STEA's New Operation Strategy
The Southern Trelawny Environmental Agency (STEA) has completed its 10th anniversary and the main elements of its five-year strategic plan drafted in 2001. As the institution moves into its second decade of operations a new strategy is important to see the organization move to a new level of leadership and institutional achievement. STEA is currently in the process of developing its new strategy, which incorporates it's financial viability, pursuing commercially viable initiatives, reorganizing the Agency's approach to community outreach and continuing institutional growth.
Financial Viability: STEA is at the point in its development where it must generate income from the programs it has developed and the expertise it has acquired working in the development field. In the new global economy STEA must define appropriate niches where it can provide a service or offer a product to the consuming public, its partners and clients it works for. Opportunities for STEA will be pursued by developing a dossier of services it can offer at a cost. One avenue for this type of development is monitoring and evaluation of projects funded privately, by the state or by donor institutions to determine if procedures and outcomes are being pursued and achieved as stipulated in the project. STEA has developed skills in project management and is capable of managing projects in a wide range of fields. The organization has located qualified skills among its membership to make this area one of the most promising for revenue generation.
STEA needs to establish a trust fund from the donations of philanthropic individuals, donor institutions and corporate institutions. The intention will be to use the funds to purchase bonds, stocks and other interest bearing instruments. The interest generated annually will be used to offset a portion of the institution's administrative expenses. As the fund grows the institution will have the option to allocate some of the funds to appropriate development outreach activities that support its mission.
STEA has implemented several best practices in the area of community/eco-tourism development, soil conservation, institutional management of Community Based Organizations and project development/writing, among others. The organization needs to package subject material in these areas and prepare it as a training module to assist community groups to strengthen institutional capacity and implement best practices.
Commercially Viable Initiatives: STEA intends to commercialize successful organization initiatives and broaden its sphere of influence in areas where the organization has special expertise and experience. The most promising ventures for this strategic objective are:
Cockpit Country Adventure Tours has been in operation since the inception of STEA and now boasts several eco-tour packages. These attractions need to be formalized and marketed aggressively for their eco-tour value and commercial potential. Were there a substantial increase in the number of visitors to these sites the revenue going to STEA, its partners and local communities would be significant. The limited allocation of state funds to support the development, promotion and marketing of this brand of tourism is the greatest challenge to achieving its growth potential. Presently the challenge for STEA is that the entire operation of CCAT has to be subsidized from other areas. There is the possibility of CCAT supporting itself and being a viable entity if visitation to its attractions is increased.
The Trelawny Yam Festival is a viable income earner for the organization and has now identified a venue that is secure and large enough to foster further growth and development. If the format for the event can be standardized and an agreement struck with the owners of the venue STEA could anticipate an annual contribution to its revenue from the Festival. The Festival has become popular locally and in the Diaspora. The strategy is to investigate the feasibility of staging the event in New York City or in South Florida. The staging of the event locally and overseas 3 times per year could auger well for the revenue position of the organization. The only challenge will be for the Agency to obtain the appropriate permits and locate a cadre of individuals in the USA to initiate coordinating activities for the event.
Community Outreach: Reorganizing the approach to community outreach and undertaking development programs that impact more directly on livelihood, income generation and increasing entrepreneurship.
STEA needs and intends to redirect the strategy on community outreach so that its efforts go beyond mobilizing residents to be interested in collaborative endeavors but to be in a position to find entrepreneurial ventures that have a niche and hold the potential to be globally attractive and competitive. There is a need to partner with funding institutions that can provide the technical assistance and the matching resources that can be applied to release the innate potential of many marginalized rural residents. By effectively twinning their expertise and cottage production rural residents will benefit from economies of scale and access to the wider market place.
STEA is determined to encourage state policy that will facilitate the replication of community best practices island-wide and provide the appropriate incentives to stimulate a reordering of the community development priorities towards entrepreneurship.
STEA's Institutional Growth: STEA suffers from the classic NGO syndrome of attracting inadequate funds to sustain its institutional operations while aiming to execute projects that generate a high standard of output and advance our ethical prerequisite of efficiency. For this reason STEA needs to identify a source of financing to support its core operations. From our experience the core functions are administrative overheads, a Project Manager and Financial Controller. Other project implementation staff and functionaries can be recruited as demanded and funded more efficiently from the project. More technical support, community equity and expertise from STEA membership will be absorbed for project implementation. This will make the operations and the outputs of the Agency more cost effective and efficient and have increased qualitative output and measurable impact on rural livelihood. In addition, STEA is determined to develop its commercial initiatives to generate income to support 50% of the Agency's operation costs.
To meet the goals set out in this strategy, STEA is considering many areas for project development. Some of the more promising projects STEA is developing include:
Yam Stick Production Project: The production of yams and the need for yam sticks is one of the primary contributors to forest degradation and the conversion of primary forest for agriculture in Cockpit Country. At a deforestation rate of 0.1% per year the biodiversity, endemism, habitat for rare and endemic species in Cockpit Country are threatened. The resulting erosion and contamination of streams challenges the integrity of the many watersheds within Cockpit Country. This project intends to establish a plot of fast growing calliandra plants from seedlings as a demonstration to farmers of an alterative to cutting sticks from the forest to be used for yam stick and crop cultivation. The successful implementation of the project should see farmers replicating the idea on their own plots of land. The incremental impact of this project should see an eventual downturn in the demand for sapling from the Cockpit Country forest to be used in agriculture.
Yam By-products Project: This project aims to alleviate the major constraints hindering yam by-products from becoming a viable source of alternative income for residents of south Trelawny. Under the project a vacant production facility will be rented by STEA and renovated to be used as a centralized yam by-product processing facility. The facility will be furnished with equipment necessary to develop, produce, package and label by-products. A network of local yam by-product producers will be organized and a strategy that allows these producers to use the production facility to develop, package and label products for a larger market will be undertaken. A business plan and marketing strategy will ensure that yam by-products produced at the facility penetrate national and international markets through all channels available.
Conserving Biodiversity in Alps, Trelawny: The purpose of this project to identify and catalogue critical Cockpit Country flora and fauna in Alps, reinstate the forest integrity through reforestation, and promote its conservation through a structured eco-tourism programme that prudently utilizes these natural resources. Focus will be placed on cataloguing the area's endemic/endangered/traditional-use species, finding ways to conserve these species' habitats and providing residents new knowledge and the opportunity for alternative livelihoods to help conserve Cockpit Country habitats.