WITH a recent $3-million injection from the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica, (EFJ) the cash-strapped Montego Bay Marine Park is now re-staffing its facility which was scaled down to three workers last year as a result of a lack of funds.

The park is looking to increase its rangers from one to four, employ a communications officer and a science officer, as well as a management information systems officer. They hope to have all six employees in place by April 1.

Apparently the park’s decision to hire more staff was bolstered by its $5-million budget — $3M from the EFJ; $1.5M from the National Parks Trust Fund, and half a million from fundraising efforts. The move to expand the workforce to nine people, was also triggered by the EFJ’s undertaking to come up with a three-year plan to make the island’s parks more viable.

However, some critics have warned that Marine Park officials may have been too hasty in their decision to re-hire staff, claiming that there might not be enough funds to keep the facility operational once this year’s resources are exhausted. It is not clear how much of the budget will be allocated to salaries.

But in the short-term, the Park’s executive director, Jill Williams, told the Observer that there was “enough money to pay the rent, pay for gas for patrols and re-insure our assets; so that’s where we are now.”

Williams also said that attempts are being made to put a long-term plan into place.

For instance, she pointed out that the EFJ had a three-year plan for parks islandwide which would auger well for her facility.

“Part of the discussions with EFJ was to arrive at a way of sustaining all the national parks, not just us, on a long-term basis,” she said.

The island’s parks usually receive some level of funding from the National Park Trust Fund, but that money has dwindled steadily over the years. The Montego Bay Marine Park, for example, thought it would have received about $5 million this year but only received about a fifth of that amount.

The EFJ has now stepped in, and is to come up with a three-year plan to fill the gap.

“The whole group of us have been working with the EFJ over the past year and in fact there’s another conference scheduled soon to come up with a sort of three-year plan for all the things that we can do and where we’ll be in three years time,” Williams said. “The EFJ had committed $50 million to support the five NGOs for three years so this $3 million we received is out of that, so we will get more money from them.”

With the hiring of the three new rangers, the Park expects to more efficiently patrol the environmentally protected area and prevent infractions. The rangers will each head a team of volunteers, in a bid to maximise their effectiveness.

“The plan is to use volunteers, honorary rangers to augment the ranger core so that we won’t just have the four of them going out on a patrol together but each one will lead a patrol with the others going with them. We’ll put in as many hours as we can,” Williams said.

Once employed, the MIS officer will also be expected to increase the park’s efficiency by maximising the use of its computer systems; the science officer will be responsible for regularly monitoring the reefs, fish species and water quality. The communications officer will then be required to increase public awareness of the marine park’s issues and activities.