A view of the John Crow Mountains on a clear day.
Title:The Natural History Society of Jamaica Guide to the Blue and John Crow Mountains
Edited by: Margaret Hodges
Publisher: Ian Randle Publishers
Reviewer: Barbara Nelson
The cover photo of Guide to the Blue and John Crow Mountains taken by Stephen Hodges is absolutely beautiful. It is the invitation to a visual feast of lovely images and information on Jamaica's first terrestrial national park.
Editor Margaret Hodges says much of the information from a previous publication has been included in this book. In the introduction, Robert Kerr, one of the founders of the park, mentions that the first publication of the Blue Mountain Guide in 1993 coincided with the declaration of the area as the island's first national park.
This declaration resulted in an influx of visitors to the area. Intense education and outreach programmes followed in the schools and surrounding communities and paid rich dividends as "the rate of deforestation caused by slash-and-burn farming, a constant threat to the remaining areas of pristine forest", was noticeably reduced.
Increased awareness
Kerr adds that the success was mainly due to "the increased environmental awareness and active involvement of several surrounding communities in the conservation of the park and its tourism services."
The Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT) managed the 196,000-acre park for the past four years and greatly improved the infrastructure and services in the recreational areas in the park. At the same time, research projects have increased the scientific knowledge of the area. This took place under a delegation agreement with the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and a Memorandum of Understanding with the Forestry and Soil Conservation Department (FSCD).
Kerr maintains, however, that the income-generating and recreational potential of the park "have hardly been tapped." This, he says, is because the promised support from the Government has not come and after the USAID funding ended "no system of user fees or other arrangement for sustained financing of the park was put in place".
Because of this the park has showed decline. It needs revival and support.
"We need to take urgent steps to reverse the degradation of mountain ecosystems. This implies moving the national parks and mountains from the fringes of public consciousness to the top of national and international agendas," Kerr says.
Maps
The chapter 'Travelling in the Mountains' by Margaret Hodges follows the introduction. The next chapter, written by Jill Byles and Margaret Hodges, is 'The Park and its Surroundings, With Local Maps'.
This is a long chapter. It describes the approaches to the Park and interesting places to see near and within its boundaries. The photographs are exquisite, varying in size from a small picture of the glossy-leaved 'Blue Mountain Begonia' to the dramatic two-page spread of the View of Kingston and its environs from Strawberry Hill.
The chapter begins with The western section that includes the Hermitage Reservoir, then goes on to describe the approaches to the Blue Mountains from Kingston and St Andrew that include the Southern foothills from Papine, Skyline Drive and Jacks Hill, Irish Town and Redlight to the Heritage Gardens of Cold Spring.
The southern approaches: The Blue Mountains - foothills from St Thomas, the eastern section, The eastern slopes of the John Crow Mountains, The Rio Grande Valley and the northern section are the other chapters in this section. The authors include interesting bits of historical information. For example:
Cold Spring (now known as Heritage Gardens), once a coffee estate, was owned by Matthew Wallen, an Irish naval officer and botanist, who came to Jamaica in 1747. Catherine's Peak, 1,600m (5,060ft) high takes its name from Catherine, the wife of Henry Moore, Jamaica's lieutenant governor from 1756 to 1759. She was also the sister of the renowned historian Edward Long. (There is a dramatic picture of Catherine's Peak from Clifton Mount Road on Page 34.)Another dramatic picture - Blue Mountain Peak from Bellevue Road - is on Page 67 and an exquisite shot of a footbridge over the Flora River on Page 58.
Mary Langford writes the chapter 'The Historical Background' that begins on Page 125. This is followed by 'The Geology' by Ryan Ramsook that includes a picture (Figure 7) of one of Jamaica's "majestic waterfalls, Nanny Falls, named after the famous Maroon leader and National Hero Nanny of the Maroons".
Beautiful pictures of lavender Browalia, an epiphytic orchid Stelis micrantha, flowering Bromeliads, the native bamboo Chusquea abietifolia (which last flowered in 1984 and is due to flower again in 2017), the spectacular 'cup-and-saucer' (Blakea trinerva), giant ferns and pretty maidenhair fern can be seen in the chapter 'The Flora', written by Jim Dalling and Margaret Hodges.
Trevor Yee has contributed the chapter on 'The Fungi'. The area of the Blue and John Crow Mountains, he says, is a prime habitat for mushrooms. Most are saprophytic, a few are edible, but the large Chlorophyllum molybdites and a few others are poisonous.
A few of the 120 species of butterflies in Jamaica live in the park. In the chapter on 'The Invertebrates', Eric Garraway and Audette Bailey describe these creatures and include photographs of the beautiful Pterourus homerus the largest swallowtail in the Americas, now an endangered species; the fast flying banana butterfly, the striped zebra butterfly, the handsome malachite butterfly, and the milkweed butterfly. peenywallies, blinkies, crickets and other invertebrates that are nocturnal are also included in the chapter.
Beautiful birds
The chapter on 'The Vertebrates' was written by the late Dr Thomas Farr while Catherine Levy and Marcia Mundle describe 'The Birds of the Mountain Area'.
As in the other chapters, there are attractive photographs that accompany the information. Some of the birds, among them the solitaire, the Jamaican blackbird, the mountain witch, typical of mid-to-high-level forests, are described, as well as others that are also seen in other parts of the island, including the hummingbirds, the 'Rastabird', the woodpecker, 'Auntie Katie', the becards and parrots.
Kimberly John and Eric Hyslop have the last word in the book in the chapter 'Life in Streams and Rivers'. Many of Jamaica's rivers originate as springs in the national park.
The bussu snail (chief ingredient in bussu soup in Portland) janga (freshwater shrimp), the dragonfly and the whirligig beetle are some of the creatures described in this chapter.
