Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

One thou­sand and twen­ty-two pounds of plas­tic bot­tles, wrap­pers, glass bot­tles and oth­er forms of do­mes­tic garbage were pulled out from the man­grove for­est on the banks of the Cunu­pia Riv­er on Sat­ur­day.

The clean-up was part of a large-scale en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­er­cise aimed at pro­tect­ing one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most im­por­tant man­grove ecosys­tems.

 The ini­tia­tive, co­or­di­nat­ed by Kalpoo’s Bird Sanc­tu­ary Tours, at­tract­ed scores of vol­un­teers, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Ravi Rati­ram, Forestry Di­vi­sion of­fi­cials, en­vi­ron­men­tal groups and mem­bers of the pub­lic.

Vol­un­teers braved mos­qui­to-in­fest­ed man­groves to re­move large quan­ti­ties of plas­tic bot­tles and oth­er de­bris trapped among the man­grove roots.

 Speak­ing to re­porters, Rati­ram praised the or­gan­is­ers and high­light­ed the vi­tal role man­grove wet­lands play in pro­tect­ing the coun­try’s bio­di­ver­si­ty and sup­port­ing tourism.

“From an en­vi­ron­men­tal stand­point and from a bio­di­ver­si­ty stand­point, the man­grove plays an ex­treme­ly im­por­tant role in the bio­di­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” said Rati­ram.

Rati­ram said he re­cent­ly at­tend­ed a Wet­lands Con­ser­va­tion Con­fer­ence at Ja­maica’s Black Riv­er, where he gained an even greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the im­por­tance of wet­lands in main­tain­ing eco­log­i­cal bal­ance.

 He not­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s man­grove ecosys­tems are a ma­jor at­trac­tion for both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors.

 “We have peo­ple from all over the world com­ing here to Trinidad and To­ba­go to en­joy what our man­groves and wet­lands have to of­fer. Our scar­let ibis, flamin­gos and many oth­er species at­tract vis­i­tors who come specif­i­cal­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence these nat­ur­al habi­tats,” he said.

 The min­is­ter ex­plained that man­groves serve as a nat­ur­al fil­tra­tion sys­tem, trap­ping de­bris washed down­stream dur­ing heavy rain­fall be­fore it reach­es the sea.

 “It acts as a fil­ter. Dur­ing pe­ri­ods of heavy rain­fall, de­bris is washed in­to the man­groves where the root sys­tems trap the waste, pre­vent­ing it from en­ter­ing the ocean and af­fect­ing ma­rine bio­di­ver­si­ty. It is a buffer zone, a fil­tra­tion zone and one that helps main­tain the health of the en­tire ecosys­tem,” Rati­ram said.

Rati­ram en­cour­aged more en­vi­ron­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions and tour op­er­a­tors to part­ner with the min­istry in or­gan­is­ing sim­i­lar clean-up ex­er­cis­es while pro­mot­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness and do­mes­tic eco-tourism. Act­ing Con­ser­va­tor of Forests Ameer Roop­nar­i­nesingh said the Ca­roni Swamp cov­ers more than 5,000 hectares and con­tains the coun­try’s three na­tive man­grove species—red, black and white man­groves.

“One of the most im­por­tant func­tions is car­bon se­ques­tra­tion. Man­groves ab­sorb and store car­bon in their leaves and root sys­tems, help­ing to re­duce car­bon diox­ide lev­els in the at­mos­phere,” he said.

Roop­nar­i­nesingh said the Forestry Di­vi­sion has in­creased the num­ber of game war­dens in re­cent years and con­tin­ues to en­force wildlife pro­tec­tion laws. He not­ed that sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als have been charged un­der the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act and the Con­ser­va­tion of Wildlife Act for il­le­gal hunt­ing and oth­er of­fences in pro­tect­ed ar­eas.