RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

T&T has lost vast acreages of wet­lands due to in­dus­tri­al pol­lu­tion, dump­ing of macro plas­tic waste and the de­lib­er­ate chop­ping down of wet­land trees.

But the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Kaz­im Ho­sein is now on a mis­sion to get youths in­volved in sav­ing T&T's wet­land ecosys­tems, so fu­ture gen­er­a­tions can ben­e­fit.

In com­mem­o­ra­tion of World Wet­lands Day which is cel­e­brat­ed to­day (Feb­ru­ary 2), Ho­sein launched a wet­lands colour­ing com­pe­ti­tion for stu­dents as part of the Forestry Di­vi­sion's School Out­reach pro­gramme.

Speak­ing at a prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Ca­roni Swamp Vis­i­tors’ Cen­tre on Thurs­day, Ho­sein un­der­scored the im­por­tance of wet­lands.

Tak­ing note of the pol­lu­tion, Ho­sein called on cit­i­zens to re­think how their ac­tions may im­pact the en­vi­ron­ment.

Urg­ing them to take ac­tion, Ho­sein said it was im­por­tant to make wise use of our wet­lands.

“Make con­sci­en­tious choic­es to min­i­mize your im­pact. Use wa­ter spar­ing­ly and do not dump rub­bish in­to our wet­lands. Use per­sua­sive voic­es to ed­u­cate and ac­ti­vate oth­ers to get in­volved in wet­land restora­tion and take bold ac­tions in your lo­cal wet­land restora­tion ef­forts," he said.

He al­so told stu­dents about the im­por­tance of wet­lands say­ing: “Healthy wet­lands al­so pro­vide a long list of ben­e­fits for our com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing buffer­ing coastal ar­eas from storms, ab­sorb­ing car­bon diox­ide, and act­ing as fil­ter­ing sys­tems for fresh­wa­ter.”

Lo­cal wet­lands can be found on all four coasts of T&T and while the Nar­i­va swamp is the largest wet­land in T&T, the Ca­roni Swamp is home to the largest man­grove for­est.

Say­ing the wet­lands were filled with ma­jes­tic beau­ty, Min­is­ter Ho­sein urged cit­i­zens to vis­it the na­tion’s wet­lands.

“Lo­cal­ly, there are three des­ig­nat­ed Wet­lands of In­ter­na­tion­al Im­por­tance or Ram­sar Sites with a to­tal sur­face area of an es­ti­mat­ed 15,919 hectares. These are the Ca­roni Swamp, Buc­coo Reef / Bon Ac­cord La­goon Com­plex and Nar­i­va Swamp," he said.

Mean­while, the Act­ing Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary at the Min­istry, Coomarie Goolab­s­ingh al­so called for youth en­gage­ment in the sus­tain­able con­ser­va­tion of T&T's wet­lands.

“Through the stu­dent’s ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in an ac­tiv­i­ty geared to­wards the height­ened sen­si­ti­za­tion of the im­por­tance of our wet­lands, we are, quite sub­tly, ap­pris­ing them (young peo­ple) of the fu­ture role they too must play in the sus­te­nance of life – not just for us, our an­i­mals and even our plant life to­day – but most im­por­tant­ly – for our fu­ture gen­er­a­tions,' she said.

Among the schools par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion were Va­len­cia South Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School; Guaracara Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School; Moru­ga (Holy Trin­i­ty) A.C. Pri­ma­ry School; Freeport Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School; Or­ange Field Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School as well as Cou­va East Sec­ondary School.

The stu­dents re­ceived com­pli­men­ta­ry pass­es to the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo in Port of Spain fol­low­ing the prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny.