A man who pleaded guilty to cutting down trees in Mount Horeb, rural St Andrew, was ordered to replant some when he appeared in the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court on May 10.

The accused Wayne Nelson, who is from the Mount Horeb community, pleaded guilty to removing trees on a forest reserve without a permit when he appeared before Resident Magistrate Georgianna Fraser.

It was the RM who ordered that he replace the trees he had cut down before he is sentenced.

In ordering the community service, she indicated that trees play an important role in the ecosystem and help to mitigate drought and other environmental conditions. Fraser also noted that should the practice continue unabated, Jamaica would have neither wood nor water to celebrate the meaning of its name.

Nelsonâ who can be fined up to $200,000 and/or sentenced to two years in prison for the offence — is to replant at least two trees, under the supervision of the Forestry Department, before the next mention date on May 27.

On April 15 this year, the Forestry Department allegedly received information that Caribbean pine trees were being illegally logged on lands in Mount Horeb, which are managed by the department. Department representatives and the Stony Hill Police tried to find the location, but heavy rain hampered their efforts.

However, the next day (April 16), representatives from the department, while patrolling lands it manages, noticed pieces of lumber, believed to be Caribbean pine, stacked beside a house in the vicinity of the area where the initial logging was reported to have occurred. The Island Special Constabulary Force’s Agro and Environmental Enforcement Unit and forestry officers went to the location where they discovered that two trees had been recently cut. Sixty-nine pieces of Caribbean pine were also seen stacked beside two houses nearby.

Further investigations turned up an additional 42 pieces, which had been cut down one to three days earlier, while the remaining pieces were cut down about six months before. A police probe later revealed that Nelson was the one responsible for cutting down the trees, which he intended to use to build a house. He was arrested and charged under Section 31 of the 1996 Forest Act.