General Information about Forest Trek WEEKENDER 2021

About the Bogue 2 Forest Reserve

The Bogue 2 Forest Reserve was gazetted on April 8, 2016 as a forest reserve and is comprised of 455.41 hectares.

The reserve sits above the world famous Dunn’s River Falls and Park and is where the Dunn’s River that cascades down the more than 600 feet falls begins. Other interesting sites on the property are the A National Water Commission water catchment area, which supplies potable water to the parishes of St. Ann and St. Mary and the remnants of the Belmont Great House which is presently owned by the Urban Development Corporation and is listed as a  Jamaica National Heritage Trust site.

The property on which the Bogue 2 Forest Reserve sits was formerly a slave plantation owned by Sir Harold Mitchell. On the plantation, over 80,000 heads of cow were raised and crops including pimento, banana, coconut and lime were cultivated.

Today, there is a slave burial ground on the property as well as remnants of the slave church and school.

In the early 1940s, the Jamaica Bauxite Company bought the property which they used for mining. Their operations in the area ended in the 1950s and they gave up ownership in the early 1980s.

In the late 1980s the property was assigned to the Forestry Department to manage.. The Forestry Department carried out extensive reforestation within the area, planting several species including Jamaican Mahogany, Honduras Mahogany, Spanish Elm and Cedar.

The Forest Reserve is rich in biodiversity boasting a number of faunal and floral species. Some of the plant species that can found in the area include Fig Tree, Strangler Fig, Silk Cotton Tree, Syngonium (used in pepper pot soup), Raw Moon (male aphrodisiac) and Anchovy Pear which is an indicator of pure source of water and is the largest simple leaf in the Western Hemisphere).

A number of fauna species can be found in the area including turtles which live in the seasonal lake located on the property as well as a number of species of birds including Baldplate, Pea Dove, Ground Dove, Partridge, White-winged Dove, Woodpecker, Parakeet and Gaulin.

The forest reserve is also the source of three rivers including the Dunn's River. All rivers within this forest reserve have white sand due to the high amounts of limestone that exist within the area.

Dolphin Head Forest Reserve 

The Dolphin Head forest reserve is managed by the Forestry Department with support from the Dolphin Head Local Forest Management Committee (LMFC) which was launched by Dr. Christopher Tufton, then Minister of Agriculture in 2009. Since the group’s establishment, it has secured grant funding to reforest sixteen hectares of denuded and degraded forest lands and also established an apiary in the area, which serves as a thriving honey business for the LFMC’s members. The LFMC has also increased its sustainable livelihood income streams through the establishment in 2013 of an agroforestry plot on privately owned land in close proximity to the reserve. The group has undertaken several other projects including the opening of a therapeutic centre and construction of a cabin. 

The forest reserve covers approximately 1167 hectares and includes six forest estates Quasheba Mountain, Raglan Mountain, Geneva Mountain, Bath Mountain, Baulk Pen and George’s Plain Mountain. Historically, the Dolphin Head Forest Reserve was part of lands owned by slave masters and the slaves were used to cut the roads through the mountains and to rear cattle and other livestock on the land. However commencing in 1950, the Government started to declare various parcels of land as forest reserves to ensure the conservation of the forest resources in these areas.

The Dolphin Head mountain range is a closed broadleaf forest, which is recorded to have a higher density of local endemic plant species and rare or threatened plants per unit area than anywhere else in Jamaica. In August 2016, the Government of Jamaica, upon recommendation of the Forestry Department, recommended the dedication of the Dolphin Head Forest Reserve to be a part of the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy (QCC).

·       The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy (QCC) was conceived by the Right Honourable Frank Field MP and was launched by Her Majesty The Queen at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta in 2015. The QCC is a unique network of forest conservation initiatives, which involves all 52 countries of the Commonwealth. It was designed to highlight the best examples of forest management throughout the Commonwealth.

Individual Participants
Each participant must complete and submit both the Individual Registration Form as well as the Participant Waiver Form.

The deadline for the submission of forms and the payment of registration fees for all participants is Monday, July 26, 2021. Payments may be made Mondays to Thursdays, 9 am- 4 pm and on Fridays between 9 am and 3 pm. 

N.B. All Registration Fees are Non-Refundable.