A re­cent re­port by the Min­istry of Plan­ning & De­vel­op­ment es­ti­mates that con­tin­ued loss of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s bio­di­ver­si­ty re­sources—for­est ecosys­tems, wa­ter­sheds, ma­rine and coastal ecosys­tems—could cost al­most US$1 bil­lion every year in de­struc­tion, as both nat­ur­al and hu­man fac­tors con­tin­ue to con­tribute to cli­mate change.

The min­istry notes that each core area of bio­di­ver­si­ty re­sources over land and sea pro­vides ex­ten­sive crit­i­cal ser­vices such as ero­sion con­trol, wa­ter pu­rifi­ca­tion, flood pro­tec­tion and car­bon cap­ture in for­est ecosys­tems, as well as shore­line pro­tec­tion and food sources in ma­rine and coastal ecosys­tems.

The fol­low­ing is a re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry on the mat­ter, as this coun­try pre­pares to par­tic­i­pate in the up­com­ing Twen­ty Sixth Con­fer­ence of Par­ties of the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change called COP26 in Glas­gow, Scot­land from Oc­to­ber 31 to No­vem­ber 12.  

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is is high­light­ing that de­spite the cur­rent glob­al “cli­mate emer­gency”, as de­scribed by the UN’s In­ter-Gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC), the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to avert pos­si­ble US $1 bil­lion in loss­es re­lat­ed to bio­di­ver­si­ty re­sources and ser­vices, tourism and oth­er eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty as a re­sult of cli­mate change and oth­er fac­tors.  The Unit­ed Na­tions has stat­ed that cli­mate change, hap­pen­ing as a re­sult of nat­ur­al and hu­man fac­tors has dele­te­ri­ous ef­fects on bio­di­ver­si­ty, food se­cu­ri­ty and agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion.

Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is re­cent­ly led Trinidad and To­ba­go’s vir­tu­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Min­is­te­r­i­al Round Ta­ble of the glob­al Con­fer­ence on Bi­o­log­i­cal Di­ver­si­ty, COP 15, based in Kun­ming, Chi­na, and sup­ports the view of world lead­ers to place em­pha­sis on the en­vi­ron­ment and ecosys­tems to build back bet­ter from COVID-19’s ef­fects.  At COP15, in­sti­tu­tions such as the World Bank, the Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fa­cil­i­ty and the UNDP have pledged their sup­port and com­mit­ment to as­sist­ing coun­tries like T&T in ad­dress­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty loss and fo­cus­ing on trans­for­ma­tive change.  Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping an­nounced the launch of a 1.5-bil­lion-yuan (US $232.47 mil­lion) fund to sup­port bio­di­ver­si­ty pro­tec­tion in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries. 

This comes as Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­pares for the Twen­ty Sixth Con­fer­ence of Par­ties of the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change called COP26 in Glas­gow, Scot­land from Oc­to­ber 31 to No­vem­ber 12.  COP26 is re­ferred to as an his­toric cli­mate change sum­mit which is ex­pect­ed to be a game chang­er for how coun­tries do busi­ness.  Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley will lead Trinidad and To­ba­go’s del­e­ga­tion in Glas­gow as Head of Del­e­ga­tion for the World Lead­ers’ Sum­mit; Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is is the Head of Del­e­ga­tion for the High Lev­el Sum­mit and Mr. Kis­han Ku­mars­ingh, Head of the Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments Unit of the Min­istry of Plan­ning will be the Head of Del­e­ga­tion for Tech­ni­cal ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The 5th Na­tion­al Re­port of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the Con­ven­tion on Bi­o­log­i­cal Di­ver­si­ty (CBD) ap­proved by the gov­ern­ment in 2017 pro­vides an overview of the eco­nom­ic im­por­tance of ecosys­tem ser­vices sup­port­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go’s bio­di­ver­si­ty.  This Re­port, quan­ti­fy­ing the val­ue of this na­tion’s bio­di­ver­si­ty re­sources has in­di­cat­ed that the loss of reg­u­lat­ing ser­vices such as soil ero­sion, wa­ter pu­rifi­ca­tion, coastal pro­tec­tion, and flood pro­tec­tion pro­vid­ed by na­ture will in­crease our vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to nat­ur­al and man­made haz­ards, in­creas­ing the fi­nan­cial and oth­er costs to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to the Re­port, the abil­i­ty of this coun­try’s wa­ter­sheds to de­liv­er wa­ter of good qual­i­ty (wa­ter pu­rifi­ca­tion ser­vices) is val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$520 mil­lion or US$88 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.  The forests in Trinidad’s North­ern Range pro­vide soil re­ten­tion ser­vices that are val­ued as high as US$622 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.  An­oth­er reg­u­lat­ing ser­vice pro­vid­ed by forests is car­bon diox­ide re­moval from the at­mos­phere, this ser­vice pro­vid­ed is val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$1,088 per hectare per year. This car­bon re­moval ser­vice is high­est in wet­land ar­eas such as the Ca­roni and Nar­i­va swamps in, as well as in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s forest­ed ecosys­tems.  Tak­en to­geth­er with oth­er ser­vices such as ero­sion con­trol, wa­ter pu­rifi­ca­tion, flood pro­tec­tion and the pro­vi­sion of sus­tain­able tim­ber, the ecosys­tem ser­vices pro­vid­ed by this coun­try’s forests are es­ti­mat­ed to be worth at least US$2,195 per hectare per year.

The coastal ecosys­tems and their bio­di­ver­si­ty, name­ly coral reefs, man­groves, wet­lands, and sea­grass beds, al­so play an im­por­tant role in pro­tect­ing our shore­lines. The 5th Na­tion­al Re­port high­lights that al­most the en­tire length of To­ba­go’s coast­line is de­pen­dent on coastal ecosys­tems for some type of pro­tec­tion. This study al­so in­di­cat­ed that the val­ue of shore­line pro­tec­tion pro­vid­ed by coastal ecosys­tems for Trinidad and To­ba­go ranges be­tween US$3 and US$133 per hectare per year. Aside from pro­tec­tion ser­vices, coastal ecosys­tems al­so sup­port recre­ation and tourism-based ac­tiv­i­ties, val­ued at up to US$390,428.00 per hectare per year.

The gov­ern­ment has tak­en an ac­tive ap­proach in mit­i­gat­ing the ef­fects of cli­mate change on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s bio­di­ver­si­ty re­sources.  Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is em­pha­sizes that we have com­mit­ted to a re­duc­tion in cu­mu­la­tive green­house gas emis­sions in the main emit­ting sec­tors, in­dus­try, pow­er gen­er­a­tion and trans­porta­tion by 15% from a busi­ness-as-usu­al base­line by De­cem­ber 31, 2030.  Sig­nif­i­cant work has been done to­wards the es­tab­lish­ment of a ro­bust Mon­i­tor­ing, Re­port­ing and Ver­i­fi­ca­tion (MRV) Sys­tem for cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

To re­duce cu­mu­la­tive green­house gas emis­sions in the trans­porta­tion sec­tor, an e-mo­bil­i­ty pol­i­cy is in the fi­nal stages of de­vel­op­ment.  A con­sul­tant has al­so been en­gaged by the Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme and Den­mark Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty (DTU/UN­EP), to de­vel­op fund­ing pro­pos­als for the in­stal­ment of ul­tra-fast so­lar elec­tric ve­hi­cle charg­ers.

The Min­istry of Plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment through its En­vi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Plan­ning and Di­vi­sion has al­so done a great deal of work with the Food and Agri­cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion re­gard­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Forests and Pro­tect­ed Ar­eas.  Through this project, a new Na­tion­al Pro­tect­ed Ar­eas Sys­tems Plan was ap­proved by Cab­i­net in 2019.  The goal of the Plan is to iden­ti­fy ar­eas with­in the na­tion­al ju­ris­dic­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go which en­abled the pro­tec­tion of the coun­try’s bio­di­ver­si­ty, to be con­sis­tent with na­tion­al poli­cies for for­est, pro­tect­ed ar­eas and wildlife.

The new Plan pro­posed the es­tab­lish­ment of 136 Pro­tect­ed Ar­eas. Of these, 92 are ter­res­tri­al/fresh­wa­ter (79 in Trinidad and 13 in To­ba­go), 40 are coastal/ma­rine (18 in Trinidad, 22 in To­ba­go) and 4 are deep-seas ma­rine ar­eas. In to­tal, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,933km2 (1,866km2 in Trinidad, 67km2 in To­ba­go) of the coun­try’s land mass is pro­posed to be ter­res­tri­al/fresh­wa­ter pro­tect­ed ar­eas. The pro­posed coastal and ma­rine pro­tect­ed ar­eas ap­prox­i­mate to 580km2 (14km2 in Trinidad and 566km2 in To­ba­go). The pro­posed open-ocean wa­ters and deep-sea ma­rine ar­eas cov­er 15,600km2. 

In 2020, the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment with the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies al­so launched the first ever Trinidad and To­ba­go Bio­di­ver­si­ty In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem (TTBIS), in­tend­ed to be a cen­tral repos­i­to­ry for gath­er­ing and man­ag­ing T&T’s bio­di­ver­si­ty da­ta and in­for­ma­tion in or­der to share it ef­fi­cient­ly with all stake­hold­ers, so as to en­sure bet­ter ev­i­dence-based de­ci­sion mak­ing re­gard­ing our bio­di­ver­si­ty re­sources. 

Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is em­pha­sizes that a holis­tic ac­tion plan is be­ing dri­ven through im­ple­men­ta­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy, Vi­sion 2030; a com­mit­ment to the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals and Trinidad and To­ba­go’s COVID-19 Re­cov­ery Plan to en­sure that our hu­man and nat­ur­al re­sources are at the ‘cen­tre of so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment’ as out­lined by the Na­tion­al Strat­e­gy while we tack­le the chal­lenges of cli­mate change and bio­di­ver­si­ty loss.