Na­tion­al Trust has trans­formed the his­toric site Nel­son Is­land in­to a sus­tain­able eco-de­vel­op­ment with the in­stal­la­tion of a so­lar pow­ered sys­tem to pro­vide the elec­tri­cal needs of the is­land in­clu­sive of light­ing, se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems, da­ta com­mu­ni­ca­tions, ap­pli­ances and pow­er out­lets.

In ad­di­tion, af­ter years of de­pend­ing on a boat to pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly bring fresh­wa­ter to the is­land, a small de­sali­na­tion plant has been in­stalled, dri­ven by so­lar pow­er, to pro­duce all of the potable wa­ter re­quired for use on the is­land.

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said the project is in keep­ing with T&T’s com­mit­ments un­der the Paris Agree­ment as well as a na­tion­al pol­i­cy tar­get to in­crease the to­tal amount of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed from re­new­able en­er­gy sources by 2021.

Nel­son Is­land is one of a clus­ter of six small is­lands called the Five Is­lands lo­cat­ed in the Gulf of Paria ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2.5 kilo­me­tres due south of Ch­aguara­mas and due east of the prison is­land of Car­rera. They are, in de­scend­ing or­der of size: Cale­do­nia, Nel­son, Lena­gan, Rock, Pel­i­can and Craig. Craig is joined to Cale­do­nia by a hu­man-made stone cause­way. These is­lands are the rem­nants of an an­cient lime­stone de­posit which ex­tends from the hills of Laven­tille to Patos Is­land in the west. The Five Is­lands are cov­ered with cen­turies-old in­tact struc­tures, the ru­ins of hous­es, the re­mains of med­ical fa­cil­i­ties, de­funct mil­i­tary equip­ment, and oth­er struc­tur­al ob­jects and arte­facts. These are the ves­tiges of con­cen­trat­ed and lay­ered hu­man ac­tiv­i­ty from Trinidad’s past. There­fore, these is­lands are in­ex­tri­ca­bly linked through ge­ol­o­gy, ge­og­ra­phy and his­to­ry.

Nel­son Is­land has had nu­mer­ous func­tions with­in the his­to­ry of Trinidad. Be­fore the 15th cen­tu­ry trans-At­lantic con­tact pe­ri­od, the is­land was sup­pos­ed­ly used as a trad­ing post by the First Peo­ple groups in­hab­it­ing Trinidad and the South Amer­i­can main­land. In the Span­ish colo­nial pe­ri­od, the is­land was used as a way sta­tion be­tween Trinidad and oth­er Span­ish pos­ses­sions on the South Amer­i­can coast. Sub­se­quent­ly, the British ini­tial­ly used Nel­son as a quar­an­tine sta­tion for ves­sels hail­ing from ports un­der the sus­pi­cion of in­fec­tion.

Lat­er, the Is­lands was used con­va­les­cent and repa­tri­a­tion sta­tion for new­ly ar­rived and ex-in­den­tured In­di­an Im­mi­grants. In World War Two, the Five Is­lands formed a part of the Ch­aguara­mas base and served as a naval sta­tion for the Unit­ed States Navy. The is­land al­so host­ed an in­tern­ment camp for en­e­my alien in­ternees from Eu­rope and a de­ten­tion cen­tre for labour leader Tubal Uri­ah “Buzz” But­ler who was held there for the du­ra­tion of the war. The is­land was again used as a de­ten­tion cen­tre 1970 to house 50 lead­ers of the Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion.

Nel­son Is­land is now a her­itage site un­der the con­trol of the Na­tion­al Trust of T&T. It be­came a list­ed Prop­er­ty of In­ter­est in 2019.