If you are dri­ving along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way near Ca­roni, you may be for­tu­nate to spot a vivid or­ange-red bird fly­ing in your midst. It's the lu­mi­nous Scar­let Ibis, one of our two na­tion­al birds which re­side in the Ca­roni Swamp.

Lo­cat­ed on the Gulf of Paria, 3.5 km from Port-of-Spain, the Ca­roni Swamp is the largest man­grove swamp in the coun­try, ac­count­ing for over 60 per cent of the coun­try's man­grove. The Ca­roni swamp drains the catch­ment area of a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of north­west and cen­tral Trinidad (an area of 675sq km), in which a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion lives and where the ma­jor­i­ty of the non-pe­tro­le­um man­u­fac­tur­ing and agri­cul­tur­al sec­tors are lo­cat­ed.

The Swamp is pro­tect­ed as a Pro­hib­it­ed Area un­der the Forests Act (Le­gal No­tice No 141 of 1987), and was pro­claimed a For­est Re­serve in 1936, with three wildlife sanc­tu­ar­ies (200 hectares) de­clared with­in the Re­serve in 1953 and 1966. A Na­tion­al Wet­lands Pol­i­cy was al­so passed by Cab­i­net in 2001 to guide the man­age­ment of this valu­able ecosys­tem.

This Ram­sar Site is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8,398 hectares in to­tal, of which 2405.8 hectares are coastal wa­ter and mud­flats. It is main­ly state owned: 3,197 hectares with­in a For­est Re­serve, 1,854.3 state lands, and 941 hectares are pri­vate­ly owned.

The nat­ur­al wa­ter cours­es of the swamp are the Ca­roni Riv­er, the Blue Riv­er, Cat­fish Riv­er, Phagg Riv­er, Guaya­mare Riv­er and Madame Es­pag­nol Riv­er. Sev­er­al rivers and man-made drainage chan­nels form an in­ter­est­ing hy­dro­log­i­cal net­work, which is in­flu­enced by tides from the Gulf of Paria and by drainage from the catch­ment area. The most no­table of these were cut dur­ing the 1930s to con­trol flood­ing and de­vel­op agri­cul­tur­al lands from the la­goon.

The eco­log­i­cal di­ver­si­ty is pro­nounced due to the ex­is­tence of marsh­es and man­grove swamp in close prox­im­i­ty. The wet­land pro­vides a va­ri­ety of habi­tats for flo­ra and fau­na species and sup­ports a rich bio­di­ver­si­ty. It is a high­ly pro­duc­tive sys­tem that pro­vides food (or­gan­ic pro­duc­tion) and pro­tec­tion and is a nurs­ery for ma­rine and fresh­wa­ter species. This wet­land al­so func­tions as a re­ceiv­ing and ab­sorb­ing body of land-based runoff and pol­lu­tants and is the nat­ur­al in­fra­struc­ture for tourism.

More than 90 per cent of the la­goon is in­un­dat­ed for most of the year and wa­ter depths range from one to 11 me­tres. Here, the la­goons and open mud flats are ex­posed on­ly at low tides.

Man­grove veg­e­ta­tion dom­i­nates this wet­land, with fresh­wa­ter marsh­es in­clud­ing wa­ter grass­es, sedges and lilies (the reeds). This type of veg­e­ta­tion is im­por­tant in shore­line sta­bil­i­ty and flood con­trol.

There is a wealth of fau­na species in­clud­ing over 190 species of birds, 24 species of fin fish in­clud­ing sev­er­al com­mer­cial­ly im­por­tant species such as tar­pon (Mega­lops at­lanti­cus), grey snap­per (Lut­janus griseus), and species of shrimp (Pe­naeus spp) which use the swamp as a nurs­ery.

Oth­er im­por­tant fau­na species in­clude the silky anteater (Cy­clopes di­dacty­lus), the crab eat­ing racoon (Pro­cy­on can­criv­o­rous), oys­ters (Cras­sostrea rhi­zophorae), man­grove crab (Ara­tus pisonii), hairy crab (Ucides cor­da­tus) and the Scar­let Ibis (Eu­docimus ru­ber).

Ow­ing to the rich bio­di­ver­si­ty, the swamp is utilised ex­ten­sive­ly par­tic­u­lar­ly with re­spect to fish­ing, har­vest­ing of crabs, oys­ters and eco-tourism. There is a Ca­roni Swamp Vis­i­tor Cen­tre for dis­sem­i­na­tion of in­for­ma­tion on the site, as well as boat tours for the avid eco-tourist. A sec­tion is al­so used for agri­cul­ture and in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment. How­ev­er, these ac­tiv­i­ties have con­tributed to the degra­da­tion of the swamp as over-har­vest­ing of shell fish and fin fish, and poach­ing of an­i­mal and bird species in­clud­ing the threat­ened Scar­let Ibis harms the ecosys­tem.

The habi­tat is al­so dis­turbed by the use of boats for recre­ation and fish­ing, drainage is­sues, pol­lu­tion from in­dus­tri­al, agri­cul­tur­al and do­mes­tic sources, recla­ma­tion for road, hous­ing and in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment, salt wa­ter in­tru­sion, and the loss of the fresh­wa­ter marsh­es.

To mit­i­gate fur­ther de­struc­tion of this site, the Forestry Di­vi­sion, Na­tion­al Wet­lands Com­mit­tee, and the Ca­roni La­goon Na­tion­al Park and Bird Sanc­tu­ary Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee have been work­ing to­wards the man­age­ment of this pro­tect­ed area.

Ad­di­tion­al stake­hold­er or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clude the Caribbean For­est Con­ser­va­tion As­so­ci­a­tion (CF­CA), Ca­roni Wet­lands Sci­en­tif­ic Trust, Green­plains Foun­da­tion, Pointe-a-Pierre Wild­fowl Trust, and the T&T Field Nat­u­ral­ists Club.

Some of the man­age­ment is­sues to be ex­am­ined in­clude the es­tab­lish­ment of a study and mon­i­tor­ing pro­gramme for the area, the restora­tion of fresh­wa­ter marsh habi­tat, de­vel­op­ment of an oys­ter and fish­eries man­age­ment pro­gramme, tourism and vis­i­tor use plan­ning, strength­en­ing lo­cal ca­pac­i­ty to man­age the site, and the de­vel­op­ment of ed­u­ca­tion­al and aware­ness pro­grammes.

The Ca­roni Swamp is of prime eco­log­i­cal val­ue to our na­tion and should be pro­tect­ed for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions to come. We must each do our part to pro­tect this site by re­duc­ing the neg­a­tive hu­man im­pact.

Help pro­tect our lo­cal wet­lands

�2 Ex­pe­ri­ence and learn more about this lo­cal Ram­sar Wet­land site

�2 Ed­u­cate oth­ers–Share what you've learned with your fam­i­ly and friends

�2 Vol­un­teer or form a com­mu­ni­ty group to help con­serve or clean up our nat­ur­al re­sources

�2 Re­port any il­le­gal prac­tices like poach­ing, squat­ting, or dump­ing of garbage.