If they can put in 40 million into cbc they can put 3.4 milion to save a tree that will last far longer than cbc. Guess the next point will be that empire is too costly to save so knock it down and start afresh.

I remember there was a wooded area in Paynes Bay, just south of the Methodist Church, with some beautiful Bajan mahogany tree. When a building project was started there, a few of the tree were cut down. there was a huge outcry from many bajans and we were told no more tree were to be cut. Today there are no tree left there, when the powers that be intend to do something, no amount of protest will stop it, that silk cotton tree will go and bajans will protest for a week or until we find something else to grumble about.

Professor fraser where are you on this issue? Do you expect any thing different from dennis low(e), his height will prevent him from seeing the “High” picture. he is a goner in the next elections.

Money speaks in this country, ask bizzy williams and he can tell you who is in his hip pocket.

Cut down the silk cotton tree, or order others to cut it down and you will be cursed for life.

Are these designers and engineers so inept that they could not design a road without cutting down the tree?

Great engineers strive to make the seemingly impossible possible.

1.4 million is TOO MUCH to safe a tree for its incoroporation into the Warrens Design, which I must say would be a lovely picture. But writing off millions to the turf club and then giving away 10 million to defunct CLICO is not too much. What the heck is the government of Barbados thinking. Tell the Pandor man that this is one time we the citizens of Barbados abroad and here will protest this madness with vehemenence if consent is not staved.

It would never have happened if Errol Barrow was still with us. His legacy is now well and truly dumped by this government.

Read the complete story in the Bajan Reporter on the demise of the Cotton Tree.

Lil Rick said it “mash up and buy back”

Why the hell can’t we sue a political party ..? In whose interests are they operating?

The shape of the ABC highway was determined by special interests (I am told), and I believe it since much of it don’ mek nah sense …!

Dah round about in front of Simpson’s ITF building don’ mek nah sense …

I am sorry BU but I want to cuss so stink you doan even know. It peeves me to the bone the type of shite that does go on in my little island. These friggin manipulators of the truth and big up business persons who have the manipulators of truth in their pockets want burying in bare shite. Everyone here can point to some form of wasteful spending by government. You mean to tell me that a tree this old cannot, in no way, not even remotely possible, have any inclusion in this road work design? What the heck is a few million more to acquire the darn land. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Wendell Walker | December 1, 2011 at 9:57 AM |
“I acknowledge the price of progress. We have to decide if we want to stay 3rd world or not.”
Progress and so-called development ought not to be measured by the number of buildings and vehicles on paved roads. It is measured by the development of the people (education and health wise), the way the vulnerable and minorities are treated and the way the environment and animals are looked after. Not concrete jungles and stressed out, unhappy and selfish litterbugs and road hogs passing off as human beings.

our ” engineers” and authorities have been creating havoc with our landscape for years when planning their projects. an example of the same lack of thinking, sentiment and foresight, is the length of road bay street between London Bourne Towers and traffic lights at Beckles Road which floods every time there is a heavy downpour., reason the canal that used be just to left of the London Bourne Towers, the one at the ares a where the ice factory and gas company were, have been cut off to the sea, so the water settles on bay street until it can find a way to the sea, pedestrians and motorists have nightmares navigating this stretch. Remember that further up that street we have the Hilton, Grand Barbados and the Island Inn, I have seen tourists in the middle of the road wading through water , sandals in hand. Lord protect us from our “planners”

WHENDELL TAKE A WALKER……First world countries preserve their past at any cost. Third world countries slash and burn!

cursed to the man who desecrates our heritage. it shows the character of the persons willing to fell the tree. the upgrade could be designed around the tree. it is only in barbados that it shows that no one gives a damn about the poor man nor the environment.

What does it mean to be developed and modern? When Columbus came to the Caribbean over 500 years ago, he found a nation of people called the Tainos.

” The word Taino meant “men of the good,” and from most indications the Tainos were good. Coupled to the lush and hospitable islands over millennium, and a half, the indigenous people of “La Taina” developed a culture where the human personality was gentle. Among the Taino at the time of contact, by all accounts, generosity and kindness were dominant values. Among the Taino peoples, as with most indigenous lifeways, the physical culture was geared toward a sustainable interaction with the natural surroundings. The Taino’s culture has been designated as “primitive” by western scholarship, yet it prescribed a lifeway that strove to feed all the people, and a spirituality that respected, in ceremony most of their main animal and food sources, as well as the natural forces like climate, season and weather. The Taino lived respectfully in a bountiful place and so their nature was bountiful. (Jane 1930)”

From Select Documents Illustrating the Four Voyages of Columbus, translated and edited by Cecil Jane (1930—33).

Even the Bible in Mark 8:36 warns us ” For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Ironically, it was the Christian Spanish with their thirst for gold that exterminated the gentle Taino.

Posted to Ian Bourne’s FB page:

John L Webster
Update on Warrens Silk Cotton Tree issue

Earlier today I received a verbal invitation from the MTW, inviting me to the Ceremonial planting of two replacement Silk Cotton trees at 10.00 am tomorrow at Warrens. I was advised that the two trees have already been planted and the ceremony tomorrow is to symbolically place some soil around them. When I asked as to the location of the trees I was told that it is nearer to Jackson, in the general area of the “Sand Box Tree Roundabout”. My concern here is whether the location is truly a suitable one, as these trees get to a massive size over time – just look at the ones in the St Philip’s Parish Church graveyard, the two at Codrington College, and several in the Sandy Lane area. The existing one at Warrens is not representative of the true size these trees attain, as it has been repeatedly hacked back by the utility companies over time, resulting in a very scarred and small ill-shaped crown.

We can talk till the cows come home, when Pandor and his culprits ready, that tree coming down. Bajans are just talkers and they said “talk cheap”, this will just be a seven day wonder, then we will pass there one day and realise that the tree is down. Both DLP and BLP have been allowed to do as they like for years and we bajans just talk, this will be no different. Time we stop talking and come out and demonstrate, if a group come out to demonstrate, most of the talker will stand at the side of the road and shout their encouragement but few will join. Those who are brave enough will be the ones victimised.

What baffles me is that a bunch of vagabonds elected by us, the voters, can ignore us and do permanent damage during their term of office, that will damage this country for years and years to come. We need to let the leaders know how we feel about these things.

…and yet another scourge on this earth…When the cutting of a tree is blamed not on a wrong decision but on the racist remark ‘the stinking, killing, disease carrying human white trash Europeans’, we gotta know this island is in trouble. Shameful.

@ David

Is it that someone refuse to acknowledge the significance of these trees. Even when they become diseased and die they are surrounded by mystery. Do you know the more “rebellious” slaves were hung from the tree limbs and left underneath as a reminder?

This is from the Nation article published when the issue with the tree first arose:
“Fri, March 25, 2011 – 6:30 PM
Barbadians were today assured by Minister of Transport and Works John Boyce that there was never any intention to remove the silk cotton tree from Jackson, St Michael, to facilitate road works…..
Boyce told the SATURDAY SUN he wanted to dispel rumours that the tree was to be demolished tonight.
“That is not so, and has never been so. In fact, permission was never even sought to destroy the silk cotton tree,” he said.”
We now hear that alternative plans were drawn up to save the tree but that they are not economically viable. Clearly the original plan was to take down the tree.
Did the Minister lie, or did he not know what was happening on his watch?

Dear David:

Are we allowed to call a Minister a liar?

Many bearded fig trees were butchered at Paradise. These trees would have been hundred of years old and would have witnessed history. Is the Four Sessions project suffering from a curse?

@ Judge Dread | December 2, 2011 at 7:03 AM |
So you have dug right down to the spiritual “root” of this project’s problem.
The area desecrated was a thriving Amerindian settlement. The springs in the area were used as a source of water for domestic and agricultural use.
There was also a long standing sacred burial ground for the much revered ancestors. The area subsequently became a sanctuary for the green monkeys brought over with the slaves from West Africa. This project will not thrive unless an atonement for these archeological and cultural sacrilege and environmental destruction is genuinely forthcoming from the perpetrators.

A similar spiritual fate awaits the Warrens new town if this sacred tree is violated in a similar uncaring fashion.

Enough said to those shortsighted, materialistic and environmental mercenaries devoid of any spiritual awareness but hiding behind the cloak of religious sanctimoniousness and so called commercial prosperity!