Government creating fiscal space in the budget for the project‘

The way has been paved for a major US$49-million biodiversity conservation project to be undertaken in the Cockpit Country during the upcoming 2022-2023 financial year.

Entitled ‘Conserving Biodiversity and Reducing Land Degradation Using an Integrated Approach’, the project is being undertaken through funding by the Government of Jamaica, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Cabinet has already approved the project paving the way for its implementation over a six-year period commencing in the 2022-2023 financial year. The Jamaican political executive has committed to making provision for the requisite fiscal space to facilitate implementation of the project activities.

In addition, Cabinet through specific policy directives, declared the boundaries of the Cockpit Country Protected Area as well as the environmental permits related to Special Mining Lease 173, to be issued to Noranda Jamaica Bauxite Partner II under the Natural Resources Conservation Authority Act, 1991.

Objective of the project

The objective of the project is to address the negative impacts of unsustainable development practices by establishing and operationalising a comprehensive landscape approach in the Cockpit Country that harmonises socio-economic development, sustainable management of natural resources and conservation of biodiversity in this mixed-use landscape of Jamaica.

Implementation will be undertaken in association with several ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), and community-based organisations (CBOs). The Cockpit Country is Jamaica’s largest natural rainforest and environmentalists once proposed the area be designated a world heritage site to preserve its critical ecosystem and natural beauty. 

It  supplies critical fresh water for Jamaica, estimated at 40 per cent of the water needs of six western parishes, and 40 per cent of all Jamaica’s underground water resources. This clean water is generated and accumulated by the forests of the Cockpit Country.

The Government has been at loggerheads since the announcement over a year ago of the approval of a mining licence to Bengal Development Limited in a disputed area of the Cockpit Country. The Government is insisting that the area in question falls outside the Cockpit country but environmentalists have said otherwise