THE Natural Resources Conversation Authority (NRCA), Jamaica’s principal environmental management agency, is exploring the appropriateness of the ‘Blue Flag’ standard as an environmental management tool for Jamaica’s beaches and marinas.

Blue Flag, a highly successful voluntary certification scheme for the beaches and marines, has been operating in Europe since 1987 by the foundation for Environmental Education in Europe (FEEE).

It is an award system under which European beaches that fulfil a number of extracting criteria in relation to factors such as the quality of bathing water, cleanliness and safety are given the right to fly the Blue Flag. With the financial and moral support of the European Commission, this flag has become a European symbol of coastal environmental quality and is much sought after for the status it confers and the attraction it has for beach tourists. Over 2000 European beaches were awarded Blue Flags in 1999.

NRCA, in association with the Coastal Water Quality Improvement Project (CWIP), the Authority’s United States Agency for International Development-funded project is working with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and several public and private sector agencies and non-governmental organisations, to assess the appropriateness of the Blue Flag for Jamaica.

Similar assessments are also being carried out elsewhere in the region with UNEP assistance.

At a Caribbean Blue Flag Evaluation & Feasibility Programme workshop at the Hilton Kingston Hotel last week, UNEP’s Alessandra Vanzella-Khouri said that awards and ecolabels were proving more and more useful all over the world as environmental management tools.

She that Blue Flags are awarded based on achievements in four areas: water quality, safety and services, environmental education and information.

But, Vanzella-Khouri noted, a successful Blue Flag programme needs to be supported by national, local as well as regional policies on safety, water quality, environmental education, waste management, management of natural-based recreation and siting of tourism facilities. Blue Flag in turn, she said, strengthens and facilitates the effective implementation of such policies.

Following a study done by the UNEP and the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) in 1995, it was suggested that the Blue Flag scheme could prove useful to Caribbean countries, many of which have economies which rely heavily on the beaches and near shore marine resources.

The framework for the Blue Flag scheme includes the existence of a beach policy, a coastal zone policy, a mechanism to resolve resource use or user conflicts, adequate public beach facilities and established beach access right.

Addressing the workshop, NRCA Executive director, Franklyn McDonald, said that the Authority had already embarked on some initiatives that will facilitate and curate the enabling environment for the Blue Flag Scheme.

This, he said includes, “the beach policy which is well on its way to being completed and an integrated coastal and ocean zone policy which is now being developed.