Durrant Pate/Contributor

Jamaica now has a National Mangrove and Swamp Forest Management Plan 2023 – 2033, giving greater impetus to the preservation and protection of the island’s mangroves and swamp areas.

It is a 10-year plan that the authors say “gives a previously lacking census of the quantity of forested wetlands in Jamaica, their status is described in a Situational Analysis, and seven sub-programmes were discussed to satisfy the four stated strategic objectives”.

The document, which was created by the Forestry Department with funding from the European Union, is the first of its kind for mangrove management in Jamaica. It contains critical, yet realistic goal of legally protecting over 50 per cent of Jamaica’s forested wetlands by 2033. This 10-year plan was developed through an intensive collaborative and review process with national stakeholders over one year.

Through implementation and funding partnerships, the strategies and actions herein will seek to cauterise the threats and implement measures to improve the status and ecosystem functions of Jamaica’s mangrove and swamp forests, which continue to face degradation and negative impacts from both natural and anthropogenic factors.

More wetlands to be conserved

The National Mangrove and Swamp Forest Management Plan (NMSFMP) has been developed to ensure alignment with Jamaica’s national development planning, including the Vision 2030 Jamaica National Development Plan, to achieve sustainable development objectives. Vision 2030 Jamaica is a strategic
road map to guide the country to achieve its goals of sustainable development and prosperity by 2030.

The plan has been developed to coordinate with the stakeholders managing these resources, enabling them to act with improved or newly implemented laws and regulations and to have the plan aligned with Jamaica’s national development plans. The NMSFMP has ambitions of conserving an additional 4,340 hectares (ha) of Government-owned wetlands and 1,300 ha of privately owned wetlands and the restoration of at least 1,000 ha of degraded mangroves and swamps.

Several activities should bolster these actions to increase related human resource and technological capacity, increase forested wetland research, improve data management and information sharing, promote sustainable livelihoods, and public education.

The vision of the NMSFMP is that “by 2033, Jamaica’s forested wetlands will be nationally recognised and valued by the Jamaican citizens, with over 67 per cent (10,144 ha) of existing forested wetlands are conserved and/or restored and being sustainably used for income generation and green spaces, maintaining ecosystem services and delivering benefits essential for all people.

The NMSFMP 2023-2033 will function as a technical guidance document that provides tangible and realistic management actions and methodologies for a comprehensive, consistent, and science-based approach to managing forested wetland habitats in Jamaica.

Cauterising environmental threats

Jamaica’s forested wetlands had higher loss rates historically, which have slowed in recent decades due to increased regulation with at least six forested wetlands becoming protected. However, in Jamaica, mangroves and swamp forests are experiencing continued natural and anthropogenic threats owing to coastal development (both planned and unplanned), artisanal use (timber, charcoal, small-scale farming uses), hydrological modifications from agriculture and infrastructure development and climate change effects which are still pervasive in Jamaica and had resulted in the loss of 770 ha of mangroves between 1996 and 2016.

As such, the Jamaican government is taking numerous actions to preserve and protect the country’s remaining forested wetlands because it recognizes these ecosystems provisioning, regulatory, and cultural importance to Jamaica. In conjunction with this, Jamaica has been a signatory to various important regional conventions, has established international partnerships, designated protected
areas, and developed national plans and guidelines supporting wetland conservation and sustainable use.

There are currently four sites designated as wetlands that are of international importance, namely Black River Lower Morass, Mason River Protected Area, Palisadoes – Port Royal Protected Area and the Portland Bight Wetlands and Cays, which benefit from legal protection under the national environmental legal and policy framework as different categories of the protected area.