Ke­jan Haynes

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries (M.A.L.F) is tak­ing steps to com­bat the il­le­gal wildlife trade in Trinidad and To­ba­go by ini­ti­at­ing a train­ing pro­gramme and de­liv­er­ing let­ters of ap­point­ment to 68 Hon­orary Game war­dens.

In Jan­u­ary, 396 hon­orary game war­dens were of­fi­cial­ly ap­point­ed. The train­ing and de­liv­ery of ap­point­ment let­ters will con­tin­ue dur­ing Feb­ru­ary.

Hon­orary Game War­dens are vol­un­teers who are con­ferred with the same pow­ers as Game War­dens; em­pow­ered un­der the Con­ser­va­tion of Wildlife Act and re­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion.

While speak­ing at the ap­point­ment cer­e­mo­ny at Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary this morn­ing, Sen­a­tor the Hon­or­able Kaz­im Ho­sein, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Land and Fish­eries, com­mend­ed the vol­un­teers hail­ing their de­ci­sion to serve as a pa­tri­ot­ic act say­ing, “ser­vice to man is ser­vice to God."

He re­mind­ed the vol­un­teers that the preser­va­tion of the  ecosys­tem is para­mount for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, "Your role as guardians of our na­tion's con­ser­va­tion ef­forts is cru­cial to the agri­cul­ture sec­tor and the mod­ern hunt­ing cul­ture as it pro­vides an added lev­el of en­force­ment against poach­ers and per­sons who com­mit wildlife of­fences and in­frac­tions."