Michelle Loubon

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Arnold Pig­gott says forests sup­port T&T's rich bio-di­ver­si­ty and con­sti­tute a sol­id base for the de­vel­op­ment of eco-tourism. He made that com­ment while pre­sent­ing the Draft Na­tion­al For­est Pol­i­cy at Crowne Plaza, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, last week. The pub­lic al­so has been in­vit­ed to com­ment on the Draft Cli­mate Change and Draft Pro­tect­ed Ar­eas Poli­cies. Pig­gott said, "A wide range of for­est types sup­ports much of our rich bio-di­ver­si­ty and con­sti­tute a sol­id base for the de­vel­op­ment of eco-tourism. Some may tend to take these ser­vices for grant­ed, but we can­not sur­vive with­out them." The new draft pol­i­cy has tak­en in­to ac­count the de­mand for out­door recre­ation and eco-tourism op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Bush fires rage

But he re­mind­ed the gath­er­ing threats to the in­tegri­ty and sur­vival of forests were re­al. He added: "Bush and for­est fires con­tin­ue to rav­age road­sides and forests, in­clud­ing the crit­i­cal wa­ter­sheds of the North­ern Range." As a re­sult, he said, the new for­est pol­i­cy de­fined for­est eco-sys­tem, in­clud­ing their plant and an­i­mal bio-di­ver­si­ty and eco­log­i­cal process­es and func­tions. Forests need­ed pro­tec­tion since it sup­plied clean air, fresh wa­ter, food, ma­te­ri­als and even med­i­cines. They reg­u­late cli­mate and play a crit­i­cal role in the con­ser­va­tion of soil and fos­ter agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, he added.

?Pur­pose of draft pol­i­cy

It seeks to guide the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of the for­est re­sources of T&T and ex­am­ines the im­pact and con­se­quences of its use. Con­ser­va­tion, ac­cess and use al­so are in­clud­ed. It cov­ers nat­ur­al and plan­ta­tion forests and in­cludes forest­ed land that has been de­for­est­ed or de­grad­ed. The doc­u­ment would be mon­i­tored and for­mal­ly up­dat­ed every 10 years to re­flect new needs, is­sues and op­por­tu­ni­ties to al­low for adap­ta­tion for chang­ing con­di­tions. It is not an iso­lat­ed doc­u­ment but seeks to build on the ex­ist­ing pol­i­cy frame­work for for­est man­age­ment and en­hanc­ing oth­er pub­lic poli­cies, es­pe­cial­ly the Na­tion­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy, the Na­tion­al Bio-di­ver­si­ty Strat­e­gy and Ac­tion Plan and the Na­tion­al Ac­tion Pro­gramme to com­bat land degra­da­tion.