As Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to lose mil­lions of dol­lars an­nu­al­ly from il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in north-east Trinidad, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (COSL) Bhan­matie Seecha­ran says there are seem­ing­ly rogue el­e­ments with­in state agen­cies and pos­si­bly with­in her of­fice who have been alert­ing and “tip­ping off” il­lic­it quar­ry op­er­a­tors to avoid be­ing caught and ar­rest­ed by the po­lice.
"On nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions, this of­fice re­ceived re­ports of im­me­di­ate on­go­ing il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties and be­tween the time it takes to mo­bilise forces and reach the site, no one is found on the ground. There­fore, it is left for one to as­sume that the per­pe­tra­tors are in­deed be­ing tipped off," she said.

"Seem­ing­ly, it ap­pears that there are rogue el­e­ments with­in the state agen­cies and pos­si­bly with­in this of­fice as well, who we de­pend on to as­sist with the fight against il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. The COSL, how­ev­er, is un­aware of who these in­di­vid­u­als are."

Seecha­ran said, how­ev­er, no one is above the law and once nec­es­sary mea­sures are put in place for a suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion these op­er­a­tors will be dealt with ac­cord­ing­ly.

And while il­le­gal quar­ry­ing cre­ates an eco­nom­ic loss for the State and drains our nat­ur­al re­source, there is al­so no mit­i­ga­tion plan for the restora­tion of these quar­ried ar­eas.

Seecha­ran's com­ments came af­ter a Guardian Me­dia spe­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­earthed wide­spread il­le­gal quar­ry­ing on state lands at Blocks 3 and 5 in Waller­field, which is pop­u­lar for dairy and agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tions.

Al­though 65 peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed for il­le­gal min­ing in north-east Trinidad in the last three years, on­ly 13 have been charged and the mat­ters are be­fore the courts.

There are no record­ed cas­es of any­one be­ing jailed for this il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty from 2017 to now.

Farm­lands in Waller­field

In a bid to ex­pand and im­prove the lo­cal dairy in­dus­try, the Gov­ern­ment of T&T in 1959 set up a pi­lot dairy scheme in Waller­field.

A 1965 re­port on an Eco­nom­ic In­ves­ti­ga­tion In Small Scale Dairy Farm­ing In T&T by Bruce Nightin­gale stat­ed that the milk from the scheme was bought by the Gov­ern­ment at 94 cents per gal­lon.

The farms were es­ti­mat­ed at $15,000 each on the open mar­ket.

Over a pe­ri­od of time, some farm­ers who reared goats, cows, sheep, chick­ens and pigs be­gan plant­i­ng the land.

In 1968, the lands were sur­veyed by the State with due au­thor­i­ty for agri­cul­tur­al pur­pos­es.

A doc­u­ment ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia showed a farmer who was leased 8.49 hectares at Block 3 in 1974 paid an an­nu­al rental of $251.70.

Waller­field en­com­pass­es Blocks 3 and 5, span­ning hun­dreds of acres.

A map showed Block 5 has 554 acres di­vid­ed in­to 28 parcels.

Each par­cel is bro­ken up in­to ei­ther 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23-acre farms.

Block 3 is equal­ly large.
These farms which pro­vid­ed food and milk for the na­tion are now be­ing con­trolled and quar­ried by a band of un­touch­able op­er­a­tors.

Degra­da­tion, ero­sion, dust pol­lu­tion, trees de­stroyed

On Thurs­day, Seecha­ran iden­ti­fied eight plots in Block 3 and four plots in Block 5 where il­le­gal quar­ry­ing has been tak­ing place.

Among some of the ar­eas she pin­point­ed in Block 3 are Trac­tor Poole Road and Aripo Grass Lands, while in Block 5 plots three, eight, 16 and 23 were list­ed.

At both blocks, the de­struc­tion of state lands has been wide­spread and shock­ing.

The ex­trac­tion of main­ly grav­el on the un­du­lat­ing lands has re­sult­ed in the State los­ing mil­lions in nat­ur­al re­sources year­ly and pro­duc­tive farm­land be­ing de­stroyed.

The neg­a­tive im­pact of the quar­ry­ing has led to land degra­da­tion, ero­sion, land­slips, dust pol­lu­tion, re­duc­tion of crops and live­stock, and loss of trees.

Dur­ing Guardian Me­dia's vis­it to Block 5 re­cent­ly, the buck­et of a yel­low ex­ca­va­tor was seen rip­ping through the earth's sur­face.

The ex­ca­va­tor, par­tial­ly hid­den among a clus­ter of trees and bush­es, was spot­ted load­ing the ex­tract­ed grav­el on­to the tray of a six-wheel­er truck which swift­ly ex­it­ed the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way (CRH).

It is un­clear where the ma­te­ri­als are be­ing de­liv­ered or sold.

Farm­ers feel in­tim­i­dat­ed

Res­i­dents said the quar­ry­ing has been on­go­ing for months with­out lit­tle or no ac­tion tak­en against the per­pe­tra­tors.

Scouts stand­ing guard and seat­ed in ve­hi­cles at four strate­gic lo­ca­tions would alert the op­er­a­tors of strangers ven­tur­ing in from the high­way.

When our news team drove in­to Block 5 we were fol­lowed for sev­er­al min­utes by a scout in a sil­ver car.

Fear­ing for our safe­ty, we left.

Res­i­dents said the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties are done most­ly late at nights, week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days when the COSL of­fices are closed.

On Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, vil­lagers re­port­ed a bee­hive of ac­tiv­i­ty on the sprawl­ing lands.

The trucks that reg­u­lar­ly en­ter and leave the ar­eas have de­stroyed the ma­jor­i­ty of paved roads in the two com­mu­ni­ties, while man-made dirt tracks have been left with se­vere de­pres­sions.

Pres­i­dent of the Waller­field Farm­ers’ and Al­lied Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Lisa Perez said the as­so­ci­a­tion has been fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle with the op­er­a­tors.

"At the end of the day, this mat­ter is to­tal­ly out of our hands," she said.

Perez said a few months ago, the quar­ry­ing is­sue was raised dur­ing a gen­er­al meet­ing in Waller­field with Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, and af­fect­ed farm­ers.

She said Ramb­harat promised to look in­to the mat­ter but the prob­lem still ex­ists.

"I was ap­palled when I went down in the back there. This thing is big­ger than us. That is now out of my hands. These peo­ple were even fol­low­ing me when I went there to see what was tak­ing place. They tried to in­tim­i­date me. I had to leave. I don't know who the peo­ple are but ap­par­ent­ly, they seem to have a lot of pow­er,” Perez said.

'Slapped, threat­ened, killed'

At that meet­ing, Perez said one farmer com­plained of be­ing slapped on her face by in­di­vid­u­als who want­ed to take con­trol of her lands.

The op­er­a­tors, Perez said, al­so threat­ened to kill a farmer and bury his body in one of the open pits.

"Farm­ers have been threat­ened. But there is noth­ing we can do,” Perez said.

Many of the res­i­dents and farm­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty de­clined to speak to Guardian Me­dia for fear of be­ing tar­get­ed.

Those who opt­ed to talk re­quest­ed their iden­ti­ties be with­held since they are scared.

A male res­i­dent said the ex­ca­va­tion has left many in the com­mu­ni­ty un­easy.

"The sit­u­a­tion is so un­just and out of hand," he said.

The res­i­dent spoke about a 21-year-old who took over his fam­i­ly's farm and got roped in the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, which cost him his life a few months ago.

The young farmer, he said, was of­fered $150,000 by the op­er­a­tors to quar­ry a por­tion of his land.

But af­ter weeks of quar­ry­ing loads of grav­el, things turned sour.

"To start with, the op­er­a­tors paid him on­ly a por­tion of the $150,000. When the farmer ob­ject­ed they hand­ed him a gun as part pay­ment, but this wasn’t part of the deal. Threats start­ed fly­ing on both sides."

Days lat­er, the res­i­dent said the young man's bul­let-rid­dled body was found me­tres from his farm off Demon­stra­tion Road.

"Up to now, no­body has been ar­rest­ed for this mur­der," the res­i­dent point­ed out.

The killing, he said, has not dis­suad­ed the op­er­a­tors. In fact, they have in­ten­si­fied their op­er­a­tions.

He said the op­er­a­tors have al­so been en­croach­ing on aban­doned farms land.

Il­le­gal quar­ry op­er­a­tors 'ganster­ing you'

Our news team was shown sev­er­al heaps of grav­el that was ex­ca­vat­ed re­cent­ly and con­cealed be­hind mi­ni moun­tains in Block 3.

"Them op­er­a­tors gang­ster­ing you. Some of them are Mus­lims. They let­ting you know they will kill you if don't hand over your land. Some farm­ers can't even go back on their farms to plant or tend to their an­i­mals."

He said Waller­field was los­ing its farm­ing pop­u­la­tion.

"To put it mild­ly, these op­er­a­tors have been milk­ing the State of its valu­able re­sources."

The res­i­dent said some farm­ers have been putting their lives in dan­ger by ac­cept­ing fast and easy cash.

"The biggest cor­rup­tion in T&T go­ing on in Waller­field right now...These il­le­gal quar­ry op­er­a­tors prof­it­ing mil­lions and thou­sands of dol­lars at the end of the year. They ben­e­fit­ing from state re­sources," the res­i­dent said.

An­oth­er Block 3 res­i­dent said re­ports have sur­faced that some farm­ers ac­cept bribes of $300 by un­scrupu­lous op­er­a­tors for every truck­load of grav­el quar­ried from their lands.

"Sit down and think about it. If six loads of grav­el are ex­tract­ed a day from their farms, they would pock­et a cool $1,800 with­out lift­ing a fin­ger,” the res­i­dent said.

She said a 20-tonne truck­load of grav­el sells for about $2,500 so the op­er­a­tor ben­e­fits the most.

'Po­lice on the pay­roll'

The po­lice, she claimed, was al­so on the op­er­a­tors' pay­roll.

"They too take bribes. Them po­lice and them in it too. Them po­lice don't care, they get­ting mon­ey easy in their pock­et. Those who are run­ning the op­er­a­tions are pro­tect­ed. The po­lice would just pass and take up their mon­ey and go."

The res­i­dent said farm­ers who re­fused to com­ply with the op­er­a­tors' de­mands are bul­lied and in some cas­es chased from their lands.

There were al­so cas­es of gun­play in the com­mu­ni­ty.

She said op­er­a­tors mask their op­er­a­tions by claim­ing to build large ponds for tilapia rear­ing.

"But this is just a pre­text. It's to cov­er their il­le­gal op­er­a­tions. I find that is stu­pid­ness go­ing on in Waller­field right now. Peo­ple get­ting threat­ened and even killed for that grav­el thing."

A Block 5 farmer cried as she claimed she was bul­lied, beat­en and chased from her 20-acre par­cel by four rel­a­tives.

The land was pre­vi­ous­ly utilised by her fa­ther who signed an agree­ment with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture decades ago.

"My fa­ther then ap­plied to the min­istry for a joint ten­an­cy of the prop­er­ty which was nev­er processed. Af­ter my fa­ther died in 2013, I ap­plied for a lease."

De­spite not get­ting a re­sponse from the min­istry, the farmer said she con­tin­ued to farm and live on the prop­er­ty.

How­ev­er, in 2018 rel­a­tives moved in­to the land and ma­li­cious­ly burnt, chopped and stole her crops while her an­i­mals were thrown in­to open pits and buried.

The rel­a­tives al­so threat­ened to kill her.

"They said they would blow my brains out. They want­ed me out."

She said re­ports made to the COSL and the Ari­ma po­lice were fu­tile.

With no one to turn to for help, the 51-year-old woman then came home and saw a pad­lock on her door.

"I was put out."

Short­ly af­ter, the op­er­a­tors moved in­to the lands.

In 2018, the po­lice cracked down on the rel­a­tives who were ar­rest­ed and charged for quar­ry­ing.

This mat­ter is still pend­ing be­fore the Ari­ma court.

'An un­usu­al pro­pos­al'...$1M of­fer to quar­ry lands

In a sur­prise move last year, she re­called re­ceiv­ing an un­usu­al pro­pos­al.

"As the oc­cu­pi­er of the land, I was of­fered $1 mil­lion to al­low the op­er­a­tors to quar­ry my farm. I told him I want­ed no part of any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty. For them to of­fer me $1 mil­lion they have to be mak­ing mil­lions."

Af­ter be­ing turned down, the op­er­a­tors re-en­tered the prop­er­ty and be­gan quar­ry­ing again.

"This time it was a greedy quar­ry­ing. They be­gan ex­tract­ing grav­el night and day," she said.

Of her 20-acre par­cel, the farmer said four acres have com­plete­ly van­ished.

"All you see are big holes in the land. Every­thing is gone. How are these lands go­ing to be re­stored? "

She said she no­ticed each time she in­formed the au­thor­i­ties about the un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ty the op­er­a­tors' heavy ma­chin­ery, trucks and work crews would dis­ap­pear.

"This hap­pened quite a few times, I be­came sus­pi­cious."

She be­lieves that state of­fi­cials had been tip­ping off the quar­ry op­er­a­tors to avoid be­ing caught.

"I don't know what to do again. I had to let it be be­cause I am so tired. It is frus­trat­ing. I was my own boss rear­ing my an­i­mals and do­ing what I love so much. Now I have to work for peo­ple to earn a liv­ing. How can this be fair?"

'Po­lice are aware of the sit­u­a­tion, Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands must get in­volved'

A se­nior of­fi­cer who spoke to Guardian Me­dia on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty said the po­lice are aware of the sit­u­a­tion.

The of­fi­cer said an ar­rest was made in 2018 and a few weeks ago the po­lice clamped down on an op­er­a­tion in Block 3.

He said the po­lice are un­able to do sur­veil­lance every day since they have oth­er work to deal with.

"The po­lice has been mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion. We can on­ly be there for breach­es of the peace...we don't have le­gal stand­ings when it comes to the land mat­ter it­self."

He said the last time the po­lice vis­it­ed the area they were in­volved "in a shoot-out with the men. It has a lit­tle more in it. That would be for the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to get in­volved."

Se­nior of­fi­cer: Come for­ward with ev­i­dence on cops

As­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent op­er­a­tions of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Naim Gyan said the TTPS, head­ed by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, will not con­done his of­fi­cers ac­cept­ing bribes.

He said the COP has opened up lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion for the pub­lic to deal with such re­ports.

He said if the res­i­dents/farm­ers have in­for­ma­tion about cor­rupt of­fi­cers or those in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties and fail to make a re­port, he would have to take their al­le­ga­tions with a pinch of salt.

"If the farm­ers and res­i­dents have the in­for­ma­tion, I will glad­ly deal with it. It is easy to make al­le­ga­tions. If they know some­thing, they should come for­ward, " Gyan said.

Gyan said as far as he was aware, no such re­port had reached his desk.

He said the head of the North­ern Di­vi­sion se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent Shel­don David would not en­cour­age such wrong­do­ing.

"We are try­ing to peg the crime in our di­vi­sion. That is one thing we will not con­done. Our dri­ve is to re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence."

Parcels of land in Waller­field where il­le­gal quar­ry­ing has been tak­ing place:

Block 3

Plot 2 Trac­tor Poole Road (18A 0R 17P)

Plot 11 Waller­field (21A 0R 33P)

Plot 13 Waller­field (19A 3R 16P)

Plot 7 Aripo Grass Lands (20A 1R 16P)

Plot 11 Aripo Grass Lands (21A 1R 33P)

Plot 21 Aripo Grass Lands (4A 0R 22P)

Plot 22 Aripo Grass Lands (4A 2R 22P)

Plot 3 Aripo Grass Lands (19A 3R 36P)

Block 5

Plot 23 Waller­field (20A 0R 5P)

Plot 3 Waller­field (2A 0R 5P)

Plot 16 Waller­field (22A 2R 12P)

Plot 8 Waller­field (20A 1R 7P)

Ques­tions for the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands

Guardian Me­dia for­ward­ed a list of ques­tions via What­sApp to act­ing COSL Bhan­matie Seecha­ran on Wednes­day.

These were her re­spons­es.

Q-How wor­ry­ing is it for your of­fice that these op­er­a­tors have been pil­fer­ing valu­able state re­sources which is a loss of rev­enue for the Gov­ern­ment?

A-The State is not on­ly placed at an eco­nom­ic loss due to il­le­gal min­ing and the drain­ing of its nat­ur­al re­source, but this il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty al­so has a detri­men­tal en­vi­ron­men­tal, health and safe­ty im­pact as there is no mit­i­ga­tion for the restora­tion of these ar­eas. As a re­sult of il­le­gal min­ing, le­git­i­mate farm­ers are un­able to pro­duce ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly on their as­signed plots.

Does the COSL's of­fice lack man­pow­er to crack down on these il­le­gal op­er­a­tors? If so, what is re­quired to bring these of­fend­ers be­fore the courts?

The en­force­ment of the law against il­le­gal min­ing is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Min­er­als Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries work­ing with the TTPS and EMA. The role of the COSL is to iden­ti­fy parcels which are state land and al­so to work with our GIS (Ge­o­graph­ic In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems) and Sur­veys and Map­ping Di­vi­sions to pro­vide cadas­tral, sur­vey plans or GIS co­or­di­nates to sup­port en­force­ment. The en­force­ment of ex­ist­ing laws and acts such as the Min­er­als Act, the State Lands Act, Forestry Act, Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion Act and the Tres­pass­ing Act to­geth­er with the back­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty forces (Po­lice Ser­vice and De­fence Force), will aid tremen­dous­ly in the fight against il­le­gal quar­ry­ing.

To bring these of­fend­ers be­fore the court, the process in­volves:

*Vi­su­al de­tec­tion and ar­rests of of­fend­ers and seizure of ma­chin­ery.

*Pro­vi­sion of doc­u­ments prov­ing par­cel is state lands.

*If the par­cel is pri­vate land, the mat­ter is for­ward­ed to and han­dled by Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries.

*Pro­vi­sion of sur­vey plan and ti­tle doc­u­ments from the State for the par­cel

*Soils tests from state ge­ol­o­gist.

*Prepa­ra­tion of state­ments and ev­i­den­tial doc­u­ments from all of­fi­cers and/or agen­cies in­volved.

The above bul­let­ed has to be com­plet­ed with­in 24 hours af­ter the ar­rest.

How many il­le­gal quar­ry op­er­a­tors have been ar­rest­ed, charged and fined or jailed and their equip­ment seized in the last three years?

Over the last three years, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 65 peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed for il­le­gal min­ing in north-east­ern Trinidad. Of these, 13 peo­ple have been charged and these mat­ters are cur­rent­ly be­fore the courts. There are no record­ed cas­es of any­one be­ing jailed over the last three years for this ac­tiv­i­ty.

How long has il­le­gal quar­ry­ing been tak­ing place?

Il­le­gal quar­ry­ing has been not­ed and ob­served on var­i­ous state land parcels, par­tic­u­lar­ly in north-east­ern Trinidad, in ar­eas in­clud­ing Waller­filed, Mela­jo For­est Re­serve, Aripo Grass Land, San­gre Grande, and Va­len­cia. Such ac­tiv­i­ties have been on­go­ing for over a decade.

Can you give an es­ti­mate of how much ag­gre­gate has been pil­fered from these state lands since op­er­a­tions be­gan?

The amount of ag­gre­gate pil­fered from these parcels is un­known.

Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tions have un­earthed that some un­scrupu­lous farm­ers have been ac­cept­ing from un­law­ful quar­ry op­er­a­tors $300 for every truck­load of grav­el ex­tract­ed for their farm lands. Has the COSL re­ceived such a re­port?

The COSL has no records to sub­stan­ti­ate this claim.

One farmer claimed she was of­fered $1 mil­lion by quar­ry op­er­a­tors which she re­fused. Has the COSL re­ceived any such re­port?

No.

If your of­fice dis­cov­ers farm­ers have been work­ing in col­lu­sion with the op­er­a­tors, will their leas­es be ter­mi­nat­ed?

If the same is dis­cov­ered with ap­pro­pri­ate back­ing and ev­i­dence, the COSL will take af­fir­ma­tive ac­tion to have ar­rests made to­geth­er with ter­mi­na­tion of any and all ex­ist­ing agree­ments.

Lands aban­doned by farm­ers or not un­der ac­tive use are al­so be­ing quar­ried. Can you say if this is true?

As far as our records in­di­cate, the afore­men­tioned plots are the ones that have been pil­fered with works on­go­ing on some plots over week­end pe­ri­ods.

What has your of­fice un­cov­ered in its in­ves­ti­ga­tions at Blocks 3 and 5 so far?

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing and con­tin­u­ous in the Waller­field area by this of­fice, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the TTPS (spe­cial­ly as­signed task force) and the TTDF. This of­fice main­tains a record of all ac­tiv­i­ties de­tect­ed for ev­i­den­tial pur­pos­es. Of­fi­cers have ob­served that a lot of il­le­gal quar­ry­ing oc­curs main­ly over the week­ends and hol­i­days, this be­ing the time frame dur­ing which pub­lic ser­vants are off du­ty. As a re­sult, the de­tec­tion rate is not on par with the ac­tu­al ac­tiv­i­ty. The ar­eas where il­le­gal min­ing has oc­curred and con­tin­ues to oc­cur are de­mar­cat­ed with bare/sparse veg­e­ta­tion, craters in the land, dam­aged road­ways caused by the con­stant tra­vers­ing of heav­i­ly loaded trucks and the ex­ces­sive dust, all which neg­a­tive­ly im­pacts this agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty and the dairy farms.

Have you vis­it­ed Blocks 3 and 5 to see the ex­ten­sive land degra­da­tion?

Yes.

The farm­ers al­so claim that when they re­port the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty to your of­fice and the po­lice, the quar­ry op­er­a­tors would sud­den­ly pack up and leave the ar­eas. They are left with the feel­ing that of­fi­cials at your of­fice and the po­lice are be­ing tipped off. What is your re­sponse to this claim?

Seem­ing­ly, it ap­pears that there are rogue el­e­ments with­in the state agen­cies and pos­si­bly with­in this of­fice as well, who we de­pend on to as­sist with the fight against il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. The COSL, how­ev­er, is un­aware of who these in­di­vid­u­als are. On nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions, this of­fice re­ceived re­ports of im­me­di­ate on­go­ing il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties and be­tween the time it takes to mo­bilise forces and reach the site, no one is found on the ground. There­fore, it is left for one to as­sume that the per­pe­tra­tors are in­deed be­ing tipped off.

Many hold the view that these op­er­a­tors seem to be un­touch­able and have no re­spect for law and or­der. What are your thoughts?

I be­lieve that no one is above the law and once all the nec­es­sary mea­sures are put in place for a suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion these op­er­a­tors will be dealt with ac­cord­ing­ly.

What as­sur­ances are you giv­ing to the pop­u­la­tion that these un­law­ful op­er­a­tions will be stopped once and for all?

The COSL is cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing in strength­en­ing ties with and fos­ter­ing new re­la­tion­ships par­tic­u­lar­ly with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the De­fence Force as it re­lates to pool­ing re­sources in the fight against this il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty. Tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion this suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion re­quires metic­u­lous rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, prop­er ev­i­dence and doc­u­men­ta­tion re­gard­ing same in ad­di­tion to ac­tu­al­ly catch­ing per­pe­tra­tors in the act, this of­fice is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to re­gain con­trol of its agri­cul­tur­al lands.It is hope­ful that once all co­op­er­a­tion is giv­en and changes are made to the ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion, giv­en time, this prob­lem can be erad­i­cat­ed.