UNEP will assist the country in carrying out further environmental assessments by providing seed funding.
The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) initiative was signed by Health and Environment Minister, Senator Dr. Marcus Bethel and Ricardo Sanchez Sosa, UNEP’s regional office director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Minister Bethel said that the signing was a very timely one for The Bahamas.
“We in The Bahamas have over the past years paid considerable attention to our environment,” he said. “We have been very diligent in seeing to the implementation of the goals of the Barbados Plan of Action and its attendant programmes that relate not only to the environment but also to all aspects of sustainable development.”
The GEO methodology attempts to respond to what is happening in the environment; why certain things are happening; the impact those things are having; what is being done about environmental policies; what will happen if immediate action is not taken and what can be done to reverse any negative situations that might exist at present
Mr. Sanchez Sosa said the GEO initiative attempts to look at future scenarios for the next 30 years in the environment as well as the economy and social progress of the country.
He added that UNEP would provide funding for the project from time to time.
“We are beginning with about $20,000 to begin with the work,” Mr. Sanchez Sosa said.
Assistant Secretary General of CARICOM Byron Blake said that the most important challenge in the region is the question of information regarding the state of the environment.
“It is in that respect that we are particularly happy for the agreement of UNEP…to look much more closely at the state of information on the environment in the Caribbean,” Mr. Blake said.
The GEO initiative is designed to implement the Agenda 21 principles, which were adopted by countries at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and endorsed by UNEP’s governing council in 1995.
The project also provides policy-makers and the public with reliable and up- to-date information about the environment and helps to strengthen the national and regional capacities needed to prepare integrated environmental assessments.
Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru are among the countries in the region that have begun national assessments.
A number of global, regional and sub-regional assessments have also been implemented.
By Julian Reid, The Bahama Journal
