Half of Jamaica's forests damaged by Hurricane Melissa

 

The Forestry Department says Hurricane Melissa caused damage to 51% of Jamaica's forest, but is optimistic that some will recover with early intervention.

 

Ainsley Henry, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Conservator of Forests at the Forestry Department, says the hurricane impacted more than 270,000 hectares of the 523,000 hectares of forest. 

 

Speaking Wednesday on TVJ Smile Jamaica, Mr. Henry said the impact has been significant as many trees on the western side of the island were broken and stripped of their leaves. 

 

He said some of the trees will resprout in the coming months. 

 

"Unfortunately that's not the same for all. Palms, for example, if the central spike - the heart leaf, if you will, in the middle - if that is broken the palm is did. So if you've got palms in your yard and you see that is broken, it doesn't make any sense waiting, you just take that out. Other trees like mahogany or cedar, those have the capacity to re-sprout and to put out additional shoots. So it's not all bad news, thankfully. The resilience is there, and one of the things that we are hoping to do over the next couple of months is to increase that resilience by transitioning from some of the introduced species, like Caribbean pine, which was here significantly - you would have seen a lot of those come down. So our intent is not to replace them with new Caribbean pine, but to actually replace them with more hardy, native species," he outlined.

 

Mr. Henry said the Forestry Department is in the process of a rapid assessment to gauge Hurricane Melissa's impact and to guide recovery efforts.

 

"So we're in the midst of doing that trying to understand exactly what has been damaged and how much damage has been done.

Trying to get an indication of the mix of species that are within that space because, as I said, it depends on the species.

In addition to that, we've been working with some of our multilateral partners. 

 

"The Chinese government, for example, have offered to provide satellite imagery to us, which is great. So one of the things that we're looking to do is to get a proper handle on the damage. Coming out of that we'll have reforestation and replanting plans and, in some instances, some of the things that we have to do is go into the forests and take out the branches that have been too severely damaged to allow the tree to expend its efforts into recovery," he noted.

 

Mr. Henry added that the scorched or brown appearance of some trees was caused by the hurricane's extreme winds. 

 

He said it will take a conservative estimate of five years for the country's forest cover to return to a healthy state.

 

The Forestry Department CEO said the support of all Jamaicans will be sought in replanting trees in the coming months. But he cautioned against the cutting down of damaged trees without proper assessment.

 

"Even though as we're clearing we don't just whole scale cut down everything because that's a retrograde step as well.

 

"If the tree isn't too badly damaged we should try and save it," he urged. 

 

For those that cannot be saved: "If it's a good lumber tree and you have the ability to recover it, we'd say do that. If it's not and you have the capacity to chip it up and use it as mulch, I would say do that. If not that, for some people in some places I'm pretty sure that there will be some charcoal made out of some of it, furniture in some instances," Mr. Henry advised.