The Faculty of Science and Technology (FST), The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Mona, is pleased to announce that Ms. Mariah Mosquera, as co-applicant with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has received £7,140 in funding from the Alan Lennox-Boyd Memorial Trust Award. The grant supports the project titled “Capacity building towards a comprehensive checklist and extinction risk assessment for the Myrtaceae of Jamaica.”
Ms. Mosquera is an early-career researcher affiliated with the Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, UWI Mona, with academic interests in plant systematics, biodiversity documentation, and conservation assessment. Her work focuses on strengthening scientific knowledge of Jamaica’s flora and supporting conservation-relevant research through rigorous taxonomic and data-driven approaches.
The project aims to support collaborative efforts to develop a comprehensive checklist of the Myrtaceae of Jamaica, a plant family of ecological and conservation importance. Key outputs will include an authoritative identification key for the family in Jamaica, detailed species accounts, and the strengthening of national data needed for extinction risk assessments. A central objective is to help close existing gaps in the IUCN Red List for Jamaican Myrtaceae species.
In addition to data development, the project places strong emphasis on capacity building. It will provide training in Red List submission workflows, helping to build local expertise in conservation assessment and reporting. As part of this initiative, Ms. Mosquera will also participate in a two-week intensive training course in tropical plant identification, delivered by staff at Kew, further enhancing her technical skills and taxonomic expertise.
This award highlights the value of international collaboration and targeted training in advancing plant conservation research in Jamaica. FST congratulates Ms. Mariah Mosquera on this achievement and looks forward to the contributions this project will make to botanical knowledge, conservation planning, and capacity development at UWI and beyond.
