With an endowment of US$200,000, the country’s trust fund dedicated to financing protected areas now has firm footing on which to begin the work for which it was created.

It’s a big deal for the team which has been working toward that end for the last five years.

As explained by the fund’s manager, Danellia Aitcheson, the National Conservation Trust Fund of Jamaica (NCTFJ) is uniquely poised to mobilise resources from diverse sources including the government, multi-lateral, bilateral arrangements, and others from which government and other NGOs are unable to receive funding, such as the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF).

That unique position was formalised last Wednesday — World Environment Day — when NCTFJ inked a partnership agreement with the CBF, a regional endowment fund consisting of a Jamaican sub-account and eight other national conservation funds in the region.

The signing of the agreement signalled Jamaica’s access to seed funding of some US$200,000 a year for the next three years. In the third year, however, Jamaica has to match the CBF funds.

“The National Conservation Trust Fund of Jamaica…will complement limited and intermittent funding for protected areas management,” Aitcheson said Wednesday.

“It is a vehicle that will mobilise additional resources to assist in bridging current funding gaps and promote sustainable mangement in the protected areas. In addition, we will support the consolidation of the protected areas system by working with all entities and stakeholders diretly involved in protected areas management. We will respond to their needs to strengthen coordination and deffective management of the areas,” she continued.

The local fund is expected to issue its first call for funding proposals this year.

NCTFJ was formally set up back in 2014 and was an outcome of the National Protected Areas System project financed by the United Nations Development Programme’s Global Environment Facility, and implemented by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) from 2010 to 2016.

Its mission is to fill the funding gap that currently exixts in the management of protected areas, which it said requires US$8.4 million per annum. The current inflows to the sector, according to NCTFJ, is US$6.4 million each year, leaving a shortfall of US$2 million.

“The launch of the NCTFJ today is a most worthwhile development and one that augurs well for the protection and preservation of the environment and natural resources, particularly our protected areas, with which this island is blessed,” said chief technical director in the ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation Yaneke Watson, who represented minister without portfolio Daryl Vaz at Wednesday’s signing.

“Funding is a critical component of the environmental efforts that we undertake and of course, government cannot do it alone… As we say, ‘one hand can’t clap’. We therefore look to our donor partners and the NGOs to help to build the capacity of the public sector in effectively responding to national, regional and international environmental issues,” he said.

There are some 350 protected areas in the island. Some of the more popular ones include Cockpit Country, Blue and John Crow Mountains, Montego Bay Marine Park, Portland Bight Protected Area, and Palisadoes–Port Royal Protected Areas.

Watson expressed urgent need to protect the environment.

“Every day we have less and less time to act accordingly. Not all of us need to be activists or advocates, but we need to remember what matters. If we lose the battle for our environment, we lose everything,” he said.

For its part, the CBF said while the commitment of community-based organisations and the private sector in financing environment is commendale, the region suffers from a lack of sustained finanical resources to protect.