The new draft of the wildlife pol­i­cy is a good one, but there is one par­tic­u­lar­ly se­ri­ous omis­sion that needs to be in­clud­ed if the pol­i­cy is to be of any val­ue.

Al­most every page begs the same vi­tal ques­tion–how and by whom is all this go­ing to be mon­i­tored, pro­tect­ed, en­forced and main­tained? There are cur­rent­ly 14 game war­dens to pa­trol the en­tire coun­try! We all know that some are good and hon­est, but we all al­so know that there are oth­ers who on­ly want to have in­for­ma­tion about where the game is so that they them­selves can go af­ter it.

This pol­i­cy must in­clude the em­ploy­ment of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 well-trained, well-armed, ded­i­cat­ed game war­dens to be em­ployed at the Wildlife Sec­tion of the Forestry Di­vi­sion. This omis­sion is tru­ly grave; it can and must be ad­dressed if the pol­i­cy is to make sense.

Fur­ther, the pol­i­cy is ex­plic­it about the grave threat to some of our flo­ra and fau­na. It al­so speaks about habi­tats, new wildlife re­serves and pro­tect­ed land­scapes and seascapes. Who is go­ing to pa­trol and pro­tect all of these?We al­so ur­gent­ly need a mora­to­ri­um on hunt­ing that will give all our wildlife a chance to re­cov­er; 10,800 per­mits for 2012/2013 have been is­sued! And there are al­so thou­sands of il­le­gal game hunt­ed in and out of sea­son.

At­ten­tion must al­so be paid to the ex­treme­ly low penal­ties for break­ing the law and the sale of wild meat out of sea­son. Stiffer fines must ac­com­pa­ny the ap­point­ment of more game war­dens.

Law-abid­ing, hon­est hunters know that a three-year mora­to­ri­um will be to their ben­e­fit. There is a sto­ry go­ing around that if there is a mora­to­ri­um, there will be a pro­lif­er­a­tion of mar­i­jua­na fields. That does not hold wa­ter. The pe­ri­od of such a mora­to­ri­um will al­so pro­vide the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for sci­en­tists and re­searchers to car­ry out de­tailed re­search work in the field, which is much need­ed.

There is much dis­cus­sion about land degra­da­tion. Il­le­gal quar­ry­ing along the North­ern Range, dec­i­mat­ing our forests; hous­es on steep hill­sides and in wa­ter­shed ar­eas; un­sta­ble soft coastal lands filled in and coastal veg­e­ta­tion and man­groves to­tal­ly re­moved–noth­ing to hold rush­ing wa­ters.

An­oth­er is­sue that must be ad­dressed is ver­min. This sec­tion of the pol­i­cy is ar­cha­ic and eco­log­i­cal­ly dam­ag­ing. Bats are not ver­min, not even the much ma­ligned vam­pire bat (Arthur M Green­hall, Mer­lin D Tut­tle). Bats are far more im­por­tant to us than birds in pol­li­na­tion, seed dis­per­sal and in­sect con­trol.

Many of our for­est trees de­pend on them. Bats al­so help con­trol our rat and cock­roach pop­u­la­tions. Trinidad has nine of the 18 fam­i­lies of bats in the world; we should be proud that we have them. Bats must be re­moved form the cur­rent Third Sched­ule of the Con­ser­va­tion of Wildlife Act.

Mol­ly R Gaskin

Pointe-a-Pierre

Wild­fowl Trust

The na­tion­al bird–the Cocrico–that is on our Coat of Arms is list­ed as ver­min! In 1963, Hur­ri­cane Flo­ra dev­as­tat­ed To­ba­go de­stroy­ing the Cocrico's food trees. Why could we not be proac­tive and do like Cos­ta Ri­ca and plant a buffer zone of for­est feed trees around agri­cul­tur­al plots?