Esther Figueroa’s latest environmental film, Creation, is up on YouTube. Creation (Vagabond Media, 2014) is a short (2.53) film that combines beautiful images of Portland Bight on the south coast of Jamaica with biblical quotes from Genesis and Psalm 96 to entreat us to care for all of creation, that all of creation is important and considered by God to be “good.” [See previous posts Esther Figueroa Uploads Classic Environmental FIlms to youtube and TWO NEW ENVIRONMENTAL FILMS BY JAMAICAN INDEPENDENT FILM MAKER ESTHER FIGUEROA (VAGABOND MEDIA).]

Description: Creation is part of the Save Goat Islands Movement (www.savegoatislands.org). The Goat Islands are off the south coast of Jamaica in the Portland Bight Protected Area, the largest designated protected area in Jamaica. The government of Jamaica has signed an agreement with China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd. to construct a large transshipment port-Logistics Hub and the Chinese have chosen the Goat islands and vicinity as their site. The construction of the port will require extensive dredging which destroys the coral reefs, sea grass beds, fish nurseries, and mangrove forests, and the demolition and concreting over the two islands which act as buffers against storm surges. This area which is very economically depressed is used by over four thousand fishers, their livelihoods and those who depend on them will be adversely affected by the port development.

The Portland Bight Protected Area is home to many vulnerable species including the very endangered Jamaican Iguana that was until 1990 thought to be extinct. A recent study commission by the Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation which oversees the Portland Bight Protected Area, compares alternatives places to Goat Islands and finds that there are sites that are less expensive to construct, less disruptive of local communities and the local economy and which are less destructive to the environment. We must all demand that the government of Jamaica consider alternative sites for the planned transshipment port and that it be moved out of the Portland Bight Protected Area.

Watch Creation here: