Briefing
- Several Q1 2003 resort applications proposed development adjacent to mangrove systems.
- Coastal scientists outlined mangrove storm protection value in planning submissions.
- NEPA reviewed buffer zone guidance for mangrove clearance applications.
- Developers argued mangrove areas could be mitigated through replanting schemes.
- Regional research highlighted Jamaica mangroves declining at accelerating rate.
The question of mangrove buffers entered Jamaica’s coastal development debate in early 2003 with a sharpness it had not previously had. Several resort development applications that were in the pre-determination phase proposed construction on low-lying coastal land that included mangrove forest coverage. The applications triggered a specific policy question: how should the National Environment and Planning Agency weigh the development benefits against the ecological and coastal protection value of the mangrove systems that would be cleared or damaged?
Coastal scientists who submitted technical evidence to the EIA process made arguments about mangrove value that drew on both the ecological literature and recent storm event data. Mangrove forests provided nursery habitat for commercially important fish and shellfish species. They trapped sediments that would otherwise smother nearshore reef systems. And they provided storm surge attenuation that reduced the wave energy reaching developed areas behind them. The last function was the one most directly relevant to coastal development siting: a property built behind a mangrove buffer enjoyed substantially reduced storm surge exposure compared with a property sited directly on an open beach. Developers who proposed clearing mangroves were therefore proposing to eliminate a natural protection feature that served their own future property as well as adjacent communities.
The Mitigation Argument
The developers’ counter-argument centred on mitigation: mangrove clearance could be offset by replanting schemes that would, over time, re-establish the mangrove coverage that had been removed. The mitigation argument had a technical validity problem that environmental scientists flagged in their submissions: mangrove replanting schemes in the Caribbean had a variable success record, and even successful replanting of mangrove coverage did not replicate the structural complexity of mature mangrove forest within any planning-horizon timescale. The mangroves that would be cleared had taken decades to reach their current state; replanting programmes could not reliably reproduce that state within the thirty-year investment horizon of the resort development. The mitigation argument, in the scientists’ framing, asked the planning system to accept a certain present loss against an uncertain future replacement.
The National Environment and Planning Agency responded to the buffer zone debate by initiating a review of its guidance on mangrove areas in development applications, a review that would produce more explicit buffer zone recommendations in subsequent years. In the interim, the Q1 2003 applications were processed under existing guidance, which was less prescriptive than many scientists were recommending.
Related: Property Market Analysis | NEPA Jamaica
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