New law tightens protection for local flora
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Government has successfully steered the Plant Protection Act, 2023 through parliament in order to tighten the rules around importing plants that may harbour pests and threaten the local flora. Cayman’s native plants and trees are at risk from a range of new plant pests, such as the ever-present mealybug to the various polyphagous pests on Christmas trees, as landscapers and home gardeners import an ever-growing variety of non-native plants and trees.
The new legislation, which replaces the Plants (Importation and Exportation) Act (1997 Revision), provides a more strict but also a more comprehensive regime, officials have said. Those who breach the new law and import plants without the correct permits could face up to two years in jail or a $50,000 fine.
The law establishes a system of permits for imports, exports and the transit of plants, plant products and other regulated articles, creating powers that can be exercised in the event of pest outbreaks and other emergencies. It also establishes an administrative and enforcement structure.
The aim is to improve the protection of Cayman’s cultivated and native plants with more robust national safeguards against alien plant pests while facilitating the safe and effective trade in plant and plant products.
The new legislation harmonises local laws with international phytosanitary (plant health) standards established by the International Plant Protection Convention. It establishes a National Plant Protection Organisation and makes the Department of Agriculture responsible for exercising the powers and performing the functions of the NPPO.
The new legislation deals with the provisions for imports, exports, re-exports and transits, as well as the mechanisms and authorisations for the control, eradication and management of pests through various declarations, including quarantine or regulated pests, pest-free areas, quarantine areas and phytosanitary emergencies.
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Category: Land Habitat, Laws, Politics, Science & Nature
Does this include the highly invasive, foreign property developer weed? It is playing havoc across the island.
Compass this morning:
Invicta Construction has applied to the CPA for permission to create a 184-lot ‘affordable’ subdivision on key wildlife habitat in EE.
You can’t make this up! Smh
The only steely thing that could be captured in Caymans mangroves is the mud polished tracks of an excavator decimating our ecosystems 😐
https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-67155632
Maybe the damn cats can kill the local flora by spraying them.
Save the flora and kill the cats.
how can the Botanic Park import plants even with its own nursery?????
Does that cover weed?
Asking for a friend
What native plants are we talking about? Maiden plum, machineel, cow itch? This legislation is some sort of joke and wastes valuable time and resources that could be spent on real problems.
Protect them from over development Wayne, – can’t see the forest for the trees kind of thing 🌴🪲
Thank you Government for this effort to protect our local plants from imported pests. If you don’t do something to protect them from the bulldozer, soon there will be nothing left to protect. One Ministry is promoting the thatch rope industry and offering training, while with the blessing of another the thatch trees are being crushed and discarded by the developer’s bulldozers. Same for other native and endangered flora and fauna.
The Grinch that Stole Christmas Act 2023.
Thank god they fixed the traffic and dump first.
How’s the leaf blower ban coming along?
typical Cayman government. Pass legislation that makes it look like you are doing something about protecting the environment, especially if it doesnt affect any vested interests. But do zero to police it, and god forbid if a connected person ends up breaking the law, ignore it or “investigate” until the news cycle moves on. Anyone here say what happened to the couple, allegedly related to an MLA, who smuggled in a sugar glider? Thought not. If we cant police fauna the cynic in me says this flora protection isn’t worth the paper it is written on, although Wayne will no doubt point to it as part of his environmental credentials and the analogy to expatriate infiltration – whilst presiding over a system importing foreign labour hand over fist.
I am reasonable confident that if we see a Bromeliad speeding in a Mom wagon on the ETH, that it will be reported and the fugitive brought to justice, unless the wagon has ultra dark window tint and is blasting thumpy music.
If there are no plants after they are destroyed by over development how or what in the world are you protecting them from? Overseas and imported threats eh Wayne??? This ludicrous ?
Good thing but I do believe the enforcement is not being dealt equally. Similar to what goes on with certain goods importers. And of course the ever blatant HM Customs turning a blind eye to known individuals not declaring goods purchased overseas, who sail nonchalantly through the green lane.
OMG, just fix the things that really matter!
About time!
Now how about providing the same type of protection for the indigenous Caymanian human species?
no one is indigenous to this island. everyone arrived from somewhere else.
no such thing.
Sorry from UN
Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those that, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.
You are not pre-invasion or pre-colonial
Well said. Multi-generational Caymanian protection needed.
we are protected. you just arent greasing the right wheels. that’s the benefit of having an easily corrupted government. you just gotta find the right ones and it barely costs a thing off the top of what you get