Deforestation And The Ranges
While it was heartening to read Asa Wright Nature Centre chairman, Dr Carol James, had called for a stop to the rape of the Northern Range. The article, though, focuses only on the quarrying activities - destructive as they are, the quarries are not the only problem. The picture to the left shows how agriculture, too, plays a role. That photo, taken in June 2009, is below one of the paths to El Tucuche, and is one of many deforestation pictures I took that day.
The path to El Tucuche, undercut by agriculture, was in poor shape then and the farmers told me that they were working on fixing the path so that they could get their produce out. Because of the nature of the conversation, I didn't ask them who owned the land. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I did suggest planting some trees below the path, but they didn't seem very interested in that. Beans were of the most interest.
To put things in perspective, the path might arguably fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Tourism. The farmers, if licensed, would fall under the Ministry of Agriculture. And the land, if owned by the government, probably has to at least have plans associated with it through the Ministry of Planning's 'Town and Country' department. In short, it's a quagmire.
So yes, the Northern Range is being raped - and it isn't just the quarrying that is doing it. It's also farmers and the profound bureaucracy that encapsulates the government agencies and their ability to do their jobs. This forms a bitter pill to swallow. But lest we forget, the Northern Range isn't the only range suffering. Here's a picture of a quarry in the central range. 
When it comes to the environment, while some are spinning their tops in mud... they may soon be able to spin them where the various ranges in Trinidad and Tobago once were.
- Taran Rampersad's blog
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Comments
Sad
It's sad to think that all the work we did on the issue of illegal quarrying in the 90s came to so little. (Nigel, err...Edmund...do you remember "Quarry Worries".) Granted, perceptions of the environment have changed so much since the late 80s, but rather than becoming environmental activists, we* became environmental professionals. The system coopted the people who were most committed.
That's not to say that things haven't changed for the better in many ways. But the old issues of deforestation and land degradation are still with us. And what was once shocking has become commonplace.
*And by "we", I don't necessarily mean "me", since I'm not even doing that little bit any more.
Cropper Foundation
I know the Cropper foundation have begun the process of weeding out bad farming practices on the Northern range. They have started 'sensitizing' spontaneous farming groups (not sure which to italicize there) both terms seem so ineffectve. 'Taboo' is the thing to plant in their heads. No suggest, just make it a taboo practice that endangers others.
Never heard of them...
Is there somewhere I could find out more about the Cropper Foundation in T&T?
Cropper Foundation
The Cropper Foundation is run by Angela Cropper. Their website is here. Their current projects are listed here. They coordinated a lot of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment work.
Forgot to thank you for this.
Good links. I looked at them a bit but haven't had a lot of time to drill down. Will do so over the next week.
It isn't easy being green...
Kermit didn't know his statement was true on so many levels. Ian, as one of the persons who practised environmental activism when at university, but scaled back significantly thereafter. My actions are now limited to basic rubbish recycling and periodically reducing my carbon footprint by breathing every other breath.
Caring about the environment is an exercise in frustration in T&T. The average citizen just doesn't seem to care about any environment, unless they have a deed of ownership for the space in question. And it's from this large pool of uncaring citizens we have to select politicians. So it shouldn't be surprising that they display admirable duplicity with environmental issues.
If it isn't a Health Minister asking for public support for its anti-tobacco bill, while keeping mum on the health issues related to the proposed aluminum smelter, we have the relaxing of the CEC rules for clearing of lands for quarrying - which happened two years ago. And still the government would have folks believe it's trustworthy on climate change issues. Prof Julien Kenny has written on this from time to time: see the following links to two of his columns:
I really don't know what's going to happen when he's no longer able to alert the public about government-initiated environmental risks. No-one else, at least to me, appears to write credible environmental articles in the local press.
PS: I vaguely remember the Quarry Worries Biological Society campaign. Frankly, that club was the most enjoyable aspect of my stay at uni. I wonder what the level of membership is like nowadays? Haven't read anything in the news about it for years.
UWI bio-sci and COPE
the UWI bio-sci are active members of COPE (in truth COPE could use some more people). Several members of bio-sci did a BP sponsored EIA reviewers course run over several months in 2007.
These were part of a group of fourteen who may now match Dr Kenny in writing and disseminating comment on EIA / CEC process, proposed, active, and the actively disfunctional projects.
Willing to help channel members to the eco NGO's in the country if anyone gets an urge to play Don(na) Quixote.
Maybe they'd get more support...
If they had an Acronym to English converter built in. What you wrote there, as useful as I'm sure it is, may not make sense to the average person. :-)
Acronym converter
Bio Sci = UWI Biological Society
COPE = Council of Presidents of the Environment
BP = BP ;)
eco NGO = environmental non-governmental organisation
EIA = Environmental Impact Assessment, which is usually required as part of the process to get a
CEC = Certificate of Environmental Clearance
Nah, you need more than an acronym converter. You need a glossary...
Yeah...
It's the NGO problem. They end up speaking such a foreign language that the grassroots never commits because the grassroots doesn't understand what the hell they are talking about.