Michelle Loubon

John Radg­man, project di­rec­tor of the North­ern Range Reaf­foresta­tion Project, says stronger leg­is­la­tion is need­ed to pre­vent bush­fires and catch of­fend­ers.The project is run by the Min­istry of En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources and falls un­der the Na­tion­al Reaf­foresta­tion and Wa­ter­shed Pro­tec­tion Unit (NR­WP). To date, Radg­man said there have been 400 fires.

Radg­man said: "We have the Agri­cul­tur­al Fires Act (Chap­ter 63:02). It works, but it could do with a re­vi­sion. It talks about im­per­son­at­ing fire of­fi­cers and plant­i­ng crops on fired lands. But I would like to see harsh­er penal­ties for ar­son­ists. It is a crim­i­nal charge if you are caught. The law should be tougher on peo­ple who set fires.

"We need to im­prove the de­tec­tion rate. We need to do bet­ter but it's dif­fi­cult to find peo­ple who are set­ting fires. When you see smoke on the hills, it's dif­fi­cult to catch some­one. Penal­ties al­so need to be harsh­er to de­ter peo­ple from set­ting fires."Radg­man felt squat­ters and sub­sis­tence farm­ers should al­so be held ac­count­able.

He said, "We need to put the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on peo­ple plant­i­ng gar­dens. I would like to see peo­ple re­frain from light­ing fires to burn pri­vate lands be­cause it could get out of hand. Squat­ters are clear­ing lands and they are go­ing to set fires. What­ev­er you do, it af­fects oth­er as­pects of the en­vi­ron­ment. It has to be pre­served for gen­er­a­tions."

Jaramo­gi: Mor­ere­sources to fight fires

Ak­i­lah Jaramo­gi, who has been spear­head­ing the Fondes Aman­des Com­mu­ni­ty Re­for­esta­tion Project, St Ann's, has re­port­ed tremen­dous suc­cess over the NGO's 30-year ex­is­tence. It start­ed in 1982 and be­came es­tab­lished in 2000.

She said: "The Forestry Au­thor­i­ty would help curb high lev­els of for­est fires. More re­sources are need­ed to en­sure groups in­volved in the com­mu­ni­ty Forestry Best Prac­tices around For­est Fire Pre­ven­tion Week get a fair share. Laws gov­ern­ing for­est fires are al­ready in place. But en­forc­ing these laws pos­es a chal­lenge. Since 1997 we have been fire-free due to in­ter­ven­tion of Gayap and oth­er events."

"We need to prop­er­ly de­fine for­est fires laws. Stake­hold­ers like the Forestry Di­vi­sion need to work to­geth­er with the EMA and fire ser­vices to pros­e­cute peo­ple who break en­vi­ron­men­tal laws. Pub­lic aware­ness is need­ed in ar­eas where for­est fires are oc­cur­ring year­ly."

Tar­get­ing pri­vate landown­ers

Ra­mona Ram­di­al, ju­nior Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources, says about 120 more for­est rangers have been de­ployed to com­bat bush­fires. The Di­vi­sion of Na­tion­al Reaf­foresta­tion and the Forestry Di­vi­sion have al­so em­barked up­on an aware­ness pro­gramme which tar­gets pri­vate landown­ers–es­pe­cial­ly those in the north­ern Cen­tral Range.

Ram­di­al said: "We had a meet­ing with pri­vate landown­ers and are hav­ing dis­cus­sions and try­ing to raise the ed­u­ca­tion­al aware­ness and its con­se­quences. A lot of the for­est fires are caused by pri­vate landown­ers es­pe­cial­ly in the North­ern Range."Most of the bush­fires along the Cen­tral ar­eas would have em­anat­ed from pri­vate ar­eas. Fire would have spread af­ter a cou­ple of hours. The for­est rangers are on the ground to en­sure the fires don't get out of con­trol."

She said, "We have a lot of mar­i­jua­na planters. When they are clear­ing the land, con­fla­gra­tions oc­cur. We have in­creased the num­ber of for­est rangers by about 120 in or­der to man these vul­ner­a­ble ar­eas, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the dry sea­son. "We have had for­est rangers 'fire trac­ing.' This is a clear­ing that is made to pre­vent the fire from jump­ing from one area to an­oth­er."

She said the min­istry was work­ing in con­junc­tion with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. "You have the fire ser­vices deal­ing with those along the flat land and south­ern ar­eas and the bam­bi buck­ets for the North­ern Range and hilly and moun­tain­ous ar­eas. On about five oc­ca­sions, they have put out fires. They hold 200 gal­lons of wa­ter and, there­fore, it is ad­e­quate to stop a rag­ing fire. They utilise Forestry and Air Guard ser­vices."

Ram­di­al said, "The Forestry Act is an old act. How­ev­er, it gov­erns all that falls un­der forestry in T&T. And one of those com­po­nents is pro­tect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment. And as you know the for­est re­serves are pro­tect­ed. I don't know about the leg­is­la­tion and the act in de­tail but I can say it is an old piece of leg­is­la­tion that needs to be re­vamped."

Penal­ty un­der­Chap­ter 63:02

A per­son who is guilty of an of­fence un­der the Agri­cul­tur­al Fires Act is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of $1,500 and im­pris­on­ment for six months and ex­pens­es in­curred by coun­try fire con­trol of­fi­cer in con­trol­ling or ex­tin­guish­ing any fire caused by or re­sult­ing from the dis­obe­di­ence, re­fusal or ne­glect of such per­son shall be re­cov­er­able sum­mar­i­ly by the coun­ty con­trol fire of­fi­cer as a civ­il debt.