Jamaica has seen an increase in visitors as a result of the inscription of the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List.
Inscribed on July 3, 2015, the 26,000-hectare Park was the first to put Jamaica on the world heritage stage.
One of 32 “mixed’ World Heritage Sites, and the first such in the Caribbean, it joined a list of other historic sites, such as the Great Wall of China, The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Taj Mahal of India, the Gros Pitons in St Lucia and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Heritage status is given to sites across the globe that are considered to be of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) for present and future generations.
Managed by the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT), a non-governmental organisation and a registered charity, the National Park is home to unique birds, frogs, the Homerus Swallowtail butterfly, the Jamaican coney and four of Jamaica’s six endemic snakes.
