‘Bulldozers more dangerous than hunters’

Shereen Ali

Published: 

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

All kinds of T&T animals are hunted, trapped or poached, and sold either dead for food or alive as pets—iguanas, agouti, oilbirds, songbirds, parrots, armadillos, Scarlet Ibis and even our Howler monkeys have all been victims of an unregulated hunting system, as well as an illegal wildlife trade. Here, an unidentified man sells iguana two days after the start of the 2015-2016 hunting season along the Eastern Main Road, Damarie Hill, last October. PHOTO: ABRAHAM DIAZ

Q: What is the main problem facing animal biodiversity in T&T?
A: The number one threat is loss of habitat. Poaching and overhunting are important issues but those can be reversed through proper management and enforcement, provided that ecosystems are left intact. If we destroy the forest, drain the wetlands and develop the beaches then there is nowhere left for animals to live. 

We see a trend of people moving to “the country” where they can buy cheap land and live among greenery. Before you know it, the bulldozers are called in, the trees razed, the hills flattened and what was once an ecosystem is now somebody’s lawn. Nearly everything that lived there before will have died. 

A bulldozer is a far more dangerous than a hunter. Our wetlands are under constant threat from development and agriculture. Successive governments have encouraged squatting which often means squatting in Forest Reserves and other protected areas. 

The PP gave the environment a parting shot when all squatters were given tenancy rights in a votes-for-land deal. Unless proven otherwise, I do not expect the present lot to do any different. 

This is part of T&T’s political culture in which the environment is placed last. “T&T has too much bush and too many mosquitoes”—this is how the illiterati think. This is how at Maracas Beach the wetland is filled in on one side for a car park and on the other side squatters are draining the wetland for agriculture, and there is no outcry from the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader.

Maybe the real threat is apathy? Caroni Swamp is encroached upon on all sides. A part of the Caroni Swamp Ramsar site was even bulldozed by a developer who made a “mistake” but no action was ever taken.

Bush fires cause habitat loss too. Slash and burn agriculture to clear a garden for sweet potatoes or ganja gets out of hand easily, and with the stroke of a match, hundreds of acres can be destroyed. After a rainy season, green grass will cover the hills, so from a distance the hills look lush, but the forest will take decades or centuries to recover.

Loss of habitat is not always the obvious: the prolific streetlights that radiate light where it is not wanted and not needed can make areas unlivable for both nocturnal animals and animals that have the bad luck to nest where it is too light for them to sleep.

Has the Wildlife Division had much success in protecting our biodiversity? Why or why not?
No. The major problem is lack of enforcement officers and the lack of a scientifically-managed hunt with quotas. There are only about one dozen game wardens in Trinidad. The Wildlife Division is recruiting new game wardens right now. I urge qualified and motivated wildlife defenders to join the force. 

Some laws need revising—but a law that cannot be enforced is pointless. Fines need to be raised. Current fines are a joke, a slap in the face of anybody who cares about nature. We are talking $2,000 for poaching. The PP government had some good initiatives and raised fines to $50-100K, but they never managed to have the laws gazetted, so it was all a big pappyshow.

How can we better enforce laws and protect wildlife, given the permanent staff shortages and deliberate underfunding of wildlife agencies here under all governments? Any creative ideas? 
Poverty and corruption is the number one threat to the environment. Both of these are largely a result of bad governance. 

Lack of resources is at the core of lack of enforcement, even though many will rightly argue that the T&T government has all the resources it needs; but it is a monstrously wasteful entity that misallocates resources. Solving this socio-economic-political problem will take up more time to discuss than we have here, so let’s keep it simple for now. 

Train the army to enforce wildlife laws. Get them out of the barracks and in to the bush, under supervision of trained game wardens and/or civilian volunteers. 

Involve communities. Do a count of wildlife in an area and reward the community with bonuses when wildlife numbers increase. UWI could do this to ensure that the count is scientific. This is something that needs to be a part of wildlife management in any case.

The current hunting system seems unsustainable. It is based on no data for existing animal populations. It lasts five months of the year (October 1 - end of February), arguably too long a time. Anyone can buy up to three hunting permits at the very low cost of TT$20 (yet an iguana sells for $300), which imposes no limits on numbers you can kill, and apparently no limits on killing mothers with young or pregnant animals or babies.

And there is no accountability, as no one checks animals caught (numbers or species or ages), but depends on the word of hunter returns, which are unverified. It seems like a recipe for wholesale slaughter in a very small island with limited wildlife resources. 

What can we do to make this system more sensible? If we cannot reform it, or have no hope of policing it, should we ban hunting? What about higher fines for poaching, and a significantly higher cost for hunting licenses? 

Banning hunting is supported by many scientists who say that Trinidad is simply too small to allow the extraction of 20K+ agoutis each year. In the three years before the hunting ban was introduced, 140,000 game animals were hunted. This is official records and it does not include poached animals. 

Unfortunately, scientists do not run Trinidad, politicians do. And politicians are sensitive to the well-organised hunters’ lobby, who, credit given where credit is due, punch politically far above their weight. Registered hunters represent less than one per cent of the population, but they can teach the environmentalists a thing or two about systematically and vocally organising their members. 

In any case, a ban cannot be enforced without adequate boots on the ground. So a political compromise is sought which allows hunting to continue, but with a promise of a scientifically managed hunt. The recipe that is on the table now is as follows: establish a baseline so that we know how many animals are out there. 

Scientifically manage the hunt through quotas and tags. Have enough game wardens or auxiliary personnel to enforce the laws. If the quota system works, then the cost of a permit is irrelevant to conservation, although it will probably make citizens feel better that hunters are not unfairly benefitting from a good (wild meat) that belongs to all citizens of T&T. 

In my opinion the permit fee should be close to the value of each animal. This is exceedingly difficult to calculate. The value to the ecosystem for one agouti can be tens of thousands of dollars or more if we look at the agouti as a keystone species that disperses seeds through the forest. 

For ecotourism, an agouti can be worth thousands of dollars to the local economy. Just ask Asa Wright Nature Centre how much the agoutis that their clients come to see are worth. Then there is the value of an agouti in the marketplace for meat. That is about $300. 

Let’s say that 10,000 tags are given for agoutis to be hunted, and that each tag will be priced at $300 for one agouti; then that is $3 million that the Chief Game Warden can spend towards enforcement and conservation. 

If I say that an agouti should be priced at its true value to biodiversity, which will be in the thousands of dollars range, then people will say that I am against the poor man and the cause of world hunger, so let me not go there.

Should we make the sale of wild meat illegal, and radically increase the fines for this offense?
Raise fines to at least $50,000 and ban commercial hunting if there is no quota. If there is a quota, and the quota system works, then I see no problem with commercial hunting. It is a question of governance and enforcement.

Shereen Ali

Published: 

Tuesday, May 17, 2016, Trinidad & Tobago Guardian Newspaper (online)

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