United Nations Jamaica 76th Anniversary

Nature and Livelihoods in Sweet Balance An award-winning community group’s foray into beekeeping and agroforestry. A World Bee Day/ International Biological Diversity Day special In the hills above Trelawny, the award-winning Sawyers Local Forest Management Committee (LFMC) Benevolent Society in the Cockpit Country is combining beekeeping and agroforestry in a winning combination to reduce poverty and reverse biodiversity loss in this valuable region of Jamaica. Their latest exploits come three years after being awarded the Forest Heroes Community-based organization award for the top LFMC group in 2018. Now they are partnering with the GEF Small Grants Programme implemented by the United Nations Development Programme to show that nature-based solutions to development make good sense. Through a project designed to preserve natural resources while generating sustainable livelihoods in harmony with nature, Sawyers, with UNDP/GEF SGP support, is aiming to strike a balance between nature and livelihoods in the Cockpit Country which continues to be threatened by unsustainable practices. A report on drivers of land cover change says these practices are largely led by small- scale farmers cutting trees to make yam sticks and charcoal. But sustainable livelihood alternatives like beekeeping deploy nature’s biodiversity warriors and pollinators to support income generating opportunities that are kind to the environment. A USD $118,000 grant from UNDP/GEF SGP matched by USD $120,000 in cash, kind and sweat equity from Sawyers LFMC financed 60 hive boxes for 11 bee apiaries plus beekeeping training from RADA for nine persons in 2019. The grant also backed the conversion of a 40- foot container into a solarized office and facility with water harvesting infrastructure to extract and store honey and farming inputs; distributed seedlings and other inputs for 65 farmers; set up an automatic weather station; and reforested 13.5 hectares of forest reserve with agroforestry crops for honeybees to feast on. This benefitted 20 farmers and the honeybee’s plant-to-hive production line. For the past two years, project development and implementation engaged more than 600 residents in and outside Sawyers and providing livelihood opportunities in farming and beekeeping for 230. As trained beekeeping teachers, Toussaint Brown, president of the Sawyers LGFMC and his eight peers in turn trained 15, bringing the cohort of trained beekeepers serving 11 apiary sites to 24. They are also training two other beekeepers in a neighbouring community, spreading the skills and opportunities further afield. Two of the group’s 11 apiaries are managed by Sawyers LMFC and the other nine by communities bordering Sawyers. They collectively supply honey, bee pollen and beeswax, and will trade under the group’s Liquid Gold brand pending accreditation from the Bureau of Standards of Jamaica. Market data indicates beekeeping is an inroad to poverty reduction. Jamaica is forecast to earn JMD one billion from honey sales by Jamaica’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and a 23% return on investment according to Jamaica’s trade and investment agency JAMPRO. Globally, honey’s market size was valued USD $9.21 billion in 2020 with a compounded annual growth rate of 8.2% according to a market analysis report by Grand View Research. Sawyers LFMC is determined to cut into this pie. “Last year we got 16 buckets of honey - one bucket holds 22 bottles of honey, and one bucket means JMD $55,000 – a total of JMD$ 800,000”, Toussaint reveals. He says the project expanded on inputs previously received by another agency but added critical training and equipment like a honey harvester to assure results. “Because of the GEF Small grant our knowledge base was expanded, and we learned more about harvesting of the honey. We were able not only to sell honey, but we were able to sell other by-products such as pollen and wax. We got 11 pounds of pollen and sold 53 pounds of wax for JMD $2,500 per pound” he says. Denise Antonio Resident Representative UNDP Through a project designed to preserve natural resources while generating sustainable livelihoods in harmony with nature, Sawyers, with UNDP/GEF SGP support, is aiming to strike a balance between nature and livelihoods in the Cockpit Country which continues to be threatened by unsustainable practices. THE 76TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL FEATURE OF THE UNITED NATIONS IN JAMAICA 16