Witco executive director Sheldon Taitt, left, joins Arima MP Penelope Beckles, right, and Asa Wright Nature Centre chairman, Dr Carol James, in the symbolic planting of a tree at the centre’s Blanchisseuse Old Road, Arima grounds on Friday, October 23. PHOTO: DAVID WEARS ￿

Stop the rape of the Northern Range for aggregate to feed the construction sector. That’s the message eminent biologist, Asa Wright Nature Centre chairman, Dr Carol James, sent on October 23, to the Government. The State was just paying lip service to the environment, said James, who added that international visitors paid US$200 a night to stay at the centre, rated as among the top ten in the world. When they took photos of the flora and fauna from the famous Asa Wright verandah, the pictures now reflected the scars inflicted on the Northern Range by rampant quarrying operations. James demanded that Manning live up to the sentiments he expressed on September 26, when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York on the topic of climate change and the need to preserve the natural environment.

She told her audience at a ceremony held at the centre to formally announce a massive tree-planting partnership with the West Indian Tobacco Company (Witco) that she was disappointed in how Manning and the Government treated the environment, in particular the pristine Northern Range which always excited visitors with its beauty. Deputy Speaker Pennelope Beckles, who is PNM Arima MP, and whose constituency includes the centre, attended the ceremony and also lambasted indiscriminate quarrying. They both spoke while the T&T national cricket team was locked in combat with the New South Wales Blues in India in the AirTel Champions League final for a prize of $US2.5 million, but despite their listeners understandably having cricket on their minds, they managed to drum their environmental message home.

James said, “We’re concerned Government mouths some of the words...“Mr Manning went to the UN General Assembly and talked of climate change issues but it hasn’t translated into action on the ground.” She said she understood the need to harvest aggregate, but trees were cut down haphazardly to get at the aggregate in the ground and the area was not “maximised” properly before another was plundered. James felt that quarry operators working on behalf of the State should bid to go deeper into the earth and so “degrade” smaller spaces on the Northern Range. She said she had been appealing, futilely so far, to the executive of National Quarries to heed her cries.

Witco under pressure
Introduced by Witco executive, Charmaine Mohammed, as a biologist who had worked in the Pacific, Africa and the Caribbean and who had served as senior adviser to the United Nations on the environment, James placed Witco on a pedestal for partnering with the centre to plant some 9,000 trees on 1,500 acres of land. She said when the project was put to the Asa Wright board in August this year by Mohammed, as Witco aimed to reduce and neutralise its carbon footprint by engaging in planting a swathe of trees, there was some discomfort because of Witco’s core business—manufacturing cigarettes, the smoking of which, it is universally agreed, is bad for one’s health.

That discomfort was “easily overcome” when her board realised that Witco as a corporate entity was intent on living up to its responsibilities to preserve the environment, an area in which many business concerns were delinquent. “We’re quite comfortable with the relationship,” she declared. I lift my hat to WITCO." Witco is currently under pressure in the Parliament where debate resumed on Tuesday, October 20 after a ten-month break on the Tobacco Control Bill 2009. Piloting the bill, Health Minister Jerry Narace said tobacco smoking was an epidemic in T&T and needed to be controlled. Later, Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, who chaired a Senate Select Committee that fine-tuned the legislation, told the Upper House that cigarette smoking placed a burden on the public health system.

Beckles pleased with tobacco firm
James, however, brushed off these concerns and boasted that her board and Witco were now in talks to plant cocoa and coffee crops on Asa Wright land. “People are prepared to pay US$10 for a cup of Starbucks coffee,” said James. Beckles said it was “pleasing to my heart” to see the effort being made by Witco to restore the tree cover to the Northern Range. She was torn apart when she drove through the area to see on one hand the destruction caused by quarrying, and at the same time experience the beauty of the hills.

James swore she would not allow any agency to interfere with the new tree Northern Range tree growth sponsored by WITCO and in fact would ensure that they grew to maturity. Beckles said if the issue of climate change was not addressed in T&T “our time may come when we find ourselves seriously at risk.” Beckles as well as James advised Witco to tell the world the environmental effort the company was making in the hope that it would be emulated by corporate T&T. Witco closed its Champs Fleurs plant for the day and production and marketing staff joined executive director, Sheldon Taitt, to plant fruit and food trees at the centre.