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USAID Information:
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Jamaica Conserves Its Forests, One Community at a Time
FrontLines - December-January 2009-10
Challenge
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Under a USAID project, residents of Flagstaff, Jamaica, received
training in conservation and tourism including food preparation,
customer service, and craft development.
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Cockpit Country, Jamaica,
is a UNESCO World Heritage
site that is home to over 1,500
plant and animal species
endemic to Jamaica, such as
the Jamaican yellow boa and
the giant swallow-tail butterfly.
Its wet limestone forest is
the largest remaining primary
forest in Jamaica.
The region boasts a strong
historic appeal as it is the
home of the famed Maroons, a
population of freed and runaway
slaves who established
independent communities and
forced the British colonial rulers
of the island to sign a
peace treaty in 1738.
Eighty-eight communities
span landlocked Cockpit
Country across the parishes of
St. Elizabeth, Trelawny, and
St. James.
Many residents farmed in
ways that harmed the environment,
including clearing and
burning forests and illegally
removing plants.
Yam farming, for example,
is one of the major income
earners, but it requires cutting
down many young trees for
“yam sticks”—poles used to
hold up yam vines. This
resulted in yearly losses of
hectares of forest—a habitat
for the region’s species.
Innovative Response
Through the Protected Areas
and Rural Enterprise project
(PARE), USAID helped conserve
Cockpit Country’s biodiversity
and promoted environmentally
friendly ways for people to earn a
living.
As a forest reserve and home
to significant Jamaican heritage,
the area was ripe for the development
of tourism.
Flagstaff, originally called
Trelawny Town and one of five
original Maroon villages, is one
community where residents participated
in a series of conservation
training workshops. The “training
of trainers” approach was applied
so that they could pass on what
they had learned to neighboring
communities.
The conservation education program,
conducted in partnership with
The Nature Conservancy, introduced
yam farmers to an alternative,
fast-growing tree for use as
yam sticks and provided training for
land preparation, pruning, and
propagation.
The program also bought native
plants to reforest 13 hectares of land
under the guidance of the Forestry
Department. Forest lands that had
once been converted for agriculture
and then abandoned were also
replanted with native trees.
Flagstaff residents received
training in business planning and
marketing, food preparation, and customer service as well as
food and craft product
development.
Karen Hilliard, USAID’s
Jamaica director, said of her
first trip to Flagstaff in 2007:
“I saw the birth of a community-
led initiative with vast
potential and so it is a pleasure
to see their tremendous
progress.”
Results
Since the project’s start,
several neighboring communities
have contacted the Forestry
Department to establish their
own committees. Officials say
the spirit of conservation is
catching on.
Calvin Shirley, who
attended commercial food
preparation training, said people
are more confident in themselves
as businesspeople and as
artisans. “There has been a dent
in rural migration since the
project began because they
don’t have to leave the community
to find work as they
have the skills they can apply
and the raw materials they can
use right here,” he said.
To promote the site’s rich
heritage, PARE worked with
residents to develop tours and
trails as a community tourism
attraction. The tour includes a
newly renovated visitors center
as well as signs to enhance the
experience.
The residents established an
artisan cooperative and a formal
product line of Cockpit Country
merchandise that is available at
the visitors center. A private
company developed the
Cockpit Country brand to direct
future marketing and promotion
of “eco-tourism” sites.
The Ministry of Tourism has
given its stamp of approval and
joined USAID and the Flagstaff
Local Forest Management
Committee to formally open the
Flagstaff Heritage Tours and
Trails to the public.
Staff from USAID’s office
in Jamaica contributed to this
story.
★
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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