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Chris at Dominica Weekly writes: “I strongly believe that most Dominicans don’t realize the dangers of an oil refinery and how it can destroy the livelihood of many Dominicans. It’s so unfortunate…”
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16 comments
I am a born and bred Dominican, i believe its time we ask ourselves the question, development at what cost? Are we so eager to discard the many gifts/natural resources that we are blessed with. We take for granted what we have, but once lost our pristine Dominica can never be regained. What price are we really prepared to pay for this so called development. Please let good sense and love of country prevail and say no to an oil refinery being built here.
as dominica is the purest island is the caibbean the development of an oil refinery will enhance negative problems like pollution. this will damage our fine arable land, which is one of the country’s main resource. as dominica is an ledc it will be a seriouse problem if arable land is damaged. so i think the oil refinery should not be built as in the long run it will demolish the scene of ” The nature islnad
Oil and nature just don’t mix everyone knows that. Nature always comes off worse.
I SAY NO TO THE OIL REFINERY. WE ARE UNIQUE. WE ARE THE NATURE ISLAND, WE ARE PURE, WE HAVE A HIGH LIFE EPECTANCY,WE HAVE 365 FRESH RIVERS. If we have an oil refinery things will turn out to be opposite (negative).
A FRIEND ONCE TOLD ME THAT VENEZUALA DONE THE SAME THING TO CURACOE- BY BUILDING AN OIL REFINERY. SHE SAID CURACOE WAS LIKE DOMINICA WITH ITS OUTSTANDING NATURE, ARABLE LAND, FRESH SEAS AND LOW IN POLLUTION LEVELS. BUT SINCE THE OIL REFINERY CAME ALONG IT FORMED DISASTERS. THERE WAS HIGH RATES OF PROSTITUTION (WHICH RESULTED AS MORE HIV AND AIDS) DUE TO THE FACT OF WORKERS BEING BOUGHT TO CURACOE. FISH WERE DYING DUE TO THE HIGH LEVELS OF POLLUTION IN THE SEA….. LOOK AT TRINIDAD, THE CRIME RATE IS SO HIGH AS WELL AS POLLUTION. DOMINICA IS COMPLETLY DIFFERNENT.
I DONT WANT TO SAY NO MORE BECAUSE IT IS BARBARIC AGAINST CIVILISED NATURE AND BEAUTY.
IF THIS HAPPENS TO DOMINICA THINGS WILL GO DOWNHILL, EG IT WILL CORRUPT THE PURITY OF THE RIVERS FOR LIFE. NATURE WILL DIE AND THE COUNTRY WILL GET POORER AS TOURIST WILL GRADUALLY DRIFT AWAY.
I LOVE DOMINICA HOW IT IS. WE ARE UNIQUE. FORGET SO MANY WHITE BEATCHES.
WE HAVE NICE PEOPLE WE HAVE OUR OWN PURE BEACHES AND ATTRACTIONS WHICH NO OTHER ISLAND CAN COMPETE AGAINST.
“DOMINICAN PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS FIND FOOD TO EAT NO MATTER WHAT STATE OF WEALTH THEY ARE AT SIMPLY DUE TO ARE ARABLE LAND AND EXOTIC FRUIT ON TREES WHICH IS EVERYWHERE”
ACCEPTING THE OIL REFINERY IS SIMPLY SAYING ” I DONT CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE, WE NEED THE MONEY”
“LET DOMINICA GROW NATURALY, NOT NEGATIVELY”
Let us work to save this incredible island. Our landlady who lives overseas and just purchased our house in October has told me that she will be putting it on the market, before the oil refinery gets here. She is totally freaked out at the possibility.
Another woman I know who wrote a book promoting Dominica and life here, has moved back to North America, already. She was gone within a month of the announcement of construction of an oil refinery.
We moved home, my husband, a Dominican, had been overseas for twenty five years. We returned to help develop the country. If the refinery comes, we will have to find another place to live. We are saddened at the thought of losing one of the last places on earth like this.
Let’s wake up people and realize the value of our Nature Island. Let’s keep it that way!
Oil is a natural substance from the earth, we even have it around Dominica. If we are talking about Pollution then we should not drive, we should not have an Airport niether a sea port, fuelled generators for electricity should shut down, all this contributes to the pollution on our Nature Island.
The Kubuli beer factory should close because they dump the waste in the Rivers we bathe in, the coconut factory and bello should also close, the fumes saturate the air with unwanted matter not suitable for breathing.
We should be soo natural that people should be riding bicycles and making juices manually, candles should be lit in homes and get rid of the light bulb, our major form of transportation should be the canoe to get us to the neighbouring islands, we should also use the heat of the sun to turn cocnuts to copra and queeze the oil to make soap and other materials.
Building materials which causes much erosion to our virgin soil and much pollution eg the use of cements should NEVER come on our shores, we should live in thatched houses which are more eco friendly.
Radio stations and interanet access, we dont need because we have no use for fuel genrators that will pollute our surroundings.
WE ARE THE NATURE ISLAND WHO IS AFRAID OF ANYTHING MODERN, WE CHOOSE TO LIVE A SIMPLE LIFE, CRITICISE OUR TECHNOLOGY AND REMAIN AS THE BIGGEST BACK SIDE OF THE CARIBBEAN AS WE ARE OFTEN DUBBED THE POOREST AND LEAST TECHNOLOGICAL IN THE REGION.
I THANK YOU IF DOMINICA DONT WANT IT ANTIGUA WILL TAKE AND THE VERY SAME PEOPLE HERE WILL FIND THEMSELVES IN ANTIGUA TO WORK IN THE OIL REFINERY, Standford was rejected in Dominica and you need him now, Heineken beer factory was rejected and we need it now. I hope you will remain in dominica throough thick and thin.
Ithank you.
I would like to say to all those persons who actually are in favor of an oil refinery how would we as Dominicans benefit from it if we do not have the following:
1. LOCAL people who are trained to work there, these employees will be imported and therefore no benefit to us Dominicans
2. Infrastructure to support all the movement and possible hazards of having an oil refinery
3. most importantly the OIL to be refined….we will never be free of dependance on other because the oil to be refined has to be imported from Venezuela and other countries…and unknown to many of you the OIL is NOT FREE we have to buy the oil that will be refined… how then are we moving forward when we will have to continue paying for this oil.
I am very much in favor of Dominica moving ahead but why must we move ahead with imports from other countries when there are so many unexplored development opportunities on the island….we keep talking Nature Island and boasting the nature features we have but are not exploiting them for the positive…I will not repeat the list that has been repeated since before I was born… all I will say is the WORLD is EMBRACING GREEN, ECO, NATURE, ORGANIC and all those things we in Dominica are taking for granted.
THERE IS AN OLD SAYING…GIVE A MAN A FISH AND HE WILL EAT TODAY TEACH HIM TO FISH AND HE WILL EAT ALL HIS DAYS. Stop begging for handouts that only last for the moment, when we go to these industrialized nations we need to take the technology and education that will make us self-reliant and stop depending on them….lets take from VENEZUELA, CHINA, JAPAN, the EU and USA not just money to fund today but the ability to take care of our future without them.
Thank You and Good Day.
I SAY LET NATURE TAKE ITS COURSE
yes we may be the poorest island in the west indies.
but REMEMBER
BEST THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT.
WHAT PEOPLE SHOULD REALISE IS THAT WE MAY BE POOR IN ECONOMY WISE BUT WE ARE RICH IN CULTURE(OUR MUSIC, FESTIVALS WORLD CREOLE)
PEOPLE SHOULD JUST REALISE IT IS THE WHOLE CARIBBEAN THAT IS POOR AS THEY ARE SITUATED BELOW THE BRANT LINE.
WHAT PEOPLE SHOULD SAY IS THAT DOMINICA IS PROGRESSING THE SLOWEST COMPARING TO THE OTHERS- NOT THAT WE ARE THE POOREST IN THE CARIBBEAN. POOREST IN WHAT? PLEASE JUSTIFY THE POINT.
Please Dominica see the sense on remaining being the nature isle, leading edge science now looks to nature for many of the clues to open doors of progress in design and process.
While oil is only a dense energy form that has a high risk of negative ecological impact along the complete lifecycle.
The irony of Dominica seeing this as a development tool as most of the world is desperately seeking non fossil fuel alternatives !!!
Dominica has an abundance like no other.