Above: Grenada (Photo: DG)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Grenada’s government is leading an initiative to strengthen environmental protection for the country’s Key Biodiversity Areas, which include the Mount Hartman National Park and the Beausejour/Grenville Vale.

The initiative is a partnership between Grenada’s Forestry and National Parks Department, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Grenada Dove Conservation Programme.

Both are home to the critically endangered Grenada Dove.

The government said it will be implementing several activities in each area to ensure the conservation of Grenada’s ecosystem, particularly the Dove. That will be done jointly with the Grenada Dove Conservation Programme.

Both areas have been recognized as Important Bird Areas by Bird Life International.

Grenada is preparing an “awareness plan,” which will include a song competition and school presentations; the erection of billboards and boundary signs and the construction of a birding trail at Beausejour.

The Grenada Dove Conseravtion Programme received funding for the project from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, which launched in November 2012 and will last through April 2014.

An additional plan is to create livelihood opportunities in surrounding areas, the government said this week.