File
The forests of the Cockpit Country.

Lovelette Brooks, Special Projects Editor

Jamaica's Cockpit Country, pristine, rugged and largely inaccessible, covers an area of approximately 550sq km of wet limestone forest. Located inland, with its heart in the parish of Trelawny, this large, rich wilderness extends to the neighbouring parishes of Manchester, St. Elizabeth, St. James and St. Ann.

A geographer's paradise, it is estimated that there are more than 5,000 'cockpits' - conical hills and deep depressions within the 'ring-road' of the Cockpit Country, creating its characteristic Karst limestone topography. Over the years, nature has also sculpted the limestone terrain (through a gradual process of erosion) which has left the area pitted with underground caves and rivers. Underlying much of the Cockpit Country are rich deposits of iron-oxides (bauxite).

Of global significance are these unique geographical features, biological diversity and rich resources - attributes by which the Cockpit Country has commandeered special attention and is proposed to become a World Heritage Site.

Economic potential

"Except for one place in China, there is no other place in the world even remotely like it," remarked the late Marjorie Sweeting, a geologist, whose pioneering work in the 1960s, drew national and international attention to the economic potential of this singular region.

Today, a national debate boils over rights to commercially exploit bauxite reserves within the Cockpit Country, bringing to the fore the age-old paradigms of man versus nature; economic development versus environmental integrity; and indeed, the flat Earth thesis.

Harmonising economic development with sustainable environmental practices is the ideal, and there are countries in the world which have attained reasonable success. Can this be done in the case of Jamaica's Cockpit Country? Can we successfully tap the resources and make them available to the people of Jamaica without harming the environment?

This is the essence of the present controversy which has brought together several players to the bargaining table - from bureaucrats to grass-roots advocates.

Side one is the government. Central to this debate is the granting of three licences by the government to private companies - at least one, (Alcoa), a multi-national firm - to prospect for high-grade ore within the Cockpit Country. This decision was made with no public consultation, or even details of what exactly they intended to do following the prospecting phase.

The move to renew Alcoa's license was widely understood to mean that the company would ultimately be given mining rights, or the right to exploit the Cockpit Country resources through bauxite mining. Also, that mining activities carried out on the customary scale would be detrimental to the Cockpit environment.

Strong lobby group

Side two represents the environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs). From the standpoint of these NGOs, the Government's intention is, ultimately, to grant commercial mining rights to one or several companies to extract bauxite from the Cockpit Country.

Further, they claim that no consultation was done with the residents of the Cockpit Country, local and national NGOs or other stakeholders. The Coalition For The Protection of Environmental Rights, from which emerged the Cockpit Country Stakeholders' Group (CCSG), has been a strong lobby group for saving the Cockpit Country.

A number of fora have been held by the CCSG to pressure the Government to rethink its plans for the economic exploitation of the Cockpit Country in a manner that would not harm the livelihood of the residents and impair the ecology of the area.

Further, according to Ms. Margarette Macauly of the Jamaica Environment Trust, the group is in the process of drafting a legal framework document to counter further moves to exploit the Cockpit Country.

The rather large advocacy group has since successfully lobbied the Government to withdraw the prospecting licence, pending an outline of the proposed mining areas and the outcome of further consultation with the stakeholders.

Side three is the environmental academics. Their concerns, confluent with those of the NGOs, strongly oppose widespread mining activities within the Cockpit Country. Mrs. Eleanor Jones, managing director of Environmental Solutions Limited and veteran environmental scientist, feels that the Government wants to "run away" with economic development without looking at the holistic picture of the area.

"This is a distinctive geomorphological region. Within this small space, one can find everything. Our major sources of underground water originate within the Cockpit Country. Five major rivers are fed from the acquifers under the Cockpit Country - the Black River, Great River, Montego River, Cabarita River and the Martha Brae. Five parishes derive their water supply, in whole or part, from this forested area - St. Elizabeth, Hanover, St. James, Westmoreland and Trelawny.

Ecologically, the variety of flora and fauna that exist here is found nowhere else in Jamaica. Mining activities will definitely disrupt these natural activities. We do need to recognise the fact that our environmental resources are our wealth, and we need to begin to integrate these assets into development."

The CSCG is one of the largest consortia of NGOs to have been formed in Jamaica, consisting of some 20 organisations and over 130 individuals. In recent weeks, it has been very vocal in its opposition to mining operations in the Cockpit Country and zealous in its petition to save the region. This can be placed in context internationally.

Worldwide, such partnerships have become a significant new outlet for addressing environmental concerns and defining sustainable development. In fact, statistics have shown that civil society's attendance records at landmark environmental and sustainable development events over the last 30 years - the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg - has dramatically grown.

Meaningful interactions

In response to the rise of civil society activism in environmental governance, as in the case of the Commission on Sustainable Development, multi-stakeholder processes (MSS) have been established. These are designed to enable direct and meaningful interactions between governments and civil society stakeholders on specific topics.

As obtained at the Convention on Biological Diversity, MSS are considered official parts of the intergovernmental process and are usually integrated into official meeting agendas. They provide opportunities for stakeholders to articulate their concerns, present proposals on the issues at hand, and discuss them in detail with governments. As a result, governments can become better informed and improve the quality of their decisions.

What our local environmental NGOs have done with respect to the Cockpit Country activism is to establish one such stakeholder process.

"To get things in motion, we formed strategic alliances with other NGOs and interested individuals. So we were able to get a good communication network going and have access to a number of websites to post our information," said Wendy Lee, who sits on the organising committees of several environmental NGOs in Jamaica.

Achieving a higher level of activism in environmental governance in Jamaica is a challenge for our local NGOs. One of the reasons for this is the manner in which these NGOs are structured. Environmental NGOs, according to Lee, have no operational funding.

"We actually get funds on a project-by-project basis. For example, we are presently working on a Food and Agriculture Organization project for the protection and conservation of some areas in Jamaica. When the project ends, the money ends too," she said. "The Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ), which is a grant agency, has been funding most of our projects over the past year," she added.

With the lack of operational funding, many of the NGOs in Jamaica are struggling.

"We survive on the generosity of our members. A good part of our time is spent getting the National Environment Planning Agency to do its job. This consumes time and resources, which we do not have," Lee said.

While still lobbying for new legislation to protect the Cockpit Country's resources, the multi-stakeholder group is pushing ahead for the implementation, even in part, of recommendations that came out of a World Bank Stakeholder study, executed by the then Natural Resources Conservation authority. The survey was conducted among Cockpit Country residents and identified several potential cutting-edge alternative economic opportunities.

These include a butterfly ranch and zoo, high-end organic agriculture, hemp product development, spring and mineral water production, essential oils and neutraceuticals, bamboo for housing, agro by-products from yam and other crops, and eco/cultural tourism.

All of these ideas, according to Lee, are "sustainable, long-term economic projects that would provide income as well as conserve the Cockpit Country. There are organisations that are currently pursuing some of these strategies. The Southern Trelawny Environmental Agency is at this moment pursuing an EFJ-funded project to work with the Cockpit Country communities of Rock Spring, Alps and Bunkers Hill to develop community and eco-tourism attractions. At the same time, we are investigating communities such as Mocho, Oxford, Balaclava and Wilson's Run for similar opportunities. Under the project, seven natural attractions are right now being developed for visitors to come and experience Cockpit Country communities."