Shir­van Williams

What hap­pened at Grande Riv­iere beach where hun­dreds of tur­tles were killed in an ef­fort to stop land slip­page must nev­er hap­pen again. This was stat­ed by Min­is­ter of Tourism Stephen Cadiz while speak­ing to re­porters at the beach as sev­er­al con­cerned gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and res­i­dents gath­ered to get more in­for­ma­tion about the in­ci­dent.

Over the week­end work­ers from the Min­istry of Wa­ter and the En­vi­ron­ment Drainage Di­vi­sion be­gan work to di­vert a riv­er in an ef­fort to save sev­er­al busi­ness­es which were threat­ened by ero­sion. In the process hun­dreds of leatherback tur­tle hatch­lings and eggs were de­stroyed. The in­ci­dent has not on­ly at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of con­ser­va­tion­ists and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist groups but sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Cadiz, along with a crew of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials that in­clud­ed Min­is­ter of Wa­ter and the En­vi­ron­ment Gan­ga Singh, yes­ter­day vis­it­ed the site to sur­vey the work that was done and to see what still needs to be ac­com­plished. Cadiz said that his min­istry was very proud of the fact that the leatherback tur­tles had cho­sen Trinidad to lay their eggs.

"Ob­vi­ous­ly we are not very proud about what has hap­pened here and we will be speak­ing to the right peo­ple, with the EMA, with the peo­ple in charge of beach­es, coastal re­gions and get some ex­pert ad­vice as to how this thing will nev­er ever hap­pen again," he said.

He de­scribed the beach as a cru­cial site for tourism in the coun­try and stressed that he hoped it would nev­er hap­pen again and called the sit­u­a­tion a "dis­as­ter." Cadiz said there need­ed to be more re­search so that no oth­er tur­tle nest­ing site would have to be de­stroyed in this man­ner.

He al­so said he be­lieved that there was very lit­tle con­sul­ta­tion on the project at Grande Riv­iere and that some mis­takes may have been made. "If a huge er­ror has been made in try­ing to fix a nat­ur­al oc­cur­rence and we did it the wrong way for what­ev­er rea­son, ob­vi­ous­ly we didn't know what to ex­pect and there­fore I do not think we can con­tin­ue with that," he said.

Cadiz said it was a very "tick­lish sit­u­a­tion" as sev­er­al things had to be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion when the de­ci­sion was made. He said it was not a "nice learn­ing curve." Singh how­ev­er de­fend­ed his min­istry's de­ci­sion even though he ad­mit­ted that he be­lieved the ac­tions tak­en "could have been han­dled a bit more sen­si­tive­ly."

"Well work has to con­tin­ue be­cause you are with­in the hur­ri­cane sea­son and you would al­ready recog­nise that this is not a re­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant zone for lay­ing of the tur­tle eggs and it is the area that they sought to pro­tect," he said. He said the fact the leatherback tur­tles chose this coun­try to nest is a gift to the world and that in the past all ef­forts have been tak­en to pro­tect the en­dan­gered species.

"It is not in the DNA of Trinidad and To­ba­go to en­dan­ger the leatherback tur­tle. It is in the DNA of the coun­try to pro­tect the leatherback tur­tle. That is our lo­cal oblig­a­tion and that is our in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tion," he said. He said his "new­ly mint­ed" min­istry would be mak­ing moves to help res­i­dents pro­tect their sen­si­tive ecosys­tem.

"Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 per cent of all leatherbacks in the world nest in Trinidad and To­ba­go so that there­fore it is in­deed a haven for the leatherback tur­tle. There­fore we need to pro­vide a safe haven for the leatherback tur­tle," he said. Singh al­so said the num­bers of tur­tles killed were ex­ag­ger­at­ed and he does not feel that his min­istry was in breach of any in­ter­na­tion­al treaties.

He said he was hold­ing every­body re­spon­si­ble as the mat­ter should have been han­dled more sen­si­tive­ly. The res­i­dents who had gath­ered were in sup­port of the min­istry's ac­tion and said that it was the on­ly ap­pro­pri­ate way that it could have been han­dled.

"Three lit­tle hatch­lings die, you see what go­ing on here. The vil­lagers ful­ly in sup­port of what go­ing on. Tur­tles don't lay here-any tur­tles that hatch here does die," Kyle Charles said. He was amazed that the tur­tles had re­ceived so much me­dia at­ten­tion when the peo­ple of the vil­lage have been high­light­ing the is­sues they face for some time.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Wilton James, who has been liv­ing at the beach for 45 years said he was very hap­py about the ac­tion tak­en and hoped that an­oth­er riv­er low­er down the beach would be di­vert­ed in the same man­ner, as it was erod­ing the land that he and about five oth­ers were liv­ing on. "They on­ly bas­ing on tur­tles and tur­tles but not on hu­man be­ing," he said.

He said the riv­er had be­gun to cause trees to fall and he was re­al­ly wor­ried that he may lose his home. He urged Singh to fol­low him down the beach to see the na­ture of the de­struc­tion he faced. The team of of­fi­cials then walked down the beach to sur­vey all the ero­sion that the riv­er had caused so far and what re­me­di­al work was need­ed still to pre­vent the en­tire vil­lage from be­ing lost.