SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Wood­land is typ­i­cal­ly known as a flood-prone com­mu­ni­ty, but now the area is grab­bing at­ten­tion for an­oth­er rea­son.

It has be­come a feed­ing ground for birds such as the Scar­let Ibis and Herons in­clud­ing the Great Egret, and oth­er species, and is fast be­com­ing a lo­cal tourist at­trac­tion.

De­scrib­ing the feed­ing site at Ra­hamut Trace as a tourism gold mine, so­cial ac­tivist Ed­ward Mood­ie has in­vit­ed vil­lagers and the wider pop­u­la­tion to vis­it the site.

The pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group al­so called on rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous Gov­ern­ment min­istries to vis­it the area and help de­vel­op it in­to a na­tion­al trea­sure.

“The (birds) come down here and try feed be­cause the wa­ter lev­el in the marsh­land go­ing down right now, so all the crus­taceans are very ac­ces­si­ble and what we have been hav­ing is a feed­ing fren­zy for the last few days,” Mood­ie ex­plained.

En­cour­ag­ing na­ture lovers and fam­i­lies to come to Wood­land, he said, “What we an­tic­i­pate in the next few days, we will have a lot of Scar­let Ibis and oth­er birds and we at hop­ing that the vil­lagers and the peo­ple from out­side the area could come down and ap­pre­ci­ate na­ture be­cause this is the clos­est you are go­ing to get to these birds right up and per­son­al.”

Mood­ie not­ed that there have been in­stances of peo­ple try­ing to touch the birds and scar­ing them, which is why he has had talks with the Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the po­lice.

Signs have al­so been erect­ed for peo­ple vis­it­ing the site. Vil­lagers have vol­un­teered to su­per­vise the area to en­sure the rules were fol­lowed. Mood­ie said the site was al­so a breed­ing ground for wild ducks.

“We are ask­ing for sup­port from the min­istry. Come and see what we have here and let us de­vel­op this to be able to make this a na­tion­al trea­sure,” he said. Due to fre­quent floods that have rav­aged the com­mu­ni­ty over the years, he said, many res­i­dents were frus­trat­ed and want­ed to leave their homes. But he was hop­ing that this nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non would up­lift their spir­its and en­cour­age them to stay.

He said they were al­so try­ing to de­vel­op the area in­to a tourist at­trac­tion with boat tours, fish­ing com­pe­ti­tions and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties. Mak­ing it clear poach­ing would not be tol­er­at­ed, Mood­ie re­mind­ed it was a crim­i­nal of­fence. The Scar­let Ibis, the coun­try’s na­tion­al bird, is an En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sen­si­tive Species and poach­ers face a $100,000 fine and im­pris­on­ment of two years.