The con­struc­tion of the pro­posed bil­lion-dol­lar To­co Port will com­plete­ly de­stroy one of this coun­try’s best-kept se­crets—the bio-di­verse Grande L'Anse coral reef in To­co.

That’s ac­cord­ing to Trinidad-born bi­ol­o­gist DR Stan­ton Belford who has been con­duct­ing re­search at the reef since 2004.

Home to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 79 species Grande L'Anse coral reef is a shal­low mar­gin­al, tur­bid, and a high-en­er­gy sys­tem.

The shal­low part of the reef (ie, reef crest and back reef) runs ap­prox­i­mate­ly 0.8 km along the shore, tra­vers­ing To­co Bay, from Bap­tist Bay (both bays make up Grande L'Anse) to the fish­ing jet­ty, and ex­tends on­ly about 50 m from shore to the out­er edge of the reef crest.

Belford, a Bi­ol­o­gy Pro­fes­sor at Mar­tin Methodist Col­lege, Ten­nessee, USA, has pub­lished three sci­en­tif­ic pa­pers about his re­search and has even do­nat­ed posters to the To­co Sec­ondary School and life­guard booth at Saly­bia, in an at­tempt to ed­u­cate stu­dents and peo­ple about the im­por­tance of the coral reefs along the north-east­ern coast of Trinidad.

"I’ve done 19 years of en­vi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing at the reefs, but I guess they (the Gov­ern­ment) will know more in three months," Belford told the Sun­day Guardian in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view.

He ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with Gov­ern­ment’s lack of con­cern for the en­vi­ron­ment and its de­ci­sion to move ahead with the project, fol­low­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port to the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA) for a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC), specif­i­cal­ly to con­duct an En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment (EIA) at Grande L'Anse, To­co.

In April, Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) in part­ner­ship with the min­istry ad­vised the pub­lic that a copy of the draft Terms of Ref­er­ence for the EIA was avail­able for pub­lic view­ing at the To­co Re­gion­al Com­plex, from April 12-18, 2019.

Belford re­spond­ed by let­ter dat­ed April 19, 2019, to the project en­gi­neer of the To­co Port Fa­cil­i­ty:

"Hav­ing viewed the drain­ing plan, ac­cess road plan, cadas­tral map, diesel pip­ing lay­out, recla­ma­tion plans, and ar­chi­tec­tur­al site lay­out high­light­ed on the Fish­er­man and Friends of the Sea-FFOS Face­book page, it is very clear that the reefs de­scribed in this re­port will un­der­go 100 per cent de­struc­tion," he wrote.

"An en­vi­ron­men­tal study and mon­i­tor­ing on reefs at Grande L'Anse and Saly­bia Reef are on­go­ing. An­nu­al da­ta have been col­lect­ed for over 15 years by stu­dents and fac­ul­ty of Mar­tin Methodist Col­lege and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, hence a 'snap­shot' en­vi­ron­men­tal study pro­posed in the CEC by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port will not be a ro­bust as­sess­ment of the cur­rent con­di­tion of the ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment."

Though con­sid­ered to be mar­gin­al, Trinidad’s coral sys­tems pro­vide im­por­tant ecosys­tem goods and ser­vices, whose val­ue, gen­er­al­ly, have not been ap­pre­ci­at­ed by re­source man­agers ac­cord­ing to Belford’s lat­est re­search pa­per ti­tled "Bio­di­ver­si­ty of Coral Reef Com­mu­ni­ties in Mar­gin­al En­vi­ron­ments along the North-East­ern Coast of Trinidad, South­ern Caribbean".

"Grande L'Anse Reef, for in­stance, pro­vides some mea­sure of pro­tec­tion for hous­ing and in­fra­struc­ture along an oth­er­wise erod­ing coast­line. Some, such as those at Mac­queripe, Blan­chisseuse, and To­co Bay, pro­vide sea moss, shell and fin-fish, and recre­ation," Belford wrote in the re­search pa­per pub­lished in April this year.

The sur­vey of the bi­o­log­i­cal di­ver­si­ty of coral and as­so­ci­at­ed reef or­gan­isms was con­duct­ed for the two reefs—Saly­bia and Grande L'Anse—lo­cat­ed along the north-east­ern coast of Trinidad by re­view­ing the lit­er­a­ture, mu­se­um col­lec­tions, and con­duct­ing field sur­veys be­tween the years 2005 through 2019.

The study found 257 species be­long­ing to 134 fam­i­lies, 23 class­es, and 11 phy­la. Re­search, how­ev­er, is still on­go­ing.

De­spite their prox­im­i­ty to each oth­er, on­ly 42 species were com­mon to both reefs. Of the oth­er species, most (178) were found at Saly­bia Reef.

Belford said this was the first com­plete ma­rine bio­di­ver­si­ty sur­vey for the most north-east­ern part of Trinidad, which in­cludes the on­ly fring­ing coral reef in Trinidad.

Belford, who at­tend­ed the Ari­ma Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive School said he first vis­it­ed the reef with his sec­ondary school teacher Ms Car­ol Drap­er from Ari­ma in the ear­ly 1990s.

"It was here where my in­ter­est in ma­rine life be­gan, and many years lat­er I com­plet­ed my Mas­ters of Sci­ence de­gree at Mid­dle Ten­nessee State Uni­ver­si­ty un­der the guid­ance of Dr Dawn Phillip (lec­tur­er at UWI). Dawn un­ex­pect­ed­ly passed last year. We had so many plans to mon­i­tor the reefs at To­co, how­ev­er I car­ry on this task in re­spect to her," he added.

"From this work we now have pub­lished three (3) sci­ence ar­ti­cles. Dawn con­tin­u­al­ly took a UWI class to these reefs to con­tin­ue re­search, and now I am do­ing the same with stu­dents from Ten­nessee."

BOX

NID­CO chair­man re­sponds

NID­CO chair­man Her­bert George said yes­ter­day that he had not seen Mr Belford's let­ter; "and quite frankly, my see­ing it will serve no use­ful pur­pose".

He said that "NID­CO, as part of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment that it has com­mis­sioned, is do­ing base­line stud­ies on many im­por­tant en­vi­ron­men­tal as­pects that will be im­pact­ed by the pro­posed project. This is a nec­es­sary pre­req­ui­site to se­cur­ing the Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance for the project.

"The study, among oth­er ob­jec­tives, will de­fine the ex­tent and lo­ca­tion of the reef; it will iden­ti­fy pos­si­ble ef­fects that the pro­posed fa­cil­i­ty will have on the reef, to the ex­tent that the reef is present at the lo­ca­tion or is in the vicin­i­ty of the pro­posed site; and it will de­fine suit­able mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures to be im­ple­ment­ed in the pro­tec­tion and preser­va­tion of the reef, if in­deed the reef is be­ing im­pact­ed by the project.

"The full study will be sub­mit­ted to the EMA for their use in de­ter­min­ing whether a CEC should be grant­ed for ex­e­cu­tion of the project. To say that the reef will un­der­go 100 per cent de­struc­tion is alarmist and with­out fac­tu­al ba­sis."

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T&T NOT A SIG­NA­TO­RY TO IN­TER­NA­TION­AL CORAL REEF INI­TIA­TIVE

Apart from be­ing in­cu­ba­tors of much of the world’s ma­rine bio­di­ver­si­ty, coral reefs pro­vide sev­er­al crit­i­cal ecosys­tem goods and ser­vices such as shore­line pro­tec­tion, nu­tri­ent cy­cling as well as recre­ation and tourism.

De­spite their im­por­tance, coral reefs are among the most threat­ened of the world’s ecosys­tems.

It is es­ti­mat­ed that as much as 20 per cent of coral reefs across the globe had been de­stroyed, with very lit­tle chances of re­cov­ery, and fur­ther, that 24 per cent of the reefs across the world were fac­ing im­pend­ing col­lapse.

Threats to reefs range from over-ex­ploita­tion and use of de­struc­tive re­source ex­ploita­tion meth­ods, to pol­lu­tion, dis­ease out­breaks, and cli­mate change.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Coral Reef Ini­tia­tive (ICRI) was found­ed in 1994 in re­sponse to glob­al recog­ni­tion that coral reefs and re­lat­ed ecosys­tems found in trop­i­cal and sub-trop­i­cal re­gions are fac­ing se­ri­ous degra­da­tion, pri­mar­i­ly due to an­thro­pogenic stress­es.

Ac­cord­ing to the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion in T&T, co-chair of ICRI with Mona­co and In­done­sia for 2018-20, T&T is yet to sub­mit an ap­pli­ca­tion to join the ini­tia­tive.

Mem­bers in­clude a mix of more than 60 gov­ern­ments, NGOs and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

There are cur­rent­ly four CARI­COM coun­tries that are mem­bers of ICRI, in­clud­ing Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Grena­da, and Ja­maica.

Aus­tralia, France, Japan, Ja­maica, the Philip­pines, Swe­den, the Unit­ed King­dom, and the Unit­ed States were the found­ing mem­bers of ICRI in 1994.

Aus­tralia and Be­lize co-chaired the ICRI Sec­re­tari­at in 2012-13.