The Min­is­ter of Tourism needs to meet with tour op­er­a­tors at the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary, to dis­cuss a re­vi­sion of the cur­rent op­er­at­ing hours of 5 am to 2 pm, says Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to MP Ram­bal­ly, “The Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to on­ly al­low tours at the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary be­tween the hours of 5 am and 2 pm is yet an­oth­er dis­play of in­con­sis­tent pol­i­cy­mak­ing.”

“Every­one in Trinidad and To­ba­go knows that the main rea­son why peo­ple vis­it the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary is to see the many Scar­let Ibis­es fly in at the dusk hour. The bur­geon­ing of red against the trees all bathed in the light of the set­ting sun, is like the cli­mac­tic mo­ment in these tours, which are heav­i­ly sub­scribed by lo­cals. No­body wants to go on these tours in the de­bil­i­tat­ing heat of the mid-day sun. Op­er­a­tors are there­fore bound to lose busi­ness,” the Ch­agua­nas West MP says. 

MP Ram­bal­ly added: “The im­po­si­tion of this time re­stric­tion shows how dis­con­nect­ed this gov­ern­ment is with the tour op­er­a­tors, who need to be out there on evenings. These tour op­er­a­tors do not fa­cil­i­tate the con­sump­tion of al­co­hol, or par­ty-like at­mos­pheres. In fact, they are com­pli­ant with COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions. Their busi­ness is fu­elled large­ly by re­peat cus­tomers who tend to bring oth­ers along for the sec­ond or third trip. How are re­peats ex­pect­ed to hap­pen when no one is com­ing in the first place or are dis­cour­aged af­ter an an­ti­cli­mac­tic mid-day vis­it?”

The MP is urg­ing Min­is­ter of Tourism, Ran­dall Mitchell, to have con­sul­ta­tions with the tour op­er­a­tors as soon as pos­si­ble.

“The Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary, which is a huge tourist at­trac­tion and a po­ten­tial earn­er for much-need­ed forex, is be­ing left com­plete­ly ne­glect­ed by this gov­ern­ment,” he said. 

“The boat­men at the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary have proven to be more cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive than the gov­ern­ment. For two years they have man­aged to stay afloat with­out any­one lift­ing a fin­ger to help them.  They have cre­at­ed break­fast tours to try to get some vis­i­tors ear­ly in the morn­ing and I com­mend them for their cre­ativ­i­ty in this re­gard. But they des­per­ate­ly need to be able to take out evening tours again,” MP Ram­bal­ly said.