HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Leadership at the Guam Department of Agriculture is considering changing the agency’s name to the Department of Natural Resources.
That’s according to Sen. Will Parkinson, oversight chairman for agriculture, who tried Tuesday to place verbiage that would change the agency’s name into the fiscal year 2024 budget act.
“This came at the request of the Department of Agriculture,” Parkinson said. “They are not just covering agriculture, they are covering things like aquaculture and … fire. A lot of things that (are) not necessarily related just to agriculture. And so this is … just a housekeeping amendment to rename them to (the) Department of Natural Resources, to basically highlight that all the natural resources are kind of under its umbrella.”
His amendment would clarify that all references to the local “Department of Agriculture” in Guam law would reference a newly renamed Department of Natural Resources.
However, the name change still is pending; Parkinson ultimately moved to withdraw the amendment after Sen. Sabina Perez raised some concerns with the move.
“I did reach out to the director (of Agriculture),” Perez said. “They’re looking to do the name change. But I think not all the people in the agency are aware. And also … I think it’s good to at least take the time to look over (the Guam Code Annotated) to make sure that there’s no unintended consequences because I believe there is a natural resource board that’s under the Guam Land Use Commission.”
Perez said she thinks it’s a good name change, however.
“I just think there needs to be more vetting in regards to looking through GCA, making sure everybody’s aware that they do plan to change the name,” she said. “But I do like the name change.”
Parkinson agreed to take the name change “back to the drawing board” to make sure there were no potential conflicts in the current law.
The Guam Department of Agriculture in Mangilao is shown Feb. 9, 2023.
