Experts identified 19 potential conservation targets (Annex 7.4), which they consolidated into eight targets that (1) best represented the fundamental ecological processes, states, and environmental gradients maintaining biodiversity health in the Cockpit Country functional landscape (Figure 3), and (2) are threatened by factors other than habitat loss:
Experts rated the overall biodiversity health of Cockpit Country to be "GOOD" owing to the large number of hectares still in forest cover and with population sizes of individual species considered to be sufficient for genetically viable reproduction (Table 2). There was, however, concern by experts for the poor connectivity of Cockpit Country with smaller remnant patches of Wet Limestone Forest within the landscape context and the disruption of ecological processes, such as the ability of species to move in response to environmental changes or their ability to have access to all habitats and resources needed to complete their life cycles.
5.2.1. Wet Limestone Forest
Wet Limestone Forest is the most extensive conservation target in Cockpit Country and forms the habitat for all terrestrial communities and species found within its vegetation matrix. Nested within this target are the community assemblages associated with cockpit bottomlands, slopes, hilltops, and cliffs (Table 1). Maintaining the suite of native and endemic flora and fauna will be required to maintain the ecological processes of this target. This target further captures the protection of the geomorphology of Cockpit Country as the degradation of the abiotic karst substrate will have direct effects on the flora, which are adapted to localized conditions.
The Wet Limestone Forest that covered the central limestone plateau of Jamaica has been altered by human activities over the past five centuries. The present forest and landscape carries the persistent effects of these activities. At the most extreme the forest is gone, replaced by agriculture uses or settlements. The remnant forest block of Cockpit Country has been subjected to selective timber harvesting and clearing of cockpit bottoms for agriculture. Many of these bottomland agriculture plots are abandoned, but the consequences of clearing remain (e.g., habitat-altering non-native invasive plants preventing natural forest regeneration). The peripheral forest of Cockpit Country is some form of secondary forest. The consequences of human activities in the region are that the spatial extent of the forest is reduced, the species composition and ecological dynamics of its plant and animal communities has changed, the physical structure of the forest has changed, and the landscape connections with other vegetation types in the area have been altered (Tables 3 & 4). Bauxite mining and, to a lesser extent, limestone quarrying have long been identified as potential threats to Cockpit Country. While bauxite, which occurs across 70% of Cockpit Country, currently is not mined (i.e., "LOW" contribution as a source of stress), all experts recognized the irreversible affects it would have on all aspects of biodiversity in the Wet Limestone Forest target (Table 4).
Despite the historic and current alterations to forest size and condition, the experts judged the overall biodiversity health of Wet Limestone Forest in Cockpit Country to be "GOOD" (Table 2). Although reduced in size from its historical extent, the forest is considered to be of a size sufficient to allow recovery from natural disturbances and to be able to maintain functional ecological processes. The condition of the Wet Limestone Forest was judged to be "GOOD" in that some human intervention may be required to restore degraded areas. Landscape context was considered "FAIR" because of fragmentation in the landscape by agriculture and human settlement.