The Digital Forest: Mapping Corridors, Building Futures for Jamaica’s Endangered Species

Adrian Omar Watson

Other project team members: Adrian Henriques and Davia Hylton 

The Endangered Jamaican hutia (Geocapromys brownii) faces imminent extinction from habitat fragmentation, hunting and has recently been extirpated from the Cockpit Country. This project pilots a techno-ecological conservation model in the species’ last stronghold combined with storytelling, the Rio Grande Valley (Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park). By integrating drones, satellite images and Maroon traditional knowledge, we will create the first fine-scale connectivity map for the species. We will train 5 team members,10 community as “Eco-Drone Pilots”, storytellers, citizen scientists to ground-truth aerial data, identifying critical forest corridors, conflict hotspots and promote environmental stories. Key outputs include a digital “Hutia Habitat Atlas,” a GIS-based corridor management plan, a community-led “Coexistence Manual” to mitigate crop damage and video stories. This project operationalizes a scalable, high-tech monitoring protocol to secure the habitat connectivity required to prevent the hutia’s extinction.