MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT TO REVISE NATIONAL CONSERVATION AND ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION ACT OF 1987

Basseterre, St. Kitts, July 2, 2021 (SKNIS): The Ministry of Environment is pushing for a revised version of the National Conservation and Environment Protection Act of 1987.  
 
This was announced during the June 30, 2021, edition of SKNIS’ ‘Working for You’ by the Director of the Department of Environment, June Hughes.
 
“Our current legislation and our current Act is the National Conservation and Environment Protection Act 5 of 1987. Currently, we have a draft Act in place, a National Conservation and Environment Management Act (NCEPA) and the plan is to engage some key stakeholders to work with us to update that draft, and our ultimate goal is to get it before parliament this year,” Ms. Hughes said.  
 
She said that the reason for updating NCEPA is that “in 1987 it was considered to be a key comprehensive environmental piece of legislation and they touted it as one of the best pieces of legislation in the region at the time, but it needs strengthening, we need to evolve some of our environmental management practices and so we are looking to make the necessary changes and update it.”
 
“We plan to strengthen all the sections and we’ve added a new section on access to genetic resources and sharing of benefits and this would protect our people and our genetic resources for our people, and it would entrench into law our rights to our genetic resources,” she said.
 
“We’ve also strengthened the section on pollution control, expanding and adding to the definitions and procedures for dealing with violations,” Director Hughes added.