TRELAWNY, Jamaica — At last week’s Rotaract District 7020 Conference hosted at the Ocean Coral Spring Resort, Jamaica’s Minister of Water, Environment and Climate Change Matthew Samuda shared a promising update for one of the world’s rarest reptiles: the endemic Jamaican iguana, a species once written off as extinct, is on track for dramatic population growth as cross-organizational conservation work continues.
During a question-and-answer session with a delegate named Lewis from the Rotary Club of Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, Samuda outlined the remarkable trajectory of the Cyclura collei species, more commonly known as Colley’s iguana. Lewis noted that conservation teams in his home territory were running similar recovery projects for local rock iguanas, and sought insight into Jamaica’s progress.
Once believed to have vanished completely from the island by the 1940s, the Jamaican iguana was rediscovered in the 1980s, prompting targeted recovery efforts that have steadily reversed decades of population decline. Today, official estimates place the wild population between 400 and 600 individuals, up from just a handful of individuals a generation ago. Samuda projected that with continued collaborative action, that number will surge to between 3,000 and 4,000 over the next 10 years.
The Jamaican iguana is found nowhere else on Earth, and was historically distributed across most of Jamaica, as well as the offshore Great Goat Island and Little Goat Island. Today, the remaining wild population is almost entirely restricted to the isolated forest ecosystems of the Hellshire Hills in St Catherine, making the species one of the most vulnerable lizards on the planet.
Samuda credited the ongoing success of the recovery program to the long-term partnership between Jamaica’s National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the globe’s largest collaborative environmental network.
The 7020 District conference, held under the theme “The Nexus 360° Experience,” brought together 135 delegates from seven Caribbean nations and territories: Jamaica, Haiti, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and Montserrat. More than 30 attendees traveled from Haiti to participate in the event, which focused heavily on environmental sustainability and disaster relief across the region.
Natasha Burnett, District Rotaract Disaster Relief and Environmental Sustainability Chair and the conference’s training team lead, told local media outlet Observer Online that local agencies went out of their way to support international attendance. “Thanks to the Ministry of National Security and Peace along with PICA (Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency) for assisting us by waiving their visa fees,” she said, removing a key barrier for delegates traveling to the event from across the Caribbean.