I CAN see it's going to be difficult to collect my bet from fellow columnist Mr. Peter Espeut, even though it's only a $100. In his reply last week, his environmental events are scattered all over the place and in time.

For example, he states that in 1983 the JLP Government did not re-appoint the boards of the Wildlife Protection Authority, the Watershed Protection Authority, the Watershed Protection Commission and the Beach Control Authority. It seems therefore that he was unaware that these entities had been merged by the previous PNP Government under the National Resource Conservation Department and that the incoming JLP Government institutionalised that arrangement. So presumably if the National Resource Conservation had a board, there would have been no need for subsidiary boards even though some people must have been sorry they were no longer serving on them.

Mr. Espeut also writes "Although they did not create the Forest Industry Development Company (FIDCO) the JLP in the 1980s accelerated their work. Jamaica would earn foreign exchange from a lumber industry, and Caribbean Pine was selected as the premier timber tree."

I therefore telephoned Mr. Keats Hall who was, for a very long time, Conservator of Forests in Jamaica and who, at 72, still works in the field. He said "...the Caribbean Pine was introduced to Jamaica in the decade of the 1950s in order to heal the erosion scars around the country, and did so successfully". In under three to five years, he said, the pine canopy covers many hillside cleared for planting. The Caribbean Pine, he continued, was selected after a species trial here in Jamaica on four pines thought suitable for growth in the tropics. He also said that the trend around the developing world was to look for fast-growing species with commercial value as timber to reduce imports.

In the early 1960s Mr. Hall said Jamaica was given a grant by the USAID for a pilot project to plant pine for commercial purposes in Mount Airy, St. Andrew. He also said it was in the 1970s however, that the World Bank and Commonwealth Development Bank decided to fund the establishment of commercial plantations right across Jamaica, and that also led to the establishment of FIDCO in 1978. Pines were planted on Bull Head Mountain, he said, Mount Diablo, Portland Blue Mountains, and on "all forest reserves."

Mr. Espeut writes "And then Hurricane Gilbert snapped the pine trees like toothpicks and the project was abandoned". Although he's got the decade right this time, the hurricanes are mixed up. Gilbert was not the hurricane which first demonstrated the abject horror of stands of Caribbean Pine snapping like toothpicks in the wind. No matter how well-accepted on the local market as a good substitute for imported timber, Caribbean Pine during that hurricane proved itself to be an ecological nonsense. Also demonstrated was the fact that natural forests could withstand hurricanes while Caribbean Pines could not. The name of that hurricane was Allen, and it occurred on August 5-6 in 1980.

The general election which brought the JLP government to office took place on October 30, 1980. So again I find Mr. Espeut tarring the JLP with the PNP's brush. Off by a decade, out by three months and firmly in charge of the wrong hurricane.

Nevertheless he wrote that my bet was "easy to win", the amount of it ridiculously trifling, and therefore suggested that I wasn't serious. My late mother, in addition to being an LRAM (Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music) and an ARCM (Associate of the Royal College of Music), was also a habitual gambler. Never mind what she was doing on a Wednesday or Saturday she always placed her bets on race days. No matter what I was saying to her at the time, once live reports of the race began on the radio I had to keep totally quiet. She always bet small amounts, and so never had an anxious moment about her indescribable passion for gambling. I'm a lot like that myself.

But I bet on things like who did what and when, and what might happen. Sometimes I'm wrong on what might happen, but rarely on what did.

In the early eighties, stands of natural forests were cut down in the Rio Grande Valley and Buff Bay River Valley in Portland and Windhill in St. Thomas to plant Caribbean Pine, but by then FIDCO's activities were being phased down by the new JLP Government because the organisation was virtually bankrupt and had been poorly managed.

In my last column I wrote that Mr. Espeut must dig up credible evidence of a poor JLP record in the 1980s for environmental management in order to win the bet. He still has not done so. But I'm enjoying the subject, and would like to give him another opportunity to do so. In order to make it more fun I'll raise the bet to $200 if he wishes.

Something I have not been enjoying however, is the print and electronic media trying to beat our female politicians into submission during this campaign period. Last month the editorial of this newspaper took PNP Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller and JLP Mrs. Shahine Robinson to task for their utterances from political platforms. Last week Cliff Hughes of Power 106 took JLP Ms. Olivia 'Babsy' Grange to task for hers.

Mrs. Simpson Miller said "Don't draw my tongue and don't trouble this girl, because I don't fraid a no man, no gal, no one..." From another platform Mrs. Robinson said "If is war them want them can come." And from the political platform in Half Way Tree last Sunday Ms. Grange admonished the crowd with "Stan' up pan yuh foot!"

Media is assiduously and incorrectly promoting the view that whatever else they may be, these women are not ladies. Yet nobody says a word for example when Dr. Peter Phillips blasphemes from every podium with "God blind you". None of these ladies has been blasphemous nor used swearing of any kind, nor do I think they incite anyone to violence. In every case they're talking about defensive action.

What each of them has been is courageous, because once a woman enters representational politics she instantly covenants with the people of this country to lead them through thick and thin and to protect them. Each of these politicians is a female warrior therefore, who cannot take to the bush at the first sound of gunshot. They have to be the kind of women one can hide behind, when one is oneself nothing less than petrified. Anything else can cause a public stampede of unimaginable consequences.

They don't wear dresses on the campaign trail because the breeze might blow up their skirts. Nor do they mount a platform in anything else but pants, not if they want the colour and style of their underwear to remain private.

Does anyone really believe that any of these three ladies has anything to do with the current political violence? They carry no guns and have no bodyguards. All they have is their mouth to warn those who try to intimidate them that it's a lost cause, and to inspire their followers to stand firm despite adversity. They lead from the front, not from an air-conditioned office.

I have no problem with women in politics being held to a higher standard than men, but not a soul is asking the men to be meek and mild, or refrain from indignation. Politics is not a tea party, and from time to time stridency is inevitable.

It seems however, that the only time a woman's skirt can be lifted is when a man does it, a view not held by either Catherine the Great or Queen Elizabeth I, nor any notable female leader that the world has ever known.