responsibilities of the NCA and NCC can we ensure that these impacts are avoided or mitigated.

We urge every concerned citizen of the Cayman Islands to contact their elected representatives and make their views known that Cabinet needs to ignore the large developers and leave the NCC and NCA as they are.