In 2014, there were 2,464 an­i­mals and 2,104 plants that have been la­belled "crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered" and there­fore face a high risk of ex­tinc­tion in the wild. (In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Times, UK)

Among the top five crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered species is the hawks­bill tur­tle, which is an an­nu­al vis­i­tor to our twin is­lands.En­dan­gered Species Day, cel­e­brat­ed the third Fri­day in May, high­lights the plight of many at-risk and crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered species of wild an­i­mals, as well as ways in which we can al­ter our be­hav­iour on a dai­ly ba­sis in or­der to help to pro­tect and save these crea­tures.

The hawks­bill is a crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered sea tur­tle found in the trop­i­cal reefs of the In­di­an, Pa­cif­ic and At­lantic Oceans. The tur­tles have a dis­tinc­tive pat­tern of over­lap­ping scales on their shells which have made them high­ly valu­able and com­mon­ly sold as "tor­toise­shell" in mar­kets.

Hawks­bills main­ly feed on sponges, us­ing their nar­row, point­ed beaks to pick them from a reef, and al­so on jel­ly­fish and sea anemones. These an­cient crea­tures are 100 mil­lion years old and are a fun­da­men­tal link in ma­rine ecosys­tems, help­ing to main­tain the health of coral reefs and sea­grass beds.

Ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture (IUCN) Red List of Threat­ened Species, wide­ly recog­nised as the most com­pre­hen­sive, ob­jec­tive glob­al ap­proach for eval­u­at­ing the con­ser­va­tion sta­tus of plant and an­i­mal species, T&T is home to over ten species of con­cern. Among these in­cludes the crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive species, the pawi or pip­ile pip­ie.

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) is em­bark­ing on a na­tion­al sur­vey to gauge the pub­lic's aware­ness of the pawi and of its cur­rent sta­tus in Trinidad. This da­ta will prove use­ful to­wards de­vel­op­ing strate­gic man­age­ment plans for pro­tect­ing this species. The pawi is en­dem­ic to Trinidad, with es­ti­mates in 2001 in­di­cat­ing a pop­u­la­tion of 77 to 200 in­di­vid­u­als. Much of its known re­main­ing habi­tat has been des­ig­nat­ed as a na­tion­al park un­der the pro­tec­tion of the Matu­ra En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sen­si­tive Area (Mesa).

Oth­er fau­na species which are en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive in T&T in­clude the ocelot, the West In­di­an man­a­tee, the white-tailed sabrew­ing hum­ming­bird and sea tur­tles, name­ly: the olive ri­d­ley, the green, log­ger­head, leatherback and the hawks­bill.

In ad­di­tion to the EMA's des­ig­na­tion of En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sen­si­tive Species, the Na­tion­al Wildlife Pol­i­cy, 2013, pro­vides guid­ance on the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of un­do­mes­ti­cat­ed an­i­mals and plants found in T&T, whether in­tro­duced, res­i­dent or mi­gra­to­ry, their parts or de­riv­a­tives there­of, and their habi­tats.

The main ob­jec­tives of the pol­i­cy are:

�2 To pro­tect na­tion­al­ly and glob­al­ly crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered, en­dan­gered, vul­ner­a­ble, and/or near threat­ened wildlife pop­u­la­tions, whether res­i­dent or mi­gra­to­ry

�2 To main­tain vi­able rep­re­sen­ta­tive pop­u­la­tions of na­tive wildlife species par­tic­u­lar­ly en­demics

�2 To op­ti­mise the con­tri­bu­tion of wildlife re­sources to liveli­hoods, cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al/re­li­gious use, while en­sur­ing sus­tain­able use of wildlife re­sources, in­clud­ing hunt­ing, cap­ture of cage birds, cap­tive breed­ing, ar­ti­fi­cial prop­a­ga­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al trade, and non-de­struc­tive us­es such as eco­tourism, and ecosys­tem ser­vices where pos­si­ble, fea­si­ble and de­sir­able

�2 To main­tain and en­hance the eco­log­i­cal in­tegri­ty of wildlife habi­tats in or­der that they con­tin­ue to func­tion to sup­port sus­tain­able and vi­able pop­u­la­tions of wildlife species

Time and time again, we see graph­ic hor­rors com­mit­ted against our sea tur­tles, our threat­ened wildlife, in­clud­ing our West In­di­an man­a­tee, and even against our pre­cious scar­let ibis. Chang­ing a cul­ture will not hap­pen overnight, but we need to en­sure the mech­a­nisms are in place to in­flu­ence change for our fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Ed­u­ca­tion and sen­si­ti­sa­tion is prob­a­bly the best op­tion to en­cour­age peo­ple par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties to ab­stain from hunt­ing pro­tect­ed species and rather be­come part of the dri­ve to safe­guard these amaz­ing crea­tures.

Oth­er sim­ple prac­tices such as hunt­ing with­in the pre­scribed sea­son–Oc­to­ber 1, to the end of Feb­ru­ary–catch­ing on­ly the spec­i­fied num­ber of game, size and type of game avail­able dur­ing the sea­son; opt­ing to ab­stain from wild meat for a year or two, or even ex­plor­ing op­tions of game farm­ing.

Both flo­ra and fau­na species re­quire a com­mit­ted, strate­gic and sus­tain­able in­ter­ven­tion to pro­tect what we have left and to en­cour­age pro­lif­er­a­tion of what was lost.

Some of the ma­jor di­rect and in­di­rect caus­es for wildlife loss in T&T in­clude:

�2 In­creas­ing trans­for­ma­tion of re­main­ing nat­ur­al ar­eas to in­dus­tri­al, and com­mer­cial land­scapes

�2 For­est fires, which re­move soil-sta­bil­is­ing veg­e­ta­tion on hill­sides

�2 Quar­ry­ing (strip min­ing for sand, lime­stone and grav­el)

�2 Agri­cul­ture and res­i­den­tial squat­ting, in­clud­ing mar­i­jua­na cul­ti­va­tion in forest­ed ar­eas

�2 House con­struc­tion on sen­si­tive hill­sides or in forest­ed ar­eas; un­sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices (slash and burn, overuse of agri­cul­tur­al chem­i­cals); in­va­sive alien species; pol­lu­tion of rivers, coastal and ma­rine wa­ters; nat­ur­al dis­as­ters such as storms, hur­ri­canes, drought, floods etc, coastal ero­sion; un­sus­tain­able ex­trac­tion of wildlife, in­clud­ing il­le­gal log­ging, il­le­gal hunt­ing and over­hunt­ing (of game and pro­tect­ed species), and over har­vest­ing of non-tim­ber for­est prod­ucts (eg, herbs, hor­ti­cul­tur­al species and raw ma­te­ri­als for craft) and

�2 Weak leg­is­la­tion and poor en­force­ment of ex­ist­ing wildlife con­ser­va­tion reg­u­la­tions