Fern Gully
restoration
1904
1930
now
The 1999 initiative:
Daily Gleaner, January 13, 1999
Fern Gully gets face-lift
THE
FERN Gully initiative to restore the
pristine
charm and rain forest importance of
the St Ann beauty spot got underway last week, with
the
planting of hundreds of ferns to
replenish the
depleting stock.
North
Coast businessman and JLP Minister of State
spokesman for Tourism and the Environment,
Michael Belnavis, led a group of friends and
supporters, to begin the project he
announced and
initiated last summer. Belnavis
hailed the event
"a grand success"
The
fern-planting exercise will be an ongoing
one -
"a desperate move," says
Belnavis, "to save
Fern
Gully, and help to stop major soil
erosion that could
threaten the town of
Ocho Rios
with massive
flooding during very heavy rainfall"
Belnavis
has put together a 14-member board of
directors to help him administer the programme.
Peter Phillips
Daily Gleaner, January 23, 1999
For Fern Gully face-lift
The Editor, Madam:
I
must use your column to commend the
relevant
persons for undertaking "The Fern
Gully Face Lift"
project, (Daily Gleaner Jan 13, 1999)
However I still have a major concern.
This is regarding the "fern persons"
present in the
gully. These individuals
continue to strip the gully of
the ferns and use them to decorate themselves.
Whilst
this is an interesting sight to the
tourists who
frequent the gully, this
practice has a long-term
consequence where
preserving the beauty of the
gully is concerned. I hope the relevant persons will look into this matter.
NATURE LOVER
Via Go-Jamaica
Daily Gleaner, January 24, 1999
Major road repairs for St Ann - Dr. Phillips
About $100 million is to be spent on major road repairs in St. Ann over the next six weeks. . . .
The
Minister said that work on the Fern
Gully road
would be done to facilitate
easier access to the
resort town. However, he explained that the
Ministry was seeking
to establish a
claim on the
previous contractors who
had not completed the
work satisfactorily.
. . . but the problems still continued:
Protests continue in Fern Gully
Ocho Rios. St. Ann;
While
the rest of the island cooled down
from the
three days of protest [over gas prices], yesterday
Ocho Rios heated
up with a huge blockade in Fern
Gully.
As
early as 5.00 a.m. motorists were
greeted with
burning tyres, gasolene spread
across the road, old
wrecked vehicles,
stones and other debris covering
a stretch of the popular tourist attraction.
The
St Ann police and soldiers were quickly
on the
scene and after a few testy exchanges with
residents, started clearing the blockade.
Daily Gleaner, May 27, 1999
The trailer-truck threat on the roads
The
sheer size and menace of these units
make their
drivers seem to be a law
unto themselves; and the
fact that they
are able to get away with some of
the
things they do sends a wrong
message to other road
users. For example,
although trailers are not
supposed to use
areas such as Fern Gully in St Ann,
they can often be seen doing just that,
endangering
the lives of other road users.
One truck breaking down in Fern Gully can, and
often does, back up traffic to and from Ocho Rios
for hours. This
contributes to lawlessness, as
every time one person gets away with bending the rules, others will follow the example.
He
[Peter Phillips] also mentioned that rehabilitation work in the Fern Gully will begin on Tuesday, with
half of the
$12 million cost being borne by the
contractors who carried out the previous
rehabilitation work. The contractors had agreed
to
bear some of the costs because of
concerns about
the quality of work done under the previous
contract.
Daily Gleaner, August 3, 1999
Fern Gully closed
Fern
Gully in St. Ann has been closed to
the
motoring public between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
daily
for about one month, Milton Hodelin,
director
of maintenance at the Ministry of
Transport and
Works, said motorists should
use alternate routes
through Breadfruit Hill
Road and Chalky Hill Road
during those hours.
Fern Gully repairs
Repairs and rehabilitation to the road and drains in Fern Gully begins today. The work is estimated
to
cost $12 million, with the Government paying
half the amount. The remaining 50 per
cent will be
borne by the contractors who did the
original work.
Transport and Works Minister,
Dr. Peter Phillips,
commended the contractors
for taking
responsibility for the damage to
the attraction,
noting that the work must be done to high standards.
Comment on the efforts in Fern Gully continued, however, to be essentially critical.
Daily Gleaner, August 6, 1999
Fern Gully again
After
the expenditure of millions of dollars to
restore Fern Gully to something of its
pristine splendour, the
Government has found
itself in the position of having to
spend another huge sum on the same
project, just two
years after the work was supposed to have been done.
Fern
Gully, with its luxuriant growth of tropical
trees and plants, is one of Jamaica's
prime tourist attractions.
Unfortunately, it forms part of the much-used North Coast main road leading to the resort town of Ocho Rios.
Because
of the heavy traffic which has to pass
through the tree-shaded ravine, the former
beauty spot has
lost a great deal of
its attractiveness. The road surface has
been severely damaged and the vegetation
ruined
by the toxic fumes from the buses, trucks, trailers and other heavy-duty vehicles which go through it daily.
Hence
the effort to restore it to some
semblance of its former glory, with regard
to the road surface and also
with an eye to the preservation of its natural vegetation.
However,
the road repairs which had been undertaken
proved to be unsatisfactory, and so the
Ministry of
Works has decided to have
the work done over. The contractor on
the first job has agreed to pay
one-half of the
cost of the latest
repairs, though Minister Phillips stilt felt
constrained to warn against the consequences
of not
doing work according to specifications.
Now
that another attempt is being made to
make Fern Gully look like the beauty
spot it once was, perhaps
it is not too much to ask that steps be taken to limit its use as a main road: certainly, monitoring its use by the heavy-duty vehicles which have been largely responsible for its deterioration over time.
Daily Gleaner, August 10, 1999
Monitoring unit falls down on Fern Gully road
By Lynford Simpson, Freelance Writer
The
Ministry of Transport and Works is
admitting that failure on the part of
its Monitoring Unit to identify
structural
weaknesses at the time resurfacing work was
done on the Fern Gully road in St.
Ann less than two
years ago, is the main cause for the rapid deterioration of the structure.
Permanent
Secretary in the Ministry, Dr. Alwin Hales,
said the road started going bad almost
as soon as the
work was completed,
following severe flooding in St Ann.
Ironically, the work was done by General
Paving
Company, the same firm which did the resurfacing of the Bog Walk Road, for which it has been commended.
But
just what went wrong in the Fern Gully
and is the Monitoring Unit, which is
located in the Public Works
Department
solely to blame? Dr. Hales explained that
apart from the Unit, the Ministry employs
consultants
to do site supervision and
monitoring. He said the Unit is expected to
do its own monitoring. Yet, with
consultants and a Unit staffed with civil engineers structural defects were not identified.
While
the Unit is expected to work alongside
the consultants, it has its own problems,
chief of which
is a staff
shortage. Of the four civil engineer positions in the department, only two are filled at the moment because of inadequate enumeration.
"It
(inadequate renumeration) not only affects the
Unit but the entire Ministry and it is
something we
are
addressing as a matter of urgency," the Permanent Secretary said.
Daily Gleaner, November 25, 1999
Fern Gully an eyesore: Unfinished road repairs 'an embarrassment'
Ocho Rios, St. Ann:
Fern Gully, once an awesome sight for tourists and locals, has gone from beauty spot to ugly duckling.
The Fern Gully road which has been dug up for resurfacing has become a source of inconvenience and embarrassment, say residents and tourism officials, Meanwhile taxi-drivers, tour operators and craft vendors say business has nose-dived since work started on the road four months ago. In recent months a number of accidents have also been reported along the uneven and potholed stretch of road.
Road repairs scheduled to last a month is three months behind while huge holes — channels for water — line the roadside.
Last week, frustrated by the situation, the St. Ann Chamber of Commerce called on the Ministries of Works, Security and Tourism to address the matter with urgency.
"This surely is a manifestation of the callous disregard for the many road users, a fair proportion of whom are visitors to our resort town," the Chamber said.
"Fern Gully doesn't have much to offer by way of scenic beauty as before," said Samuel Jackson, a taxi operator. "There was a time when it was one of our favourite spots to take visitors but now it's almost an embarrassment."
Mr. Jackson said that the insistence of truck drivers on going through Fern Gully, although there are signs telling them not to, has contributed to "the tragic destruction" of one of the island's most scenic areas.
Motorists have been asked to use the road through Breadnut Hill as an alternative route between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
In August the Transport and Works Ministry signed a $12 million contract with General Paving Company Limited. Half the cost was to be borne by the contractor who initially worked on the road two years ago. Since then the area has rapidly deteriorated, due to severe flooding. At August's signing Transport and Works Minister Dr. Peter Phillips insisted that the contractors would have to take full responsibility for any shoddy work done the second time around.
The Kingston-based contractors is blaming bad weather for missing its deadline.
"The weather has been very unkind to us over the past couple of months and this has prevented us from completing the work. We had three good days last week and we got to lay as much asphalt as we could," said Anthony Matheson, project engineer for the contracting firm.
He noted that asphalt could not be laid during rainfall but that the resurfacing could be completed this week, weather permitting.
He also dismissed suggestions that the company had run out of money, after accepting responsibility for the previous work.
'Fern Gully to glow again'
. . . and, at the very end of the 1990s, yet another project, promising 'environmentally friendly activities' which would be undertaken in Fern Gully.
Daily Gleaner, December 28, 1999
Chamber of commerce to aid enviro projects
The St. Ann Chamber of Commerce is now able to assist community-based and nongovernmental organisations to access funding for environmental projects up to a value of US$50,000 each.
Speaking
at a function recently in Runaway Bay,
St. Ann, Second vice-president of the
Chamber, Andrew Grant, said
a grant
for US$400,000 has been allocated
to the organisation to finance projects in
communities between Dunn's
River and White River
and up to 10 miles inland.
The
amount is part of a US$1.2 million
allotment by the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID)
for
projects to be undertaken in Negril, Port Antonio, Ocho Rios and the environs.
Mr.
Grant stressed that environmentally friendly
organisations would be required to submit
proposals to the Chamber for
approval before funds could be disbursed.
He
pointed out that two projects have already
been submitted, and if they were approved,
persons would be able
to get
connected to the Ocho Rios sewerage treatment system, and environmentally friendly activities could be undertaken in Fern Gully.
