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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Illegal squatters and ‘land bosses’

ravage protected Aripo Savannas

by

Shaliza Hassanali
24 days ago
20250622

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The State’s largest re­main­ing na­ture re­serve—the Aripo Sa­van­nas–is rapid­ly be­ing de­stroyed by a fresh in­va­sion of squat­ters in the Va­len­cia dis­trict, with au­thor­i­ties yet to take ac­tion.

Be­hind the cur­tain of tow­er­ing trees that line the south­ern side of the Va­len­cia Stretch, a new squat­ting set­tle­ment is qui­et­ly ex­pand­ing with­in this 1,788-hectare En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sen­si­tive Area (ESA).

The grow­ing set­tle­ment is adding to the strain on an al­ready over­crowd­ed squat­ting com­mu­ni­ty in the North­east­ern re­gion.

Some of the squat­ters have been flout­ing the law by pur­chas­ing parcels of state land from un­known buy­ers whom they called “land boss­es”. Oth­ers have been steal­ing wa­ter from an il­le­gal con­nec­tion.

Those des­per­ate for a place to live have been cut­ting trees and clear­ing parcels of land for new hous­ing, a di­rect threat to our frag­ile ecosys­tem.

In 2007, the re­serve was des­ig­nat­ed an ESA to pro­tect 450 species of plants and an­i­mal life. It’s al­so an im­por­tant area for sci­en­tif­ic study and ed­u­ca­tion.

Un­der the For­est Act Chap­ter 66:01, peo­ple are pro­hib­it­ed from squat­ting and cut­ting trees. A per­son who cuts a tree is li­able to a fine of $20,000.

How­ev­er, de­spite the le­gal pro­tec­tion, the area is fast be­com­ing a haven for il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, with more squat­ters en­croach­ing on the land.

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) is legal­ly man­dat­ed to over­see the de­vel­op­ment of the man­age­ment plans for the coun­try’s ESAs, while the Forestry Di­vi­sion has ad­min­is­tra­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the area.

Squat­ting on state land is clas­si­fied as a crim­i­nal of­fence.

There is no fixed prison term or fine set specif­i­cal­ly for squat­ting in our Crim­i­nal Of­fences Act, so it’s left up to the mag­is­trate’s dis­cre­tion to or­der jail time or im­pose a fine.

About half a mile in­side the re­serve, gal­vanise and wood­en shacks dot the land­scape, di­min­ish­ing the beau­ty of the for­est canopy and leav­ing a trail of degra­da­tion.

The squat­ters use a dirt track to en­ter and ex­it the site, which has no ameni­ties.

Al­though none of the homes have elec­tric­i­ty con­nec­tions, ex­pen­sive so­lar pan­els and so­lar lights il­lu­mi­nate the area.

On Mon­day, the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the squat­ting site, where sev­er­al il­le­gal oc­cu­piers–aware they are break­ing the law–re­quest­ed anonymi­ty when speak­ing. They claimed they moved in­to the re­serve be­cause of hard­ships, lack of hous­ing, do­mes­tic is­sues, and the safe­ty the en­vi­ron­ment of­fers.

Puff­ing on a cig­a­rette in front of his wood­en home, a 61-year-old squat­ter ad­mit­ted that he took up il­le­gal oc­cu­pan­cy on the land five years ago af­ter a do­mes­tic dis­pute. He said oth­er peo­ple moved in­to the re­serve be­cause of its safe en­vi­ron­ment.

Liv­ing his best life, the squat­ter said what he loves most about the area is its safe­ty.

“In the back here, it doh have crime. It have lit­tle bac­cha­nal … that is all.”

Up­on re­tir­ing last year, the squat­ter in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in his home, which is equipped with wa­ter tanks, so­lar lights, and a wa­ter pump. The cost to con­struct his home and out­fit it with ap­pli­ances was es­ti­mat­ed at $300,000.

Asked if he had pipe-borne wa­ter, Williams con­fessed, “Hon­est­ly, we have run­ning wa­ter. There’s a line that is at­tached from across the ceme­tery (Tu­rure) and it ser­vice every­body in the back here. Just one line dis­trib­ute to every­body.”

Fur­ther in­to the re­serve, a half-inch PVC pipeline was vis­i­ble along the dirt track, which the squat­ters have been tap­ping in­to for wa­ter. Not every­one gets a sup­ply when wa­ter is in the line. Some re­ly on rain­wa­ter stored in plas­tic drums.

He dis­closed that two squat­ters were served no­tices some months ago. Ad­mit­ting they were tak­ing a chance by liv­ing there, the squat­ter said his biggest wish was for  Gov­ern­ment to reg­u­larise them.

If they are served no­tices, he said, it would shat­ter him.

“I would feel like I could dis­ap­pear.”

A stone’s throw away, an­oth­er squat­ter ad­mit­ted she came in­to the com­mu­ni­ty last year af­ter her boyfriend pur­chased a small par­cel of land, where they built their one-bed­room shack. She could not pro­vide de­tails re­gard­ing the cost of the land or who they bought it from.

“Every­body you see­ing here … they bought land,” she said, point­ing to a line of un­sight­ly makeshift shacks.

A lot of land fetch­es $10,000 to $25,000

A source told the Sun­day Guardian that, de­pend­ing on its lo­ca­tion, a lot of land can fetch be­tween $10,000 and $25,000.

“The sell­ers are linked to the il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in Va­len­cia,” he said, not­ing that they clear the land us­ing heavy ma­chin­ery.

“It’s a mon­ey-mak­ing ven­ture, and peo­ple who are vul­ner­a­ble or des­per­ate for a place to live fall vic­tim, caus­ing the squat­ting pop­u­la­tion to in­crease.”

Al­most at the end of the dirt track, four chil­dren–ages four to nine–look out their front door, laugh­ing and chat­ter­ing among them­selves.

Their fa­ther, who could not pay a month­ly rent of $1,200 in San­gre Grande, heard about the re­serve and moved in last year. He spent $800 to clear a small piece of land.

He said, “It was an act of des­per­a­tion,” af­ter their lives start­ed to fall in­to sham­bles. The ve­hi­cle he used to hus­tle no longer works.

For three days, the squat­ter said, his chil­dren lived in his car while their 12-by-12-foot wood­en home was be­ing built.

“Af­ter COVID, I lost every­thing. It’s re­al­ly hard. If we had, we would not have been here. We’re just try­ing to live,” he said.

To earn an in­come, he grows crops and rears an­i­mals on the land.

Re­cent­ly, he said, the Forestry Di­vi­sion warned him about cut­ting down trees. Heaps of fresh­ly cut trees lay on the ground as he poured his heart out.

In the mid­dle of the land, an in­com­plete con­crete struc­ture stood out.

Wood­en hous­es un­der con­struc­tion were scat­tered through­out the re­serve, some hid­den among thick veg­e­ta­tion.

“We call here home, and here is home al­ready,” the fa­ther of four said.

An­oth­er squat­ter in­ter­ject­ed, say­ing peo­ple in the set­tle­ment were not re­spon­si­ble for the on­go­ing de­for­esta­tion.

“Is not peo­ple in the back here chop­ping the land (trees), is peo­ple from out the road.”

He said those re­spon­si­ble were ‘land boss­es’ who come from Arou­ca and Va­len­cia.

The squat­ter said he heard a lawyer was clear­ing 16 acres fur­ther in the for­est.

“I went and watch it,” he said, re­fus­ing to elab­o­rate fur­ther on what he saw.

On Wednes­day, Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (COSL) Paula Drakes told the Sun­day Guardian that the Aripo Sa­van­nas fall un­der the Forestry Di­vi­sion and EMA and ad­vised di­rect­ing ques­tions to those agen­cies.

Con­ser­va­tor of Forests Ameer Roop­nar­i­nesingh did not re­spond to a list of ques­tions emailed to him on Tues­day.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so sent What­sApp mes­sages to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram, but they did not re­spond.

EMA in­ves­ti­gates grow­ing en­croach­ment

In an email, the EMA con­firmed that it had re­ceived re­ports of en­croach­ment in the area last Oc­to­ber. These re­ports, the EMA said, span sev­er­al years, with the most re­cent made eight months ago. The au­thor­i­ty is cur­rent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing how many acres have been de­stroyed by squat­ters based on re­ports re­ceived. They are al­so work­ing to de­ter­mine how many acres are un­der il­le­gal oc­cu­pan­cy.

When asked what the EMA has been do­ing to pro­tect these sci­en­tif­ic lands, the au­thor­i­ty ex­plained that in 2019 a Man­age­ment Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (MAC) was ap­point­ed to pro­vide over­sight and tech­ni­cal sup­port for man­ag­ing the re­serve.

The com­mit­tee es­tab­lished two work­ing groups in 2025 to bring to­geth­er en­force­ment agen­cies and land man­age­ment au­thor­i­ties to ad­dress il­le­gal land use, en­croach­ment, and en­force­ment chal­lenges.

“Pre­serv­ing these pro­tect­ed ar­eas is vi­tal to sus­tain­ing T&T’s bio­di­ver­si­ty, as well as mit­i­gat­ing cli­mate change by con­serv­ing car­bon-se­ques­ter­ing veg­e­ta­tion. There­fore, we must put a stop to en­croach­ment, as it is slow­ly de­plet­ing the di­ver­si­ty of our pre­cious ecosys­tem,” the EMA stat­ed.

Re­gard­ing the cause of the pro­lif­er­a­tion of squat­ters, the EMA said that “more strin­gent en­force­ment of ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion may be re­quired through­out the coun­try”. The pub­lic, the au­thor­i­ty added, al­so needs to be­come aware of the fines and penal­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with squat­ting and cut­ting trees.

When ques­tioned about how squat­ting can be solved to save this area from fur­ther degra­da­tion, the EMA stat­ed, “The re­moval of the ex­ist­ing squat­ting set­tle­ments and hav­ing ded­i­cat­ed re­sources to en­sure that there are ad­e­quate sur­veil­lance sys­tems to pre­vent re­cur­rence is crit­i­cal” to ad­dress­ing the on­go­ing is­sue.

Wide­spread squat­ting ex­pos­es pow­er­less state agen­cies

* In Jan­u­ary, the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee heard from the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) that over 60,000 house­holds are squat­ting in Trinidad and To­ba­go. LSA CEO Haz­ar Ho­sein stat­ed the agency has no pow­ers to re­move squat­ters af­ter a court judg­ment was hand­ed down.

* An­nu­al­ly, be­tween 400 and 500 new squat­ters emerge.

* A re­cent sur­vey in Va­len­cia and the Va­len­cia Stretch found 5,000 squat­ter struc­tures on 4,000 acres.

* There are more than 250 squat­ting sites na­tion­wide.

* Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands Paula Drakes re­port­ed that squat­ter de­vel­op­ments have en­croached on 50 to 60 per cent of for­est re­serves in north and cen­tral Trinidad.

* The com­mit­tee was told that se­vere staff short­ages and out­dat­ed leg­is­la­tion hin­der state agen­cies’ abil­i­ty to com­bat il­le­gal squat­ting.


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