Environment Forum

Commitment No 1: To Bring Together Governmental Departments, Representatives of Local Industry and Commerce, Environment and Heritage Organisations, the Governor’s Office, Individual Environmental Champions and other Community Representatives in a Forum to Formulate a Detailed Strategy for Action. This was the first commitment made by the government of Anguilla when in the year 2001 it signed up to an Environmental Charter [link here]. Dr Mike Pienkowski is the Chairman of the UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum. He was engaged as a consultant to examine how we were performing under our Charter. He prepared a Report of August 2007. He calls it “Measures of Performance by 2007 of UKOTs and UK Government in Implementing the 2001 Environment Charters or their Equivalents”. A copy of his 19-page Report can be read [link here].

According to the Report, Anguilla has done quite well in living up to this first commitment. We have assembled a group to develop and manage strategy for action, unlike Cayman Islands and the BVI. The group has developed a strategy for action, unlike Gibraltar. We have named a Minister responsible for carrying out the implementation forward and ensuring reporting on progress, unlike St Helena. We have named officials designated and resourced to coordinate across departments and other partners unlike the Falkland Islands and Pitcairn Islands. We have NGOs resourced by government to provide an independent monitoring and reporting mechanism, unlike most of the other BOTs. We have a strategy implemented and monitored as an ongoing process, unlike most of the other territories. We alone have annual reports produced on progress achieved and plans for the forthcoming year. Funding is more complicated. It appears that government only partly funds recurrent expenditure and projects to implement the Charter strategy. Additionally, we do not yet maintain a fund ear-marked for the environment.

After that, as we shall see, it is almost all downhill so far as Anguilla is concerned.