Expert to advise on merging nature into economy
(CNS): Economist Ralph Chami, the assistant director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and co-founder of Rebalance Earth, which advocates for integrating natural capital into economies, will be visiting the Cayman Islands for five days, arriving on Sunday, Premier Wayne Panton has announced. While here Chami will be participating in various events and engagements, sharing insights on what a nature-positive economy can deliver and how to build such a framework.
In Panton’s Earth Day Message, which was released by his office late Friday evening, he said that Chami and his colleagues bring together investors, conservationists and policymakers. With an approach to economics that values biodiversity and keystone species, they are seeking to build a new economic paradigm that is nature-positive and promises to deliver sustainable and shared prosperity to all, the premier added.
The Cayman Islands environment, and in particular the impact of coastal development, is a pressing issue for PACT. Despite his sustainability platform, after a year in office Panton is facing criticisms that he has done very little to curb the pace of unsustainable development, which is increasingly seen as far removed from the Cayman community and merely a profit-making machine for local elites and their overseas investors.
In his statement announcing Chami’s visit, Panton said that economic development and the environment don’t need to be at odds as there is a direct correlation between sustainable business practices, share prices and business performance.
“Businesses with strong Environment Social Governance (ESG) standards have better profitability, stronger financials, happier employees and more resilient stock performance,” he said. “It’s clear our economy and environment are not opposing forces. They are two sides of the same coin.”
Panton repeated PACT’s vision for a Cayman Islands that is held up as one of the most sustainable countries in the world and said that the government is committed to taking a sustainable approach to the social, environmental and economic development of the country.
“A sustainable approach means we try to balance protection and conservation of the natural environment with the need to develop some of the natural environment for social or economic purposes,” he said. “It also means identifying ways to make existing infrastructure more efficient, introducing new technologies and innovations that reduce our collective environmental footprint, and collaborating with other governments, individuals and companies to link prosperity, peace and planetary health.”
Panton pointed to the efforts that have been made to address a more sustainable future for the Cayman Islands over the last twelve months. He said Cabinet has facilitated the purchase and protection of significant acreage across the Cayman Islands, including parcels in the Salina Reserve, Sand Cay, Western Mangroves Area and Central Mangrove Wetlands in Grand Cayman, Tarpon Lake and the East Interior of Little Cayman, and Hemmington Forest in Cayman Brac.
Because of these crown-protected areas, more than 7,385 acres, or 11.33% of the land across the three Cayman Islands, is now protected. The premier urged people to support the efforts to protect more land by nominating areas seen as important to be considered for protection. He also asked people to introduce more native and endemic plants into the built communities by planting a tree for the Queen’s Jubilee.
Panton has been a champion of the environment for a long time but it is evident that he is struggling to gain full support from all of his Cabinet colleagues in the PACT coalition. While his ministry team is urging sustainability and discussing fundamental changes needed, the planning ministry appears at odds with the premier.
Aside from the legal challenge that the DoE is having to make regarding a particularly unsustainable decision made by the politically appointed Central Planning Authority, at every meeting the members are green-lighting projects that destroy acres of pristine natural habitat and threaten dwindling mangrove resources. Just last month the CPA granted planning permission for a builders’ supply yard in a mangrove habitat in South Sound.
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Category: Economy, Land Habitat, Marine Environment, Politics, Science & Nature
Our government need to also openly and honestly discuss the Go East Initaitive with land owners/stake holders that was recommended and stop to closed door meetings with the special interest groups
Our government need to also openly discuss the Go East Unitiative with the people in an open forum……..
With the expectation of half of Hong Kong businesses planning to relocate within a year and the expected mass migration of people moving
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/business/hong-kong-expats-covid-restrictions/index.html
Maybe someone with economic sense and understanding like this gentleman from the IMF might, and i say might just be able to speak some common sense to our people to strategically discuss the National Tourism Development Plan with the people of the Cayman Islands that was recommended by the British Tourism Consultancy Firm during 2006 to properly discuss structuring and develop the 75% of undeveloped land on Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac for the people of our country to find proper housing and find employment for future generations
Lets face it, the fact is we only have 111 banks left out of the 500 banks that use to operate here, so employment opportunities in the banking industry have shrunk
At least 5 hotels have permanently closed after Ivan, leaving our tourism industry with a total of 7,027 rooms available to accommodate the 500,000 tourist visiting the three Islands
That is a total of 41,666 a month or 10,416 per week, keeping in mind that we only have 2,717 hotel rooms
These hotel rooms are made up primarily of three sectors in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry and are commonly reffered to as Condos, Villas and Hotels.
Condos and Villas make up the largest category type of rooms with 4,310 rooms while Hotels account for 2,717 rooms
People are unemployed and need employment and the recommendations reffered to in the National Tourism Development Plan need to be discussed with the people in a open and public forum to harnest development and for people to continue to be able to find honest and gainful employment
The current law which gives them wide ‘discretion’ you mean? The same discretion they exercise regularly in a pro-development anti-conservation manner? (Exhibit A: DeGarro land clearing for no purpose.)
Like the OP said, will Min. Jay & the CPA & DCB be there?
Our developers are merging nature into the economy every day – by covering it in concrete and asphalt.
“Panton repeated PACT’s vision for a Cayman Islands that is held up as one of the most sustainable countries in the world”
Let’s be real here for a second.
We live on a tiny rock in the middle of a salty sea. Cayman exists in the current world solely because of finance and tourism (including real estate). We must ship literally every product we need into the island. We must process every gallon of water from salt water into drinkable water in an extremely energy consuming way. We burn diesel to generate electricity.
We will never be renewable because there are too little people and it’s too expensive to do so. Is there a lot we can and should do to improve? Absolutely.
Is there any way that we will be ‘one of the most sustainable countries in the world’ absolutely not. Why must they give some cock and bull story which they will never, ever, accomplish. We are far too small for any significant investment into renewable energy.
Lets start with banning single use plastic – period!! Ask any of the 1,500 Earth Day volunteers and we will tell you it was plastic that we collected.
Also, make the RCIPS actually ticket littering. I’ve seen drivers toss their lunch bags and trash out of moving vehicles with police across the street doig nothing?
DOE start fining home owners with junk cars. We need a blight law to be enforced.
Once we have pride in our soil, we will then protect it, not trash it. Must start with community will and a desire.
Lots to unpack in this post. Did you collect all that foreign plastic flotsam in a burlap sack, or a single use plastic garbage bag? …and then all sanctimoniously back into your SUVs with your Happy Earth Day 2022 single use t-shirts on. How many of you have read the listed mitigations in IPCC’s AR6 and actually adopted the only diet they have recommended since 2014? >50% of ocean gyre plastic is from international commercial fishing industry…why not take issue with that? Tidying up international plastic (thanks for the janitorial service) doesn’t stop the Earth hitting and surpassing Paris 1.5’C tipping point inside the next two years. Nor does it halve CH4 emissions by 2030 to avoid +2’C warming. We are the blight.
Please confirm the conservationists who have been invited to these events…?
Please confirm the “conservationists” qualifications.
Hugged a tree last week does not qualify.
PACT please confirm that the people who need to hear this that have been invited to the events. Depending on your point of view it is not the conservationists that need to be there.
Govt shelling out millions yet again for the same answers from someone with a different name.
“Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results” is the Cayman Islands Govt Motto; end of story.
They really should add it to our Coat of Arms.
Will Minister Jay CPA Board members be forced to meet with him?
Why would they be? Their job is to uphold the planning laws as currently in effect.
The current law which gives them wide ‘discretion’ you mean? The same discretion they exercise regularly in a pro-development anti-conservation manner? (Exhibit A: DeGarro land clearing for no purpose.)
Like the OP said, will Min. Jay & the CPA & DCB be there?
I’m guessing the answer might, just possibly, include not granting planning permission for concrete monstrosities on every available square inch of the islands? Maybe? Just a thought.
When pigs grow wings. Not soon come.
Retainer and day rate?
If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.