Jamaica Environment Trust

The Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) is a non-profit, non-governmental membership environmental organization based in the Kingston and St. Andrew area of Jamaica. Formed in 1991 by a group of citizens concerned about the state of Jamaica’s natural environment, JET works to protect Jamaica’s natural resources using education, advocacy and the law to influence individual and organizational behaviour and public policy and practice. It is a registered company limited by guarantee under Jamaica’s Companies Act (non profit) and a registered charity under Section 12 (h) of the Jamaican Income Tax Act. JET operates environmental education programmes in Jamaican schools, runs law and advocacy work, and has undertaken projects including beach and gully clean-ups, recycling projects, environmental films, and advocacy campaigns.

The Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) was formed in 1991 by a group of citizens concerned about the state of Jamaica’s natural environment. At the time of JET’s beginning, there were many environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), either parish based, involved in operating national parks, issue based, or species based. The original members of JET, mostly friends and business colleagues of its founder Diana McCaulay, thought there was a niche for so-called ‘brown issues’, because no other group focused on that. The interest in brown issues had also been sparked by the enormous amount of garbage along the Palisadoes strip and Diana’s early visits to the Harbour View, Greenwich and Western Sewage Plants, Riverton Waste Disposal Site. JET’s first few projects were clean–ups in Grant’s Pen, Hellshire and Old Harbour. However, it soon became obvious that the clean-ups were unsustainable. The early members believed the problem was that there was not enough awareness about the environment and there would be very little protection unless awareness increased. Since at the time many of those early members were young parents, they decided to start with environmental education projects for children. JET’s first environmental programme was called Nuff Respect for Nature, a joint programme with Ashe. This then transitioned to JET’s first school-based education project, Earth Schools. The Jamaica Conservation Development Trust (JCDT) was running a similar programme but it included teacher workshops. JET and JCDT joined forces and developed the Schools’ Env...

A voice for Jamaica's natural resources

1. 1Jamaica Environment Trust – A Voice for Jamaica's Natural Resourcesjamentrust.org
2. 2Who We Are – Jamaica Environment Trustjamentrust.org
3. 3Our History – Jamaica Environment Trustjamentrust.org
4. 4Building the Capacity of Civil Society to shape Public Policy Reform in the Caribbean to Protect Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services – Jamaica Environment Trustjamentrust.org
5. 5Jamaica Environment Trustwikidata.org