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The Forestry Department has moved
to improve the case preparation and management capacity of its forest
enforcement team as the Agency seeks to step up its protection of forests under
its management.
The training is being completed
under a one-year project, which is being funded with the support of the
European Union and the ACP Group of States through the BIOPAMA Programme.
The project titled, Establishment
of Mobile Emergency Rapid Response Team and Utilisation of Technological
Solutions to Support Enforcement and Monitoring in Forest Protected Areas seeks
to build capacity within the Agency to enhance forest enforcement and
governance and facilitate capacity building of the Agency’s enforcement team.
The project, which is in the
final stages, is expected to end on December 15. Under the project, the Agency’s
Forest Enforcement team has participated in various capacity-building sessions
and activities geared towards making them more capable and effective at
protecting and preventing breaches of the Forest Laws.
In August, the team was trained
by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and Jamaica Constabulary
Force, both of whom focused on various topics including the nature, types and
admissibility of evidence (e.g. real, circumstantial, documentary); witness
questioning and caution statements; courtroom protocol; rules of evidence (e.g.
hearsay, the amended evidence act, computer-generated evidence,
`photographic/video evidence); statement writing and investigation writing.
Tanika Stewart, Senior Director
of Forest Enforcement Services, describes the training as game-changing, “My
team’s skill set has been enhanced by the training. We are now able to write
better statements, prepare better files and generally improve our investigative
capacity within the Division. This will help us to build stronger cases against
offenders. We hope this will lead to increased convictions in court,” she said.
Over 20 team members participated in the training. Additional activities to be undertaken by the project include the piloting of an approach that will allow a dedicated team of forest rangers to be equipped with the resources needed to address identified gaps in patrol planning. This is expected to allow for improved enforcement while also supporting improved governance and management. Successes from this pilot will be replicated with additional response teams established in other targeted areas islandwide.
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