Bauxite was never destiny – so why act like it was?
Published:Tuesday | February 4, 2025 | 12:08 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie’s call – ”If not bauxite, then what?”– is as old as Jamaica’s Independence, yet our leaders behave as if this is a sudden crisis. The truth? The decline of bauxite was always inevitable. The real question is: Why did Edward Seaga, Michael Manley, Robert Lightbourne, Neville Gallimore, Seymour Mullings, Peter Philips and Horace Clarke show vision in their time, yet today’s leadership dithers on Rodriguez-Moodie’s question?
Jamaican scientists, engineers, and animal nutritionists already charted a way forward decades ago – agro-industrial production using Leucaena leucocephala (lead tree). That Leucaena 4F work proved we could restore mined-out lands and generate food, renewable energy fuels, organic fertiliser, and animal feed. What has happened to that momentum? Where is the resolve that once backed evidence-based solutions? Carlton Davis, Alwin Hales, Brian Silvera, Theo Ferguson, Gary Garcia, Kingsley Thomas and Stanley Rampair are still alive and well; also, Dermot Hussey bore lasting witness with his video camera. Besides, Byron Blake as well as Roderick Rainford and the CARICOM Secretariat are still breathing on planet Earth. Seed varieties of Leucaena now abound in Jamaica in low places and high.
Today, we still have the same alternatives staring us in the face: regenerative agriculture, eco-tourism, renewables, and a true knowledge economy. But these require more than empty rhetoric – they need political will. Instead of selling off our lands for yet another round of destructive mining, why aren’t Holness, Golding, Hill, Phillips, and Bunting leading a national pivot? Why do we still talk as if we must choose between poverty and bauxite when better solutions have existed for decades?
Jamaica does not have a bauxite crisis. We have a leadership crisis. The nation needs bold action – not just another round of commissions, consultations, and delays. The time for talk is over. The time to act is 2025 AD.
DENNIS MINOTT