Our Goal

Sustainable management of Jamaica’s natural and built environment while ensuring effective urban and rural development.

Our Vision

Healthy, safe, resilient, and sustainable natural and built environment for current and future generations.

Our Mission

To manage and protect the natural and built environments in support of Jamaica’s sustainable development.

Customer Focus: We are proactive in our effort to determine and meet customer Customer Focus requirements so as to achieve customer satisfaction.

Leadership: We use opportunities, innovation, responsiveness, proactivity and risktolerance to empower us to embrace and leverage change towards continuous improvement.

Accountability: •We are accountable to our stakeholders, accept responsibility for our decisions and actions and submit to the scrutiny that attends our decisions and actions.

Integrity: We adhere to high ethical standards and moral principles and apply Integrity equity and the rule of law across all stakeholders.

Motivation: We inspire and empower our staff to perform at their greatest potential and provide training to maximise productivity and Motivation innovation within a safe and healthy work environment.

Impact: We seek to be evidence based and results driven in our decision making and to make a positive and visible difference in fulfilling our mandate.

Teamwork: We foster and encourage collaboration, cooperation, communication, Teamwork respect and trust to achieve more together.

Our core functions are:

Policy and Programme Development

Development of proposals for national environment and planning policies, legislation, regulations, standards and programmes.

Conservation and Protection Management

Management of species, habitats, and ecosystems; protected, watershed, coastal and marine areas management; wild fauna and flora protection, rescue and relocation.

Environmental Management

Pollution prevention and control; pollution monitoring and assessment; Pollution incident investigation and reporting.

Spatial Planning

Development of a strategic framework for orderly and progressive development of the rural and urban areas of the archipelago and the territorial waters, the preparation of development orders and Spatial and development plans.

Application Management

Receive and process applications to provide recommendations for decisions on licences and permits for Planning, Subdivisions, Beaches, Environment, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); Hazardous waste export, import, or transportation; Hunter’s licence; exemptions under the Wild Life Protection Act; provision of pre-application assistance.

Public Education and Outreach

Corporate communications; documentation management; information/library services; Access to Information (ATI) management; public awareness and outreach initiatives; facilitating public consultations; developing and maintaining partnerships with stakeholders - community groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private companies in support of environmental and planning requirements and education.

Compliance and Enforcement Managament

Monitoring for compliance with planning and environmental requirements; responding to complaints; investigating incidents of non-compliance; undertaking enforcement actions and legal proceedings.

Quality Policy

he National Environment and Planning Agency is committed to providing service excellence to customers and stakeholders to promote sustainable development, protection of the environment and orderly development. This will be accomplished through professional staff who perform at a high standard and a management system that meets relevant statutory and regulatory requirements and international standards and which is continuously improved.

To achieve this NEPA will:

•  Align activities with international agreements and national objectives
• Meet relevant statutory and regulatory requirements and international standards
• Engage with customers and interested parties to understand their challenges and requirements to improve products and services and enhance customer satisfaction
• Maintain competent staff who are motivated to perform at a high standard
• Determine and address risks and opportunities that can impact or improve the conformity of products and services and the ability to enhance customer satisfaction
• Establish, maintain and continuously improve its management system for the delivery of products and services