Representatives of the United States Agency for International Development and the Protected Areas and Rural Enterprise Projects (USAID/PARE) and other agencies cut the ribbon to officially launch a Greenhouse and Demonstration Plot project in Quick Step at the border of Trelawny and St Elizabeth on Tuesday. - Noel Thompson

WESTERN BUREAU

Sitting in the Cockpit Country at the edge of Trelawny and St Elizabeth, the remote district of Quick Step is scarcely heard of as it is off the beaten track.

On Tuesday Quick Step became known as a team headed by officials from the United States Agency for International Develop-ment through its Protected Areas and Rural Enterprise Projects (USAID/PARE) office, the Univer-sity of the West Indies (UWI), the Forestry Department and other organisations visited the long winding and narrow road to teach its nearly 1,000 residents a new way to earn their living on a sustainable basis.

The residents were introduced to micropropagation of select medicinal plants.

Grown in labs

Micropropagation is the process where plants are grown in labs and later transferred to the fields after being hardened in greenhouses. The plants that underwent this process were yams, pineapples, dasheen, sarsaparilla, medina and others.

Several residents admitted that it was the first time they were being exposed to such technology and pledged to take extra special care of the greenhouse and a micropropagated plot given to them by the USAID/PARE and the Forestry Department.

Realising that over the years the Cockpit Country, comprising St James, Trelawny and St Elizabeth, was being heavily harvested for various purposes, the agencies took a proactive decision to educate the residents and simultaneously provide sustainable livelihood projects for them, from which they will benefit significantly in the long term.

Medicinal and health drinks

"The initiative is being undertaken to curtail the threat to non-timber forest products, such as plant roots and barks used in medicinal and health drinks, currently serving as a means of livelihood to many rural communities," said Karyll Aitcheson, USAID/PARE's local coordinator.

Meanwhile, Marilyn Headley, chief executive officer (CEO) and conservator of forest at the Forestry Department, has called on the residents to exercise more responsibility in protecting the forest. She added that it would take thousands of years for the Cockpit Country to be restored should it be wantonly destroyed.

And Dr Sylvia Mitchell, who lectures at the Biotechnology Centre at the UWI, said it was possible for the residents to earn a sustainable livelihood from the greenhouse project on a large scale, as long as they demonstrated the right attitude to sustain it.