Fraser stresses importance and diversification of blue economy
Deputy Premier Julian Fraser has underscored the vital importance of the blue economy for transforming the BVI’s future.
During the budget debate in the House of Assembly (HOA), Fraser stressed that leveraging the territory’s vast marine resources is key to economic growth and sustainability.
“The blue economy encompasses a wide range of activities, including sustainable fisheries, aquaculture, renewable energy, tourism, marine biotechnology, and ocean conservation,” Fraser told the HOA. He said these activities, when combined, can ensure economic development, environmental preservation, and greater social equity in the territory.
He explained that the blue economy seeks to ensure “economic growth, environmental sustainability, and social inclusion work hand in hand for a territory like ours.”
The Deputy Premier highlighted that while the BVI has just over 200 square miles of land, it boasts more than 30,000 square miles of marine territory. This presents a significant opportunity for economic diversification, particularly in areas such as renewable energy and sustainable fisheries.
He also pointed to the government’s efforts to formalise the blue economy’s development. “The BVI has developed the Virgin Islands Strategic Blue Economy Roadmap … So we have to do whatever we can to grow our economy. We have to diversify.”
While praising the government’s initiatives, Fraser called for greater urgency in diversifying the BVI’s economy, warning that the territory is losing ground to its regional competitors.
Fraser also cautioned against relying on outdated economic models. “This niche that we talk about can’t feed our people anymore. ‘Nature’s little secrets can’t feed our people anymore,” he stressed. Fraser argued that bold steps must be taken to reposition the territory as a leader in sustainable economic practices.
The Deputy Premier’s comments come as the government continues to explore innovative approaches to boost the blue economy, including blue finance initiatives and marine conservation efforts.
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Until these minister attend these meetings called commonwealth where the neocolinial agenda is instructed to them by these white global corporations that gave them acronym like S.T.E.A.M and blue economy which is leveraging our oceans for investors of large countries which deplete their fish stock to come here and take over our ocean with their much advance infrastructure or tool for doing so, since slavery had left us poor and can’t buy these large fishing vessel to do so and access to the markets, so they are colonizing our sea water, Monsanto already colonize agriculture by modifying seeds so they won’t bear a second time so food is able to control through war and sanctions when them man finish with our merchant politicians harvest brain giving them instructions we will be worst off in the future, all this is outside interference of our sovereignty, we would be less independent and more dependent that’s to our so call leaders who are stooges of white monopoly capital domination.
Clean up your own backyard, Fraser….Sea Cows Bay is a disaster on so many fronts….wrecks from before Irma and since, illegal land reclamation, Slaney sewage….
Weren’t he and his brother involved in the government-funded effort to fill in Sea Cows Bay? Weren’t mangroves destroyed in that project? Was it ever completed? Didn’t it come up in the COI?
When will the wharf on Salt Island be rebuilt?
The Salt Island dock, like every other private dock, will be built when the owners dig into their pockets and pay for it. Hold a family reunion fundraiser.
HE JUST GOT THERE…HE WILL GET THE JOB DONE…GAURANTEED!
The blue economy is going to feed us? That’s why there is all the land fill going on along the coast and some of that land fill is being used now to host old car dump sites. Pass through his district. Every piece of flat land has old vehicles piled up on them. All the old oil bottles from repairing all the big trucks lay on the same land, in some instances right next to a garbage tip. All the way down to Havers has a land fill now housing old cars. So as the tourists come past those sites on the ferries, or they cruise past in the taxis, we are treating them to ghettos, from Prospect Reef to Pockwood Pond. Killing off spawning grounds for fish and other sea life, that’s going to feed us? Give me a whole break.
FROM ” SCARECROW ” TO
” PROFFESOR 3 D ” HEY BRO , WHERE YOU AT ? ? ? ?