GOVERNMENT is discussing the possibility of an eco-tourism project on the Goat Islands, two tiny cays located off the south coast of St Catherine.

The islands would be set up as a sanctuary for Jamaican endemic species, such as the iguana, and the process would involve the eradication of goats and mongoose, which are considered invasive species.

Minister of state in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Dr Ronald Robinson said the eradication exercise could take place in a year, if the parties agree on various aspects of the project.

"We're moving full speed ahead with dealing with the Goat Islands," he told a gathering at Port Royal on Tuesday.

Robinson envisages the Goat Islands as an area where students, tourists and other interested persons could view the Jamaican iguanas and other lizards, coneys and other species in a natural habitat.

"It's the almost perfect environmental tourism package," said the state minister, who also chairs the National Council on Ocean and Coastal Zone Management.

He was speaking at the launch of the Port Royal Marine Lab Biodiversity Centre. The centre is a joint project of the University of the West Indies and the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica.

The two cays, namely Great Goat Island and Little Goat Island, are located several hundred miles south of Old Harbour Bay and are about one kilometre around each.

Dr Basil Wilson, senior lecturer in conservation biology at the University of the West Indies who is familiar with the project, explained that the Goat Islands are supposed to be a game reserve, but is inhabited mainly by goats, mongooses and rats. He said iguanas used to be on the islands up until the 1940s.

"The goats render it unsuitable for animals like the iguanas because they (goats) eat up all the food," he said, adding that the idea of removing the goats and mongoose from the islands have been discussed since then.

Wilson explained that removal of the animals was not a simple job in that every single goat and mongoose needed to be removed for the project to be a success. He said there is a group from California in the United States called Island Conservations which was interest in carrying out the job. This group, he said, has experience in eradicating invasive goats from much larger islands such as in The Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, west of Ecuador and would raise the "hundreds of thousands of US dollars" from their sponsors for the project.

Wilson noted that the eradication of goats would be done by shooting, while the mongoose would be killed by poisoning.

Asked whether the goats could be eliminated by Jamaicans, Wilson said: "It was suggested that we should get some of the local bird shooting clubs involved, but when doing an elimination, it is more work to get rid of the last five per cent than it is to get the first 95 per cent. You don't want untrained people to go out there, shoot a bunch of goats and scare away the rest. Unless you get rid of the last ones, the population will build up again."

He added that there were several hundred goats on the Goat Islands, some of which had owners but said it not clear how many. According to Wilson, it is possible that some of the meat from the goats could be salvaged and used.

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