As the year draws to a close, it is nat­ur­al that those of us work­ing on the Guardian Mul­ti Me­dia se­ries Clean­ing Up The Mess, on CNC3, in the Trinidad Guardian, and on our face­book page, take stock. When we be­gan this se­ries we had no idea what we would find. We on­ly knew that our lit­ter laws were un­en­forced. As we dug deep­er, saw our vir­tu­al­ly con­demned un­hy­gien­ic dumps which are un­lined and un­fenced, which send tox­ins in­to our wa­ter ta­ble, our pro­duce and air.

We saw that not on­ly are ex­ist­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal laws un­en­forced, but there has been no waste man­age­ment leg­is­la­tion for over a decade. We have re­peat­ed­ly asked: If Bar­ba­dos can re­cy­cle up to 70 per cent of its waste why do we dump 50 mil­lion plas­tic bot­tles every month? Re­li­able sources from the EMA have ad­mit­ted that the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate is "large­ly un­reg­u­lat­ed". It re­mains an area of dark­ness and spec­u­la­tion, es­pe­cial­ly as so few stud­ies are avail­able re­gard­ing the ac­tu­al pol­lu­tion in this area.

Sim­i­lar­ly, we have no idea how the cock­tail of pes­ti­cides sprayed on lo­cal­ly-grown pro­duce is reg­u­lat­ed or how it af­fects our health, whether or not it con­tributes to our ris­ing can­cer rates. Thus far, the PP Gov­ern­ment has been mak­ing all the right nois­es. Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Dr Roodal Mooni­lal promised to bring the Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill, aimed at re­duc­ing plas­tic waste, in­to Par­lia­ment by the end of this year. The Min­is­ter is com­mit­ted to putting in a waste man­age­ment plan, based on the ex­cel­lent No­va Sco­tia mod­el, in­to place.

He has fi­nalised a cli­mate change pol­i­cy with the UN al­low­ing for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of Clean De­vel­op­ment Mech­a­nism (CDM), to low­er car­bon emis­sions by lo­cal in­dus­tries and those want­i­ng to in­vest in the coun­try. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an has promised a fea­si­bil­i­ty study for re­cy­cling and in­creased fines for lit­ter­ing. The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter has promised to re­haul drainage so flood­ing can be ad­dressed in a sus­tain­able way. We hope the Gov­ern­ment al­so tack­les quar­ry­ing se­ri­ous­ly as ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion has been in­ef­fec­tive and our hills are wound­ed. We hope too that 2011 is a year of ac­tion on promis­es and en­force­ment.

The fol­low­ing is the first in a three-part se­ries on Clean­ing Up The Mess pre­pared by Tri­ni Eco War­riors, (TEW) a vi­brant en­vi­ron­men­tal NGO ded­i­cat­ed to us­ing en­gag­ing video, pho­tog­ra­phy, in­ves­tiga­tive re­port­ing and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes to bring en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness to the pub­lic. Writ­ten ex­clu­sive­ly for Guardian Me­dia Clean­ing Up The Mess se­ries. In this first piece Marc de Ver­teuil has cre­at­ed for us, a Christ­mas wish list.

Tri­ni Eco War­riors (TEW), con­sists of three board mem­bers, Kyle de Li­ma, Stephen Broad­bridge, my­self, and more im­por­tant­ly more than 5,500 Face­book mem­bers who fol­low us on our fo­rum, the Tri­ni Eco War­riors Face­book page. TEW was formed out of frus­tra­tion with the state of the en­vi­ron­ment in T&T. As we look around us we see our fish stocks col­laps­ing, oil spills and in­dus­tri­al runoff pol­lut­ing our wa­ter­ways, swamps and seas, un­reg­u­lat­ed quar­ry­ing and log­ging de­stroy­ing our moun­tains and forests.

The list goes on and on. The sto­ry is the same each time: out­dat­ed or con­flict­ing leg­is­la­tion and un­der­staffed, un­der­fund­ed en­force­ment agen­cies. TEW is young, but the year is old, and as now is the time to ask for Christ­mas gifts, I'd like to ask for some Christ­mas gifts for the en­vi­ron­ment. What TEW may be most known for is our cam­paign to get a to­tal ban on sea tur­tle hunt­ing in T&T. We filmed a video called "The le­gal slaugh­ter of sea tur­tles in Trinidad". In this grue­some video a ju­ve­nile sea tur­tle is dis­sect­ed alive in a most cru­el man­ner.

We filmed this video to high­light the fact that any sea tur­tle, in­clud­ing the crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered Leatherback, can be hunt­ed in T&T dur­ing hunt­ing sea­son. All sea tur­tles are con­sid­ered en­dan­gered by In­ter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture (IUCN). Luck­i­ly, Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath of Food Pro­duc­tion has been quot­ed as say­ing that he will bring leg­is­la­tion pro­tect­ing sea tur­tles to Par­lia­ment in 2011. It is a Christ­mas wish that his min­istry and par­lia­men­tary col­leagues sup­port him so that T&T will no longer suf­fer the na­tion­al shame of al­low­ing the con­sump­tion of an en­dan­gered species.

My sec­ond Christ­mas wish is a com­plete re­vamp of the Wildlife Act. Hunt­ing has tak­en on epi­dem­ic pro­por­tions in T&T. Just last week the TEW crew, in co­op­er­a­tion with the TTPS, res­cued a pawi from a poach­er. The pawi, en­dem­ic to Trinidad and num­ber­ing as few as 200, had been shot but was still alive. The pos­si­ble fine, $1,000, is no de­ter­rent to the poach­er, who de­scribed pawi meat as the "sweet­est wild meat". Hunters buy a "state game li­cence" for $20 per des­ig­nat­ed an­i­mal cat­e­go­ry. There is no bag lim­it; $20 al­lows an un­lim­it­ed catch with­out re­gard for sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

In­dus­tries are large­ly self-reg­u­la­to­ry. What does this mean for hu­man health? Sen­a­tor Ma­habir-Wy­att, in the 2000 Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill (Bud­get), quot­ed Drs Fara­bi and Ram­roop's "Health Risks and Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Un­re­li­a­bil­i­ty in Chem­i­cal In­dus­tries" and the at­tached mor­tal­i­ty rates in pol­lut­ed and non-pol­lut­ed ar­eas for 1993 and over the pe­ri­od 1983-1992. Mor­tal­i­ty rate for can­cer in pol­lut­ed ar­eas: 260.5 ver­sus 50.7 in non-pol­lut­ed ar­eas. What is the sit­u­a­tion to­day? My third Christ­mas wish is that the Gov­ern­ment reg­u­lates in­dus­tri­al pol­lu­tion for the sake of the health of the peo­ple of T&T.

All of the above is use­less with­out en­force­ment, my fourth wish. There are 17 wildlife game war­dens cov­er­ing the 5,128 sq km of T&T, an im­pos­si­ble task. There are two fish­eries of­fi­cers to pro­tect our en­dan­gered sea tur­tles, an im­pos­si­ble task. My fifth wish is that our Gov­ern­ment re­mem­bers its pledge for change and that the health of our peo­ple, the na­tion's en­vi­ron­ment and its bio­di­ver­si­ty are put first, and not last, as we have be­come ac­cus­tomed to. That would make for a very Mer­ry Christ­mas in­deed.

Marc de Ver­teuil

This Sun­day on Clean­ing up the Mess, on CNC3 at 6 pm join Ira Math­ur for part two of the in­ter­view with Sen­a­tor Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, for­mer Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment and Dr Joth Singh of the EMA to dis­cov­er why T&T is in the state it is in.

Send in your pho­tos and com­ments to

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