NEPA to Highlight Issues and Stimulate Action During National Environment Awareness Week

The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) will be observing National Environment Awareness Week 2024 with a slew of activities from June 1 to 7, under the theme: ‘Accelerating Ecosystem Restoration – A Call to Action’.

The Week, being celebrated globally from June 3 to 8, aims to focus public attention on environmental issues thereby heightening awareness and stimulating action at the local level.

Manager of NEPA’s Ecosystems Management Branch, Monique Curtis, tells JIS News that the Agency’s theme for the Week locally, strongly aligns with the international theme developed by the United Nations (UN).

“[For] the UN celebration of World Environment Day, there is a theme globally for that… ‘Generation Restoration’. So you can see that the local theme for National Environment Awareness Week activities strongly aligns with that global campaign, and there are other international campaigns that the local theme aligns with,” she says.

Ms. Curtis further notes that the Agency’s theme is also in line with international campaigns which have resulted in the period 2021 to 2030 being declared by the UN as the ‘UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’.

“So, yes, there is a strong emphasis on what we are doing as a generation in terms of restoring our ecosystems, both nationally and feeding into global targets on restoration,” she points out.

The Week will commence with a service at the Guava Gap Seventh Day Adventist Church in St. Andrew on Saturday, June 1.

There will be a symposium on ecosystems restoration on Wednesday, June 5, observed globally as World Environment Day.

“The symposium seeks to highlight work being done by Government and non-governmental organisations and the private sector in restoring the island’s ecosystems. The activities that will be undertaken as well as the exhibits that will be on display will highlight the internal theme for World Environment Day, which is ‘Generation Restoration’ as well as the local theme,” Ms. Curtis highlights.

She further outlines that attendees can expect to get information and updates on the current restoration of landscape in Jamaica, “[in terms of] what we’ve done so far, what’s ongoing and what are the plans that we have in place to put us on our path to meeting the international targets.”

Keynote speaker for the symposium will be Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator the Hon. Matthew Samuda, who has responsibility for the Environment and Climate Change.

This event will also be attended by other government officials, international partners, funders, non-governmental organisations and academia, currently undertaking restoration projects in marine, coastal and terrestrial habitats.

The validation workshop on a draft National Ecosystems Restoration Plan (NERP) for Jamaica will also be convened on World Environment Day, spearheaded by Environmental Solutions Limited, which has been engaged by NEPA.

Ms. Curtis points out that the objective of the plan is to promote and accelerate the restoration of select degraded ecosystems, “as a contribution to reversing the loss of biodiversity, recovering connectivity, improving ecosystem resilience, enhancing the provision of ecosystem services, mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change.”

“It is really a road map for the country to put us on the path to meeting our international commitments and our local targets as they relate to ecosystems restoration,” she says.

The Week will culminate on Friday, June 7 with the staging of a mangrove habitat rehabilitation project in Salt Marsh, Trelawny, in recognition of World Oceans Day, which is observed globally on June 8, under the theme: ‘Catalysing Action for Our Ocean & Climate’.

“We will highlight our coastal resources, promote sustainable use and educate the public about the protection and management of our natural resources and the need for greater collaboration and synergies to enhance ocean protection.

“This activity is being done in collaboration with the Discovery Bay marine lab of the University of the West Indies (UWI), which is leading on the work that’s being done to enhance the conservation and restoration of that space through a Memorandum of Understanding with Sandals Foundation, the UWI and NEPA,” Ms. Curtis says.

She adds that local stakeholders will be brought on board to ensure buy-in to the conservation efforts at the community level, considering the threats to the space.

“We are going to be inviting members of that community. We’re hoping to get up to 50 volunteers, and on that day, we will be planting up to 200 mangrove saplings in the Salt Marsh area. The site has already been prepared in terms of the work that needs to be done to remove the reclaimed materials persons would have dumped on the site previously,” Ms. Curtis says.

“That is the primary restoration activity that was required. But now we’ll be going in and doing some supplemental work with the planting of the saplings; and it’s only through that removal process that we will enhance the ability of those mangrove saplings to survive after we have planted them on World Oceans Day,” she adds.

Salt Marsh is one of two sites held by the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) for the protection of forested wetlands.

The second is the Winns Morass wetlands, also located near Falmouth.