Gareth Manning, Gleaner Writer

A group of internationally respected scientists and economists have begun hashing out a method to determine the economic value of biodiversity present in the Cockpit Country.

They started Saturday with a workshop at the Courtleigh Hotel in New Kingston and will end Tuesday at the Mona Visitors' Lodge and Conference Centre at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona.

The effort to determine the economic value of the Cockpit's biodiversity is a collaboration of the Windsor Research Centre in Trelawny and the Department of Economics at UWI, Mona. The project is being funded by the United States-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The results from the workshop will be used to define the goods and services provided by flora and fauna in the Cockpit Country and to identify the tools and methodologies for a one-year research project to value these services.

The findings from the project will be presented in a symposium at UWI, Mona in 2010.