Al­though forests cov­er near­ly half of T&T (6 per cent of which is orig­i­nal for­est), many peo­ple just see forests as ‘bush’ and don’t ap­pre­ci­ate their val­ue. March 21st, 2025, was the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Forests, with the theme “Forests and Foods.” The aim is to high­light forests’ im­por­tance in food sys­tems and the vi­tal role they play in food se­cu­ri­ty.

Of­ten de­scribed as the plan­et’s lungs, forests ab­sorb and store car­bon diox­ide while re­leas­ing oxy­gen nec­es­sary for our sur­vival. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, hu­mans cut some 15 bil­lion trees an­nu­al­ly world­wide, but on­ly re­plant about 1.8 bil­lion. The car­bon diox­ide (CO2) re­leased from de­for­esta­tion is one of the ma­jor green­house gas­es dri­ving cli­mate change. Be­tween 1990-2010, T&T lost about 6.2 per cent of its for­est cov­er, or around 37,000 acres; so, the more trees we can re­plant the bet­ter. Be­yond ab­sorb­ing CO2 and pro­vid­ing a home for wildlife, forests al­so pro­vide us with food, some­thing pro­gres­sive­ly more im­por­tant due to cli­mate change-in­duced crop dif­fi­cul­ties and food in­se­cu­ri­ty. Plant­i­ng #Trees4Food is a win-win for the en­vi­ron­ment and us. Many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans grew up pick­ing man­goes and por­tu­gals straight from a tree, but we have oth­er fruits that might not be so well known but are de­li­cious and nu­tri­tious! How nu­tri­tious? Let’s talk about it!

Milky fruits

Sapodil­las and caimites are na­tive to T&T and Latin Amer­i­ca, though per­haps less­er known to many. I fond­ly re­mem­ber climb­ing these trees in my grand­moth­er’s yard in Ch­agua­nas. As they’re cur­rent­ly in sea­son, I’ve been en­joy­ing them from our gar­den for weeks - along­side par­rots and squir­rels which fre­quent our yard nowa­days as much of their habi­tat has burned in bush­fires in re­cent years (they must eat too!).

Man­goes every­where!

Who doesn’t love the won­der­ful man­goes we have?! Be­sides the ever-pop­u­lar Julie, we en­joy Starch, Rose, Cal­abash, Doux Doux, among 300+ va­ri­eties that ex­ist. Man­goes are su­per­foods, con­tain­ing over 20 vi­t­a­mins, min­er­als and an­tiox­i­dants, in­clud­ing carotenoids which of­fer an­ti-can­cer ben­e­fits. All yel­low and or­ange fruits (like the next one list­ed) have carotenoids, es­sen­tial for vi­sion and im­mune func­tion. Man­goes are high in sol­u­ble fi­bre, which aids cho­les­terol man­age­ment. They al­so boost the im­mune sys­tem with high lev­els of Vi­t­a­min C and A.

Pe­wa (peach palm)

Pe­wa, a spiny palm, is an im­por­tant part of the food chain in Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca. The fruit is rich in car­bo­hy­drates, es­sen­tial oils, fi­bre and vi­t­a­min A. Dur­ing Span­ish coloni­sa­tion of the Amer­i­c­as, 20,000 pe­wa trees were de­stroyed in Cos­ta Ri­ca to starve the in­dige­nous peo­ple. In pre-Columbian times, pe­wa was a sta­ple, but was ne­glect­ed and for­got­ten af­ter Span­ish con­quest.

A pe­wa tree can bear 50kg of fruit an­nu­al­ly and is an ex­cel­lent choice for a cli­mate-re­silient fu­ture, giv­en in­creas­ing food prices and de­creas­ing crop yields. Grow­ing them is worth­while, but it takes pa­tience - seeds take 3-4 months to ger­mi­nate. Next time you buy pe­wa, try split­ting the fruit, re­mov­ing the seeds, brush­ing with oil, and bak­ing them in the oven! Save the seeds to plant. Pe­wa can be used to make gluten-free flour to be used in bread, cakes, and even ba­by food.

Gone ba­nanas!

Ba­nanas are an­oth­er fruit en­joyed world­wide, with over 300+ va­ri­eties. Ba­nanas are one of the world’s ear­li­est fruits and go back 10,000 years, though they looked very dif­fer­ent in the past. The ba­nanas we know to­day orig­i­nat­ed in Africa about 1,000 years ago.

In T&T, from the beloved Gros Michel, to the Su­crier or Chiq­ui­to, ba­nanas are de­li­cious, nu­tri­tious and easy to di­gest. Some swear that prop­er­ly ripened silk fig is the tasti­est. Best of all, a ba­nana tree can be grown in a small space, so with a small yard, you can plant your own tree and en­joy!

Bread­fruit

From New Guinea and the Philip­pines, bread­fruit spread to the Pa­cif­ic where it is a sta­ple. British nav­i­ga­tors in­tro­duced seed­less va­ri­eties to Ja­maica and St Vin­cent in the late 1700s. Bread­fruit is one of the high­est-yield­ing food plants. A sin­gle tree can pro­duce 200+ fruits per sea­son while re­quir­ing on­ly lim­it­ed care. One tree can help feed a whole com­mu­ni­ty. Bread­fruit is one so­lu­tion to food se­cu­ri­ty pro­mot­ed in Bar­ba­dos and Guyana. Whether as ‘oil-dong’, bread­fruit coo-coo or bread­fruit chips, bread­fruit is pop­u­lar!

Av­o­ca­dos

Orig­i­nal­ly from Mex­i­co, av­o­ca­dos have spread through­out the trop­ics, with 20+ com­mon va­ri­eties and grow well in many Trin­bag­on­ian back­yards. Av­o­ca­dos are al­so su­per­foods, high in sev­er­al im­por­tant nu­tri­ents and fi­bre, many of which are lack­ing in mod­ern di­ets. They may help im­prove heart health and are ben­e­fi­cial dur­ing preg­nan­cy and breast­feed­ing. Whether sliced and eat­en raw as av­o­ca­do on toast or gua­camole, av­o­ca­dos are en­joyed by many.

So many oth­er fruits!

I’ve not touched co­coa or cof­fee, guavas, su­per-rich in vi­t­a­min C, or pa­paw, bal­a­ta, ch­enette, pomer­ac or mamey sapote, let alone pom­me­cythère, tamarind, cashew, plums, caram­bo­la (‘five fin­gers’) or Brazil nuts. The list of food/fruit trees from forests is long! Af­ter all, hu­mans have lived off food from forests for thou­sands of years - and it’s time we shift our think­ing in that di­rec­tion again. Though Trin­bag­o­ni­ans have grown up eat­ing from fruit trees, most of us prob­a­bly nev­er thought that those same trees could not on­ly be part of the so­lu­tion to the cli­mate cri­sis, but in a way, be our very own “su­per­mar­kets,” help­ing to safe­guard our fu­ture.

Dr C James Hospedales, MB BS, MSc, FF­PH, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse Foun­da­tion for Plan­e­tary Health

The fore­go­ing was a week­ly col­umn by Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse NGO to equip read­ers to face the cli­mate and health cri­sis.