Save The Bays Chairman Applauds Environment Minister for Youth Green Jobs Training Program

Thu, Jun 16th 2016, 12:26 PM

Thumbs up for government’s green job training announcement – With youth unemployment at record levels and untold numbers of environmentally-related jobs to be filled, Save The Bays Chairman Joe Darville today applauded Environment Minister Kenred Dorsett’s news of the creation of Youth Environmental Corps, a 5-year program that will train up to 1,200 people between 17-40 to fill blue and green jobs. Save The Bays also offered the partnership of its popular Youth Environmental Ambassadors program in Grand Bahama that has certified and graduated more than 100 participants.

Save The Bays Chairman Joe Darville today praised Environment Minister Kenred Dorsett following the announcement that he would launch a Youth Environmental Corps training up to 1,200 young people for jobs in the blue and green economies.

“The Youth Environmental Corps is one of the most exciting, practical, important and useful programs I have ever heard of any government proposing and I applaud the Environment Minister Ken Dorsett for planning and proposing it,” said Darville.

A retired educator who spent nearly half a century in various posts from counselor to headmaster and organized Youth Environmental Ambassadors following his retirement, Darville said the proposed program “is a perfect marriage between the demands for skilled environmental management with the need for job training. Save The Bays, along with other advocacy groups including Waterkeeper Alliance, have long called for an understanding that it is not the economy OR the environment but the economy AND the environment that will lead to sustainable development and quality of life for all of us. The Youth Environmental Corps is a program that fully recognises the economy and the environment go hand-in-hand.”

Dorsett announced the Corps through a press statement spelling out details of the 5-year plan aimed at tackling unemployment among those between the ages of 17 and 40 while providing jobs leading to a better environment. The Youth Environment Corps will work in conjunction with the Bahamas National Trust, the Bahamas Public Parks and Beaches Authority and the Forestry Unit in the Ministry of the Environment.

Darville invited the government to extend its partnerships to include Save The Bays whose popular Youth Environmental Ambassadors program in Grand Bahama has already certified and graduated more than 100 participants.

“We would be delighted to work with government and with the Environment Minister’s program in both establishing the needs and managing the day-to-day requirements of creating and maintaining a beautiful environment whether it is on land, in the wetlands or at sea,” said Darville.

Among the key projects mentioned by Dorsett is the proposed new Lake Killarney National Park and the National Hero’s Garden. If the Lake Killarney park is approved, it will include nearly 20 acres of walking trails and boardwalks. In the past, the ‘big lake’ in the centre of the island most visible from the air for many who have never seen it up close has been maintained by avid seasonal hunters who manage and respect the mangroves and strive to keep the lake in its most natural state. If the park is approved, the lake will be available for kayaking, swimming and snorkeling.

The second project noted, the Hero’s Garden, would be located inside the Botanical Gardens, Chippingham.

“The Youth Environmental Corps will help to reduce the economic gap and enhance our ability to protect and manage these resources,” said Dorsett, referring to the many national parks the Bahamas National Trust manages and the local parks and beaches that are the responsibility of the recently-created Parks and Beaches Authority.

Today’s plaudits for the government and for the Environment Minister, in particular, were not the first for Save The Bays, an outspoken advocacy organization that has repeatedly called for tough Freedom of Information legislation, an end to unregulated development and accountability for oil pollution among other tenets. Save The Bays praised government when it introduced public consultation for proposed Freedom of Information legislation and has continually urged government to retain the right to public consultation by strengthening the Planning and Subdivision Act and passing a comprehensive Environmental Protection Act.

By Alex Dorsett

Source: Diane Phillips & Associates

 Sponsored Ads