The Greater Negril Ecosystem harbors a host of gravely endangered habitats and species, and world-class endemism, so this area is of global significance- part of the reason that Conservation International lists Jamaica as 5th out of the 8 "Hottest Hot Spots in the World. A hot spot is a place of extremely high conservation priority because it contains unique species and they are under threat of extinction. The GEN is approximately that area encompassing everything west of a line drawn from Lucea south through the Dolphin Head Mountains to Little Bay on the south coast. A smaller, core area may be defined by a line drawn from the east side of Orange Bay south across the Negril Hill region including the watersheds immediate to the Negril Great Morass, Seven Mile Beach, and West End of Negril proper.
There are ten principal component habitats of the GNE, listed below. Those marked by one star are threatened or endangered in Jamaica only. Those marked by two stars are threatened or endangered globally. Those marked by three stars contain a high proportion of endemic species, including at least one that, along with the habitat, is threatened or endangered globally.
wet limestone forest ***
dry limestone forest **
tropical sawgrass marshland ***
tropical swamp forest ***
mangrove forest **
littoral or beach forest ***
seagrass meadow **
shallow coral reef ***
deep (mesophotic) coral reef
open ocean ***
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