CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Five coral reef sites in To­ba­go are ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from a new pi­lot project to re­store the corals and sea grass­es in those ar­eas, Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has con­firmed.

The Min­is­ter led a del­e­ga­tion from the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) yes­ter­day to the Buc­coo Reef to ex­plore the pos­si­bil­i­ties to re­store the sea grass­es and coral reef in To­ba­go.

In a post to her so­cial me­dia pages, Min­is­ter Beck­les ex­plained that the Ma­rine Re­silience Ini­tia­tive (MARIN) To­ba­go project is an 18-month pi­lot project car­ried out by the IMA, with sup­port from British Pe­tro­le­um Trinidad and To­ba­go (BPTT).

The Plan­ning Min­is­ter not­ed that MARIN To­ba­go seeks to de­ter­mine the fea­si­bil­i­ty of coral and sea­grass re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion strate­gies giv­en their cur­rent eco­log­i­cal state, ex­ist­ing dis­tur­bances, and man­age­ment prac­tices.

"This is nec­es­sary for ini­ti­at­ing coral reef and sea­grass restora­tion in To­ba­go which will be ex­tend­ed to more sites in Trinidad and To­ba­go in the next phase," she said.

The pi­lot will fo­cus on five coral reef sites: Buc­coo Reef in the Ma­rine Pro­tect­ed Area, Mt Irvine Reef, and Fly­ing Reef in south­west To­ba­go, Boo­by Is­land Reef, Char­lot­teville and An­gel Reef, and Spey­side in north­east To­ba­go.