BNT: Invasive beetles would exert incredible pressure on GB forests

Any proliferation of the invasive beetle found on wood offloaded in The Bahamas would exert “incredible environmental pressure” on the pine forests of Grand Bahama, Executive Director of the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) Eric Carey said yesterday, adding that if “heads need to roll” for this incident, then “let them roll”.

Speaking about the Grand Bahama incident during an appearance on radio talk show “Global Paradigm Shift” on Glory 93.9 FM, Carey said the invasive beetle would be a prolific breeder and threaten the local ecosystem.

“Hopefully we have indeed avoided this thing escaping,” he said. “The pine forests are threatened obviously from Dorian and hurricanes before that. There’s been a lot of salt intrusion in the pine forests of Grand Bahama, so we don’t need this. But what is most important, I think, is we would like to hear from the government on the results of their investigation. We need to try and figure out how did it happen from the perspective of trying to avoid it happening in the future.”

The government has vowed to fully investigate the importation of wood infested with the tree-destroying beetle that was offloaded on Grand Bahama after the United States’ Customs and Border Protection (CBP) discovered it on a vessel anchored in the Mississippi River. CBP did not allow the vessel to offload the wood because of the invasive beetle found on it.

The government revealed in a statement that the wood and areas around it were fumigated before the wood was incinerated.

Carey said Grand Bahama will always be under the threat of invasive species, given that it is a transshipment point for so many cargo vessels and shipping containers. He said what The Bahamas needs is better enforcement of customs and environmental laws to protect the country from such possibilities.

“What we need to focus on as a country is more teeth for the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection,” said Carey.

The government revealed that the investigation into how the wood was able to be offloaded and transported to the Pineridge landfill is being handled by the Department of Public Prosecutions, Bahamas Customs, the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Department of Environmental Health Services, the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources, the Office of the Prime Minister Grand Bahama, the Department of Forestry and the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection.

Carey insisted that the government must get to the bottom of the incident and publicly share its findings.

“Let’s find out what happened. If heads need to roll, let them roll,” he said.

“If people need to be fined penalties, let them be fined, but hopefully the government will share the results of its investigations so we as a people would know how this happened and also be somewhat assured that this would not happen again.”

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/bnt-invasive-beetles-would-exert-incredible-pressure-on-gb-forests/