RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The in­au­gu­ra­tion of a new board­walk at the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary has prompt­ed Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein to con­sid­er re­con­struc­tion of the bird tow­er at the fa­cil­i­ty, once a renowned des­ti­na­tion for bird en­thu­si­asts glob­al­ly.

Ho­sein said the tow­er, which was an ide­al spot for cap­tur­ing im­ages of the sanc­tu­ary’s 180 bird species, could soon be re­vived.

De­scrib­ing the swamp as a “hid­den trea­sure,” Ho­sein spoke about his vi­sion to el­e­vate the Ca­roni Swamp in­to one of the pre­mier tourist at­trac­tions in T&T, giv­en its rich bio­di­ver­si­ty. He out­lined en­hance­ments, in­clud­ing the ex­pan­sion of the new­ly opened board­walk and reg­u­lar tours for pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents as part of the fa­cil­i­ty’s com­pre­hen­sive up­grade.

“The Min­istry in­tends to work with all stake­hold­ers to en­sure that this is one of the most pop­u­lar tourist sites. We will make sure we have all these projects done as ear­ly as pos­si­ble,” he said.

High­light­ing his de­sire for a part­ner­ship with the youth to safe­guard the swamp, Ho­sein added: “I want the stu­dents of the na­tion’s schools to be in­vit­ed on a week­ly or month­ly ba­sis to ex­pose stu­dents to our swamp. They have to be the am­bas­sadors for this hid­den trea­sure.”

Con­ser­va­tor of Forests Den­ny Dipchans­ingh said the new board­walk was part of a two-phase project.

“We have the ap­proval un­der PSIP to con­tin­ue the ex­pan­sion of the board­walk project. We will have a flamin­go en­clo­sure where, at the side of the board­walk, flamin­goes will be housed and bred, al­low­ing vis­i­tors to ex­pe­ri­ence this beau­ty with­out ac­tu­al­ly ven­tur­ing fur­ther in­to the swamp,” Dipchans­ingh said.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about pol­lu­tion in the swamp, Dipchans­ingh sid an on­go­ing pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign and col­lab­o­ra­tions with in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) on cleanup ex­er­cis­es.

“We want the pub­lic to work with us and prac­tice good judg­ment and not lit­ter or pol­lute,” he urged.

Last Fri­day Ho­sein marked the open­ing of the board­walk as part of the glob­al ob­ser­vance of World Wet­lands Day. He in­vit­ed stu­dents of San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School and St Joseph TML Pri­ma­ry School to share their knowl­edge on the swamp.

The Ca­roni Swamp spans 12,000 acres on the west coast of Trinidad and is rec­og­nized as one of the largest man­grove forests in the coun­try, show­cas­ing the di­verse eco­log­i­cal won­ders of the re­gion.