Welcome to the SVG Green Party WebSite

The St. Vincent & the Grenadines (SVG) Green Party was formerly launched on 10th January 2005. The launch was held at the residence of Ivan O’Neal BSc(Hons), MSc, MBA.

Ivan O’Neal is the Leader of SVG Green Party and one of the co-founders. The launch was of significant interest to all the media in St. Vincent and in attendance were the national TV station, newspapers and radio stations.SVG Green Party’s policies are based on the need for long-term food, economic and social security in our country and environmental sustainability. We aim to encourage the development of an inclusive, safe society for all, eradicate illiteracy and poverty, empower the vulnerable, improve the health of the nation, create a fully employable workforce and reduce unemployment to single figures.

We need to leave behind last century’s politics of short-term party policies, created mainly to get people re-elected, but which are detrimental to our economy and society. We need to leave behind ‘party jobs’, where people are given jobs based on who they voted for.

We need a society in which people gain jobs based on ability and are free to vote for the party of their choice without fear of losing their job. SVG Green Party aims to bring SVG’s economy and society in to the 21st century with policies that are exciting, achievable, realistic, but also necessary to achieve a thriving, sustainable, democratic society.

IVAN O’NEAL BSc(Hons), MSc, MBA

Water shortages - the biggest growing problem in the world

‘Because if you destroy the forests, the rivers will stop flowing and the rains will become irregular and the crops will fail and you will die of hunger and starvation’

2004 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Kenyan Professor Wangari Maathai

The water in SVG belongs to you, its people, not the ULP government. At the next election, show courage and protect your water and the water of your children and grandchildren. Vote Green.

YOU MUST SEE THESE FILMS

Running Dry: Call to Action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3LH_2ur2LE

Flow the Film – For the Love of Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAdA6FIODyY

Blue Gold – World water wars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLp1ZnjsIXc&feature=related

The ULP regime predicts that 1.4 million passengers a year will come to SVG – that’s 3835 people a day. Since people normally holiday for 2 weeks, for any 2 weeks period we will have an extra 53,698 people in SVG. This is a 50 per cent increase of the country’s population. This is not sustainable.

Imagine the drain on our water supply with 53,000 extra people using it. The UN says that tourists use nine times as much water as locals, so really it would be like having over 480,000 more SVG citizens using the water. That’s four times SVG’s current population.

Also the ULP regime will cut down hundreds of trees to build hotels. Even if one hotel holds 500 people they would need to build over 100 new hotels. Tourists love to hire cars. Do you want 14,000 more cars on the road? This is pure madness.

A single luxury hotel in a Third World country can get through 66,000 gallons of water a day in its kitchens, bathrooms and swimming pools and on its lush lawns. An 18-hole golf course in an arid country can use 500,000 gallons a day.

Water shortages due to mass tourism is the biggest growing problem in the world.

The rainforest is the heart and lungs of our country. Our natural forests have developed over thousands of years and are worth much more than a few dollars from mass tourism. Mass tourism, and hence, the destruction of our forests, threatens the existence of every single person in SVG. Forests belong to everyone in SVG, not the ULP government.

Ninety per cent of nutrients in a forest are in the trees, not the soil. Removing trees leaves poor soil that will not sustain crops for more than a few years. Cutting down a tree is like turning off a tap for good. When indigenous forests are cut down, it takes 200 to 1000 years to grow back.

The pollution alone from mass tourism will pollute our fish and freshwater supply. Mass tourism will turn SVG in to a dry, graveyard desert.

If we get mass tourism, then we will lose the forests; when you lose the forest, you lose the water; when you lose the water, you no longer get tourists. Tourism ends, in fact, our lives end. This is all possible in a small number of years.

Countries bordering the Mediterranean are already facing water shortages crises because of mass tourism. According to the World Wildlife Fund, expanding tourism in the Mediterranean threatens water supplies. Many other countries around the world face water shortages because of mass tourism, including Jamaica, St Maarten, Canada, India, Barbados, Spain, Thailand, South Africa, Tanzania, Honduras, Bali, The Philippines, Sierra Leone, Borneo, El Salvador, Argentina, Nepal, the Middle East, Bahamas and Saudi Arabia.

According to the Global Water Partnership, large expanses of pristine tropical rain forest in many of the Caribbean countries have ensured that the region’s aquifers have been kept fully charged and the streams and rivers have continued to flow. We need trees to guarantee getting water.

The UN says that demand for water in Latin America and the Caribbean has increased by 76% as a result of demographic growth and there are around 50 million persons in the region who lack access to fresh drinking water. As a consequence of climate change, by 2020 between 12 and 81 million people will be affected by the increased water shortage.

Do not forget the water shortages we had earlier this year. A Canouan school was closed because there was no drinking water. Older people will remember how much the Rabacca river flowed before many years ago, how powerful the flow was. It’s changing before our very eyes because our trees are being cut down.

If we destroy the watersheds, water will become scarce and contaminated. We will see an increase of ill-health and diseases such as hepatitis, malaria, cholera, typhoid, dysentery and diarrhoea. We do not have these diseases now in SVG. Let us keep them from our shores. We must preserve the water for the children, they are the future.

The argyle airport, cross country road and mass tourism will destroy our watersheds and limit our clean water supply. According to the United Nations, on average, tourists use nine times as much water as locals. If water is scarce, the price will go up and it will cause conflict and social disorder amongst our people.

We need to protect and preserve our watersheds and start replanting trees in the rainforest area, where they have been cut down. It is no coincidence that there is less water in our rivers. It’s because we have less forest and the watersheds have been damaged. We must cancel the argyle airport and not build the cross country road through the forest.

We must invest in preserving water and focus on efficient use of it. We need strong Green leadership to preserve our water. As a leader, I, Ivan O’Neal, am willing to act to save our water.

A lack of water will plunge SVG in to serious and extreme poverty, the likes we have not experienced before. On election day, do what you know in your heart is right for the children of SVG. Save their water, so they can be healthy. We must give our children the opportunity of a bright and healthy future. There’s no substitute for water. They cannot live without.

We cannot increase our economy at the expense of the environment. The next election will be a decisive, critical moment in the history and future of our people. At present, we are lucky in SVG. We have the good fortune of fresh, clean water. Let us not throw away this most valuable resource.

If we lose our water, it will be a catastrophe. With mass tourism in SVG and tens of thousands of more people using our water, water will become scarce and polluted. Our lifespan will be severely reduced.

Everyone should have access to water. Water is fundamental to our life. It must be regarded as sacred and should not be compromised. Mass tourism is not good for SVG as it will plunge many of us into water poverty and force the poor to use polluted and contaminated water.

We must act responsibly and properly manage our watersheds to provide fresh drinking water for all Vincentians. I speak to people who in the past have voted ULP or NDP. Even you and your children need water. Do not jeopardise your future. If we get the argyle airport or cross country road then we will all be in trouble.

Think wisely and vote green to guarantee water safety. SVG needs sustainable develop that preserves life in SVG, not threatens it. We need environmentally sensitive development that protects our water, but also provides jobs for the people. A Green government will provide that.

Ecological priority must be our focus. The watersheds prevent floods and purify our water. The watersheds also prevent disease in SVG. As a nation, we must act responsibly with water.

Both the ULP and NDP want mass tourism. SVG Green party wants water for Vincentians. If you want to experience water scarcity and life with polluted and contaminated drinking water, then vote ULP or NDP, they are the same. If you think you can live without clean drinking water, vote ULP or NDP. If you want to live with safe, fresh, clean drinking water, vote Green.

If the ULP gets voted in and we have the argyle airport, cross country road and mass tourism, then our watersheds will be devastated and there would be virtually no fresh water for Vincentians.

For example, the Shangri-La resort in Fiji uses more fresh water and generates more waste water than all the villages around it. When water is scarce, the government gives the hotel priority over the local villages, so the hotel can replenish its water reservoir for its golf course and three swimming pools. The coral coast of Fiji is now called the dead coral coast of Fiji.

It is within your power as voters to save this country. You had the power to defeat the communist constitution the ULP proposed, now use your power to stop the ULP destroying your water.

The decisions we make today will have a profound affect on our country and children for decades. Mass tourism is not the way forward. What is the point of having a job cleaning up after rich tourists, if you and your children have no clean water to drink?

The ULP regime can offer you all the riches in the world under tourism, but when the water becomes scarce and polluted, you won’t live to pick up your pay cheque at the end of the month.

We have a short window of time. If we do not succeed in taking the right action to safeguard our water and environment at the next election, then we will put our country on a trajectory to devastation and our children a trajectory to a shorter life.

When our children’s water is polluted, they will point the finger of blame at us.

Remember, every drop counts.

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