RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In a bid to com­bat flood­ing and pre­serve wildlife in the Wood­land plains, young vol­un­teers from the Sus­tain­able Cli­mate Re­silience Ini­tia­tive have start­ed plant­i­ng one kilo­me­tre of ve­tiv­er grass along the banks of the New Cut Chan­nel in South Oropouche.

Em­ploy­ing eco-friend­ly meth­ods to re­store the river­bank, the youths ob­tained as­sis­tance from the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and hon­orary game war­dens Ri­car­do Lewis and An­tho­ny Ed­wards as they start­ed their ven­ture af­ter dawn yes­ter­day.

While they worked, flocks of Scar­let Ibis­es and wild ducks flew over­head.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Lewis praised the ven­ture, say­ing it will auger well in the preser­va­tion of the eco-sys­tem.

Lewis said Wood­land’s wild ducks would one day feast on the rice the chil­dren were plant­i­ng in the plains.

Cas­sa­ri­na Mood­ie, a key mem­ber of the ini­tia­tive, stressed the sig­nif­i­cance of youth in­volve­ment for a sus­tain­able fu­ture.

“Right now, we are plant­i­ng ve­tiv­er grass. The pur­pose of ve­tiv­er, as you see, is to pre­vent the river­bank from cav­ing in. The roots are re­al­ly strong, about one-sixth the strength of mild steel. They pen­e­trate deep in­to the soil, pre­vent­ing ero­sion and mit­i­gat­ing flood­ing, which is a ma­jor prob­lem in Wood­land,” Cas­sa­ri­na ex­plained.

She said over 20 vol­un­teers, main­ly youths, have been ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in plant­i­ng the rice and grass.

“This ini­tia­tive not on­ly helps in flood pre­ven­tion but al­so boosts eco-tourism in the area,” Cas­sa­ri­na added.

She said the project has al­ready caught the at­ten­tion of or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Wa­ter Re­sources Agency and the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion (FAO), who have ex­pressed in­ter­est in part­ner­ing on sim­i­lar projects.

Mean­while, her fa­ther Ed­ward Mood­ie, who heads the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group, said his group will as­sist in main­tain­ing the project.

“We have been mon­i­tor­ing and main­tain­ing the area here for the last two years. We built up a lit­tle jet­ty, we built bench­es and we are try­ing to boost eco-tourism as well. We will con­tin­ue to main­tain the grass and plant more ar­eas,” Mood­ie ex­plained.

He said in­stead of us­ing heavy ma­chin­ery, the vol­un­teers used sand­bags and ve­tiv­er grass—a plant known for its deep, strong roots—to sta­bilise the banks.

Mood­ie said part­ner­ships with gov­ern­ment agen­cies were im­por­tant to ex­pand the ini­tia­tive fur­ther.

“Our NGO can plant this en­tire river­bank if giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty and re­sources. We’ve reached out to lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and hope to have a meet­ing soon to dis­cuss how we can col­lab­o­rate to im­prove sus­tain­abil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty re­silience,” Mood­ie said.

Wood­land res­i­dents, in­clud­ing Jill Jaglal, De­vi­ka Roop­nar­ine and Sian Sookhai; agron­o­mist Lawrence John, en­gi­neer Bri­an Boodoo, tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer Justin Weekes and coast man­age­ment ad­vi­sor Ja­rood Ne­mai as­sist­ed the youths.