PRESS RELEASE
31st March, 2009.
The Cayman Islands Government has just formally committed to protecting almost 200 acres of Crown land in the east interior of Grand Cayman, through a 99-year peppercorn lease to the National Trust.
The decision by Cabinet is linked to a European Union grant to the National Trust, for managing this area to conserve Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas in the wild, along with their unique shrubland habitat. The grant also focuses on developing sustainable, low-impact nature tourism, education and recreation with a visitor centre and trail system.
Minister of Tourism and Environment, the Hon Charles Clifford, wishes the conservation effort every success. “The preservation of our indigenous Blue Iguana is important to our country and I am grateful Cabinet was able to allocate an appropriate piece of property to the National Trust to assist them in their efforts to save the Blue Iguanas. I also want to thank the European Union for their grant which makes this project possible. The grant along with the allocation of the land by Cabinet provides a tremendous boost to the National Trust’s efforts to establish a viable population of Blue Iguanas in their natural habitat.”
“This is the breakthrough we have been working towards for years,” says the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme’s director, Fred Burton. “With this new protected area secured and available for iguana releases, we are now in sight of the kind of success that is all too rare in the world today. The Grand Cayman Blue Iguana really can be saved from extinction, and in a few more years the Cayman Islands may be able to boast that they have achieved just that.”
This area is almost all pristine dry shrubland, a wild rocky landscape with views over the generally low native vegetation. This is an environment that Blue Iguanas thrive in. It also supports a range of endangered plants, several of which, like the Grand Cayman Blue Iguana, are totally unique to the Cayman Islands.
The Trust must now acquire access to the land, and a Protected Area Planning Team will commence work on the overall land use plan, including site location for the visitor centre and layout of the trail system.
In 2008 the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme began rearing over 100 hatchling Blue Iguanas, trusting that a new protected area would be established in time to release them in 2010. Now a release site is guaranteed, these young iguanas do indeed have a future, and another hundred or more Blue Iguanas will hopefully be hatched in 2009, for release in 2011.
Visit the Blue Iguana Recovery Program Website at: www.BlueIguana.ky
