THE Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT) is looking to operate a cable car service through the island’s Blue and John Crow mountains, which will attract an estimated US$10-million start-up capital.

The plan, which is in its preliminary stages, is to be evaluated by cable car consultants out of Austria over the next several months, according to JCDT chairman Robert Stephens.

“What we are now doing is looking to bring in expertise out of Austria to work with us, and this company that we are working with has vast experience worldwide with putting up cable cars,” he told the Observer Tuesday at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston.

He was speaking following a presentation of the JCDT’s report on its work over the past year in the Blue and John Crow Mountains.

The JCDT manages the Blue and John Crow mountains.

The University of the West Indies, Stephens said, has done extensive work on the project.

“We have been looking at it seriously with the UWI. We needed to look at the geology of the area, at the geography of the area (and) the winds. And they (UWI) have now recommended the best location for the cable car,” he said.

Meanwhile, Stephens noted that there were several benefits expected from having the cable car service in operation. Not least among those benefits, he said, was that people would be educated even as they enjoyed the beauty of the Blue and John Crow mountains, which provides water for more than 40 per cent of Jamaica’s population.

The Blue and John Crow mountains also account for a third of the estimated eight per cent of natural forest remaining in Jamaica today, and is home to the giant swallowtail butterfly and several species of frogs.

“Firstly, you are able to move people far more efficiently because in about 15 to 20 minutes you can have them from way down in Kingston up into the Blue Mountains at a level of 3,000 to 4,000 feet,” Stephens said.

“The second thing is that we will now be able to develop facilities in Hollywell (a community near the national park) that will be able to cater to a greater number of people and educate more people about the benefits of conserving the forest, maintaining the forest,” he added.

At the same time, he said “we will also be able to get a lot more adults and children into the forest to experience it as we guide, not just willy-nilly, because what we want is for people to be educated at the same time they are enjoying the recreational facility”.

The JCDT boss said that they had already approached some “partners” for the required US$10 million, which should cover the “consulting (on the project), as well as the actual physical construction”.

He said additional details on the project would be rolled out later this year, even as he noted that the effort was still in its preliminary stages.

“This whole project is going to happen this year in terms of getting out of the ground and what we are looking at is how we can ensure that all of the pieces are in place before we go out there and start everything,” Stephens told the Observer.

“There is a lot of environmental research and engineering research that has to be confirmed. Although we have done preliminary work with the University of the West Indies, we now need to get the experts on the ground to confirm our findings, to agree with it and then we can go forward,” he added.

The Ministry of Local Government and the Environment has, meanwhile, reserved any substantive comment on the project, noting that whether it reached fruition would depend on it getting past the stages of a project – such as it is – which requires a permit from the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA).

“The ministry plainly would be supportive of having the (Blue and John Crown mountains national) park run on a sustainable basis. As far as the cable car operation is concerned, this is an activity which would require a permit from the NRCA and so they would have to make the decision if there is an application,” said Leonie Barnaby, senior director in the ministry.