Shal­iza Has­sanali

shal­iza.has­sanali

@guardian.co.tt

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) Hay­den Ro­mano says state agen­cies should de­vel­op pol­i­cy po­si­tion to end squat­ting and land grab­bing.

“Peo­ple are say­ing the (state) agen­cies need to take ac­tion...and I am say­ing the agen­cies need to take ac­tion with a pol­i­cy po­si­tion.”

Ro­mano said that pol­i­cy po­si­tion should not change when a new gov­ern­ment takes of­fice.

He made his com­ments against the back­drop of en­croach­ment on en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-sen­si­tive lands at Matu­ra, Aripo and Nar­i­va which the EMA safe­guards.

Those lands are un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (COSL).

Ro­mano said the COSL has the pow­er to ei­ther serve a quit no­tice to an il­le­gal oc­cu­pi­er or de­mol­ish any unau­tho­rised stric­tures built af­ter 1998 in en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive ar­eas.

When the EMA Act was in­tro­duced in 1995 and amend­ed in 2000, it was mere­ly “to con­vince peo­ple to do the right thing,” he said.

Two decades lat­er, the EMA faces se­ri­ous chal­lenges as droves of peo­ple are en­croach­ing on forest­ed State lands in Aripo along the Va­len­cia Stretch and a farmer has moved in­to lands in Nar­i­va.

A section of the Brasso Venado Forest Reserve which was cut down.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Quit no­tices were served to the il­le­gal oc­cu­piers be­fore the ar­rival of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Squat­ters are pro­hib­it­ed from en­ter­ing pro­tect­ed forest­ed ar­eas.

“We have been talk­ing with the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands and Forestry Di­vi­sion,” Ro­mano said.

The EMA has con­sid­ered us­ing a drone to see how preva­lent squat­ting and land grab­bing have be­come with­in the three pro­tect­ed ar­eas so they can take ac­tion.

Ro­mano said: “Squat­ting is a big chal­lenge. It is not a chal­lenge that can be han­dled on­ly by the EMA. We def­i­nite­ly have to get all the agen­cies in­volved.”

He said squat­ting and il­le­gal quar­ry­ing have been in­creas­ing but T&T doesn’t “have a good han­dle on it. It is some­thing that we need to bring on the front burn­er.”

The EMA said when an il­le­gal struc­ture is de­mol­ished, the pub­lic tends to sym­pa­thise with the law­break­ers, es­pe­cial­ly if they have chil­dren and nowhere to go.

“So re­al­ly, the so­cial is­sues come out,” he said.

These is­sues take pri­or­i­ty over en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns.

“So how do we bal­ance that? This is our chal­lenge,” he said.

“There are lots of re­ports of in­creased squat­ting.

“It is all over the coun­try. And there is no con­trol.”