The fragile nature of our ecological assets
THE RECENT wave of rainfall associated with the various tropical storms which have affected the island over the past weeks, if nothing, has exposed, once again, the frailty of the country’s physical infrastructure, in particular the building and road stock. But this is not entirely true. What is has shown, or reminded us of, is the fragile nature of the country’s ecological assets. Jamaica’s land, water and forest cover resources are delicately superimposed on the rugged topography.
All physical development interventions on t he island must be informed by at least three fundamental ‘natural law’. The first is already obvious. The second is the island’s location on the margin of the Caribbean and North American Plate, making it susceptible to earthquake and effects. The final ecological fact is the island’s location within the North Atlantic hurricane belt. These three locational tenets are the baseline facts to inform any and all forms of physical works/ interventions on the island.
It is no secret that Jamaica has a land degradation problem. Recent land degradation studies by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification reveals that between 1998 and 2015 forest cover declined from 30 per cent to 40 per cent. Tree cover area declined by a further 345.24 km2 and there was a 5.12 per cent overall land degradation nationally. Similarly, rates of deforestation moved from 0.4 per cent in 2013 to 4.0 per cent in 2018, with primary forest accounting for just 9.376ha in 2018.
The three baseline data for assessing land degradation are: land cover, land/soil productivity and land carbon stock or biomass. All three indicators are important in determining soil/land stability. If current rates of decline in all three indicators continue, with increases in current patterns of intense and shorter rainfall periods, then the country can expect to see even more landslides and soil displacement in traditional and non-traditional areas.
Of course, this is also contingent on the increase in current building practices that exert significant weight on unstable soils perched on steep unstable slopes.
The extent to which the country’s built environment assets are susceptible to earthquakes, tropical storms, floods, landslides, brush fires, tsunamis and storm surges is evident in the level of departure that exists in the manner in which physical development works are designed, build and located, and ignoring all these three baseline facts of the island’s location.
There are many places i n Jamaica where the topography and geological conditions are better suited for cable cars and zip-lines, than they are for traditional tarmac road. Many of the communities in the Mavis Bank and Gordon Town area would qualify. There are other places in St Mary, Portland, St Thomas, Clarendon and Manchester, where these systems can be implemented alongside traditional roadways or alone.
At the upper end, a cable car can easily carry as many as 30 passengers. Over the shorter distance (straight line) faster. Cable cars are less intrusive and exert significantly less pressure on the fragile geology and soil of these areas.
In another article i n this newspaper (Building Recycling for a Sustainable City) similar comments were expressed in relation to building construction on the Liguanea Plains. Given the country’s micro-ecological zones, with peculiar geological, soil and land cover dynamics, it is difficult to articulate a national building code, or national spatial plan, capturing all the significant micro differences to contend with. Each municipal corporation and regional agencies should be proactive in allowing localised micro-ecological and climatic metrics to inform their own how build zones. There is no place on the island where people cannot live with the right social and ecological fit. There are too many allegiances to traditional building systems that run contrary to many locations. The key is using the country’s ecological, climatic and social dynamics to define how build zones.