Tag: Gina Ebanks-Petrie
Port marine life still protected, say officials
(CNS): The George Town Harbour, which is now an anchorage zone and no longer a marine park after new regulations were implemented, is still protected because it remains a no-take zone, officials from the Port Authority and the Department of Environment have said. The new zoning also means that in future, divers will need to […]
Killer coral threat very serious
(CNS): The threat posed to local reefs by the still enigmatic Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) is very serious, according to the director of the Department of Environment. Against the backdrop of climate change, other diseases, excessive coastal development and ocean pollution, this extremely contagious and deadly disease is advancing towards Seven Mile Beach, […]
Dart’s hotel to go before CPA with no DoE input
(CNS): Hotel Indigo, which will anchor Dart’s proposed ‘new town’, will be before the Central Planning Authority (CPA) on Tuesday as a separate application, but it will not have any input from the Department of Environment because no new National Conservation Council (NCC) members have been appointed. The project comes against the backdrop of public […]
DoE marks 500th wild turtle nest
(CNS): 2020 is a year none of us are likely to forget, and while COVID-19 is indelibly stamped on it, there are some good things to remember too. The Department of Environment’s Turtle Conservation Programme officially recorded the 500th wild sea turtle nest of the season on Tuesday morning, reflecting the efforts of volunteers and […]
CPA to hear Balboa Beach after-the-fact application
(CNS): Ten years after the Central Planning Authority issued after-the-fact permission to the owners of Balboa Beach for an original take-away restaurant and following five enforcement notices and six infractions of the planning law, the owners of the waterfront site have made another application seeking permission for work done without authority. The application, which is […]
NCC votes for increased turtle protection
(CNS): A green turtle narrowly escaped poachers in West Bay recently after a member of the public called 911 to report an attempt to steal her away as she came onto the beach to nest. Conservation officers responded quickly and got her back in the sea, and then watched the beach through the night. However, […]
Cross-entity director needed for climate policy
(CNS): If the Cayman Islands Government is to navigate its way through the impending negative impact of climate change, it will need a director dedicated to the issue who can coordinate policy across all of the relevant ministries. Department of Environment (DoE) Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie told Finance Committee last week that the issue of climate […]
Gov’t urged not to allow 7MB doomed plan
(CNS): A complex engineering project that has been proposed to replace sand on a stretch of Seven Mile Beach is doomed to failure and will cause even more problems, the Department of Environment has warned. Urging government not to allow a coastal works application by the owners of the Marriott Beach Resort and several nearby […]
Climate policy gathers eight years of dust
(CNS): Cayman is not doing anywhere near enough to prepare for the onslaught of climate change, despite being a low lying small island country on the front line of sea level rise, experts have said. A climate change policy formulated in 2011 has been gathering dust in the Ministry of Environment because no minister has […]
EIA concerns still unfounded
(CNS): The Department of Environment reviewed 140 planning and ten coastal work applications in May, June and July, but did not require any developers to conduct an environmental impact assessment. Government has pointed to this element in the National Conservation Law as one of the reasons why it created a committee to review the legislation, […]
Planning law needs to support conservation law
(CNS): As government reviews the National Development Plan and the planning law and regulations, Department of Environment (DoE) Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie says that changes to planning legislation were always needed to help support the goals of the National Conservation Law. But there are fears in the community that not only is government going to gut […]
