Marilyn Headley (left), conservator of forests, shares a joke with Eleanor Jones, member of the oversight committee for the Forest Conservation Fund, during its launch at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston yesterday. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

A US$16 million Forest Conservation Fund (FCF) was yesterday launched to provide long-term funding to protect and manage the island's forest reserves and national parks.

The fund is the result of a debt-for-nature swap signed in 2004 by the United States and Jamaican governments and Nature Conservancy, an environmental non-governmental organisation, which sees the cancelling of nearly US$16 million in Jamaican debt to the U.S.

Here's how it will work.

Under the swap agreement, the U.S. Government forgave US$6.5 million of Jamaica's debt. This amount, along with its requisite repayment from the Jamaican Government, will be kept in Jamaica in the fund and will accrue to approximately US$16 million over the next 20 years.

Support local forestry

The arrangement followed the enactment by the U.S. Government in 1998 of the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, to offer eligible developing countries options to relieve certain official debt owed to the U.S., while at the same time generating funds to support local forest conservation activities.

At yesterday's launch at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston, Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke said the fund would help the country in many ways.

"It will enable us to conduct scientific research and biological surveys, restore damaged ecosystems, prepare and plan for new forest reserves and national parks and to engage the public in outreach activities," he said.

Part of the plan also involves the planting of a million trees over the next five years.

A seven-member oversight committee, with representatives from public and private sector agencies, is administering the fund. The committee is headed by Marilyn Headley, conservator of forests.