The Emile Elias group of com­pa­nies plant­ed 60 trees in Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day to com­mem­o­rate the group’s 60th an­niver­sary.

Un­der the theme Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, Sat­ur­day’s tree-plant­i­ng ex­er­cise marked an ear­ly part of the group’s year-long cel­e­bra­tions for its Di­a­mond An­niver­sary in 2025.

Group chair­man, Emile Elias, was joined by sev­er­al di­rec­tors and staff to plant the trees with for­est rangers at the Fondes Aman­des Com­mu­ni­ty Re­for­esta­tion Project in St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain.

Ak­i­lah Jaramo­gi, founder and di­rec­tor of the Fondes Aman­des Com­mu­ni­ty Re­for­esta­tion Project, thanked the group for choos­ing to cel­e­brate by plant­i­ng trees which would re­duce their car­bon foot­print and help to bring bal­ance to that im­por­tant wa­ter shed in T&T.

Group di­rec­tor, Char­lotte Elias, ex­plained that the tree-plant­i­ng ex­er­cise was the group’s way to ac­tive­ly con­tribute to­wards the com­mit­ment to en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty with­in the cap­i­tal city.

“We can’t just plant sap­plings in­to the wider land­scape and hope that they make it. We want to do all we can to en­sure they have the care and at­ten­tion that they need to thrive oth­er­wise it’s a ges­ture; it’s not sus­tain­able,” said Elias.

She not­ed the Fondes Aman­des Com­mu­ni­ty Re­for­esta­tion Project’s work and the Emile Elias Group had sim­i­lar­i­ties in their paths, as she said that per­se­vered to break new ground and to sus­tain it through many chal­lenges like fires and floods, while both or­gan­i­sa­tions cut trails to pro­tect their col­lec­tive work and vi­sion.

Chair­man, Emile Elias agreed that the lo­cal­ly-owned con­struc­tion com­pa­ny be­gan in chal­leng­ing times, short­ly af­ter T&T’s In­de­pen­dence. He ex­plained at that time the com­pa­ny strug­gled to emerge in the mar­ket at a time when the con­struc­tion in­dus­try was dom­i­nat­ed by for­eign owned com­pa­nies.

Group di­rec­tor Hugh Scham­ber added that the group has since sur­vived many cy­cles through the re­silience and adap­ta­tion sim­i­lar to forests. He said that the tree-plant­i­ng ex­er­cise would have last­ing im­pact decades lat­er in the same way that the group’s dai­ly ac­tions built a 60-year lega­cy.