Holywell Trails Enhancement

Holywell is the main recreation area in the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park. It is only an hour’s drive from Jamaica’s capital of Kingston, and is mainly used by national visitors. Park management expects that income from the recreation area will net a profit for use in management of the wider National Park. Funds are needed particularly for conservation, farmer education and enforcement, as the main threat to the Park’s moist forest ecosystem is deforestation for agriculture, and invasive species overgrowth, occurring when farms are abandoned. Unfortunately, due to limited marketing, only about 7,000 visitors are recorded per annum, although there are over 1 million persons living in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Kingston. The carrying capacity of the site has been estimated at about 90,000 per annum. Further, there is a need to provide for additional paying activities and improve the facilities to ensure value for money. Finally with recent hurricanes there is a need to improve trails and increase their safety and resilience to climate change impacts. This project will conduct forest rehabilitation and build retaining walls, improve drainage resulting in increased resilience to climate change impacts. The project will also improve safety of trails through provision of rails and steps and construct additional facilities as well as train tour guides to add value to the existing attraction. In order to increase visitation level, the project will conduct marketing using innovative and relatively inexpensive means to target school groups, summer schools and ultimately the families of these children.