Richard Nixon: “I am not a crook.”
Bill Clinton: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
Environment Minister Denis Lowe:
“Environment Minister, Dr. Denis Lowe says the re-opening of the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary is up to the owners, but government remains committed to doing all it can to ensure it happens.
He says he’s looking forward to having discussion with the owners of the sanctuary soon.
According to the minister, a working group has been set up to help government coordinate its vision for the sanctuary with the owner.
Dr. Lowe says the survival of the sanctuary has never been in question for the DLP administration which has inherited a strained relationship with the owners.” (Total lies from the Government mouthpiece CBC article Graeme Hall Talks)
Government Refused to Communicate with Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary since January 2009!
The last time that Environment Minister Lowe met with representatives from the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary was over a year ago in January of 2009. At that time, Dr. Lowe was again informed that the government-controlled sluice gate into the wetlands had been broken for five years.
Environment Minister Lowe said he’d “get right back” to the Sanctuary representatives about the sluice gate and the other concerns that caused the Sanctuary owner to shut the facility.
Dr. Lowe never contacted the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary again. That remains true a year later in February 2010. The sluice gate is still broken and wildlife species are still dying in the sanctuary as a result.
Now Denis Lowe has the audacity to lie to the Bajan public about what has and is being done by the government about the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary. It’s a damned shame that the CBC reporter didn’t ask a few more simple questions but the truth is he or she might have but the Prime Minister’s pal Leroy Parris is in charge at the CBC.
The same tall tale is in the Barbados Advocate and wonder of wonders – that story doesn’t talk about any of the central issues either. Nothing about the change in land permissions to allow development on the Graeme Hall watershed. Nothing about the demise of the Graeme Hall National Park first proposed in the government’s land plans around 1982. Nothing about the government’s refusal for six years to repair the sluice gate that regulates the health of the wetlands. Nothing about the fact that the Canadian investor behind the nature sanctuary recently filed allegations of international treaty violations by the Government of Barbados.
Nope. Not a word of the big issues in the Bajan media. According to Minister Lowe and his government, it’s all a “personal dispute” with the owner doan ya know! Not a word about the theft of a National Park from the people of Barbados.
‘nuf said.
Barbados Government cut off water to Nature Sanctuary wildlife
Just so you know the truth
The government did one crucial thing this past December though: it cut off the water to the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary over a billing dispute about water. You can read the nature sanctuary press release for the details, but the short form is this…
When the government workers arrived at the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary and shut off the water service and chopped the pipe (not just lock it!) it wasn’t about a billing dispute. It was just one more step in the constructive expropriation of a foreign investor’s assets by the political and business elites of Barbados.
Dr. Lowe’s current lies in the Barbados news media are designed to manage public talk about what happened when the DLP Government changed the land use permissions to allow development of the Graeme Hall wetlands and watershed. The David Thompson government took away a planned National Park from the people of Barbados and arranged for land developer friends to profit from the move.
The Barbados news media is assisting to keep the people in the dark and refuses to cover the central issues of the Graeme Hall story – when they talk about it at all.
And that’s the way it is this morning in Barbados.
Further Reading
Bajan Reporter, January 29, 2010: BREAKING NEWS – Promised Meeting with Graeme Hall Officials Fails to Materialise When Barbadian Government Officials Refuse to Respond
Bajan Reporter, December 21, 2009: Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary – who’s REALLY hurting from the closure?
Bajan Reporter, October 30, 2009: Canadian Alleges Treaty Violations by Barbados
Here’s the current article in the Barbados Advocate. Check out their website to get your own copy, but we’ll post it here in its entirety because the Barbados news media regularly changes history by removing articles from their electronic and paper archives. (click on image for 200k Jpeg file)
Barbados Free Press 
The two-face, forked-tongue approach continues. The PM was recently seen on television inside some huge piece of earth moving machinery attendant upon a new development at Edgewater in Bathsheba, the supposed heritage/nature corridor supposedly reserved for Barbadians. Just a little non-west-coast development here, and then a little there, and in two two’s the entire coastline of Barbados will resemble Mimai Beach, Florida. As soon as Zone 1 water restrictions are relaxed then whatever is left of CLICO (we all know who that is) can develop the middle of the island in St. John (we also know who the MP for that parish is), and other places now left wild by warrant of the water designation will soon follow. Hey, forget Miami Beach, we can soon look like Hong Kong or Singapore. Too bad current fiscal and labour policies won’t let us generate Hong Kong or Singapore money.
I can’t understand why some of the bajan reporters don’t pick up on this story. It’s all there online with the papers and the international treaty complaint. I have trouble coping with the censorship in the Bajan news because I don’t understand why they do it. Doesn’t the truth sell papers?
Why cut the pipe instead of locking it like normal in water billing disputes? BWA doesn’t go around cutting pipes every time they lock a service, do they?
Once again, why am I not supprised as we continue to bite the hand/land that feeds us! So what is the solution people? Move to a different place where people actually care about their environment, economy & society.
Geez, did anyone catch Dr Lowe on In the Spotlight aired this past Monday?
My mouth dropped when the Minister of the Environment repeatedly asked “so what is the contention?”
Well maybe if he would agree to meet with the people of GHNS, he would have the answer to his question(s), since their written correspondence is unclear to him. Or perhaps he could have one of his staff check the GHNS website and translate it for him, to get an insight or two into what the dispute is about. But, puhlease don’t look to anyone from the Nation to clarify it for him – they tend to misinterpret things!
I would really love to hear the show again, maybe I wasn’t listening properly. I am confused about a few things, but especially his comment on “moving the residents” and how this government would not inconvenience its citizens (or something to that effect). I don’t remember ever, ever hearing that the owners wanted to get rid of its neighbors?
I’m sure the owners could provide answers to Dr Lowe and maybe even come to some kind of accord if he would meet with them before the government decides to “Take it over”.
Minister Lowe knows exactly what’s happening. He knows the whole story. That is why he is pretending to be confused or whatever. The plan to take over the land at Graeme Hall continues. Everything Lowe says is smoke to conceal the ongoing mission: take over the land at Graeme Hall, screw the investor and give the profits to friends of the government.
It’s not so hard to understand what Lowe is saying.
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