E n viron men t TO BA GO n ewsl etter
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nvironment TOBAGO (ET) is a nongovernment, non-profit, volunteer organisation , not subsidized by any one group, corporation or government body. Founded in 1995, ET is a proactive advocacy group that campaigns against negative environmental activities throughout Tobago. We achieve this through a variety of community and environmental outreach programmes. Environment TOBAGO is funded mainly through grants and membership fees. These funds go back into implementing our projects. We are grateful to all our sponsors over the years and thank them for their continued support
Environment TOBAGO
A message for environmental folk Patricia Turpin Environment TOBAGO President It will be recorded that 2013 was one of the most challenging years for conservation in Trinidad and Tobago. Every week, new and old issues affecting Tobago‘s marine and terrestrial resources were highlighted - making it clear that for ENGO‘s, developing a pathway to environmental understanding and conservation is a top priority. No longer can we deal with these issues in an environment where hubris, indifference, ignorance and overuse are acceptable. During 2013, there were bright spots that can be celebrated as achievements: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
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hat’s inside
A message for environmental folk
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Articles
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Ecology Notes
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Book Review
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Community Announcements
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Upcoming conferences and workshops
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What‘s Happening @ ET
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Notes to contributors
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December 2013
6. 7. 8.
A two-year hunting ban that will allow biodiversity data collection Five marine turtle species declared as ESS-environmentally sensitive species Deployment of NOAA buoys in Buccoo and Speyside to monitor climate related changes Demonstrations by NGOs and citizens demanding accountability in the EIA process for seismic activity and unsustainable coastal development Implementation of a Forest Authority moving forward with one PA-Protected area - Mainridge Forest Reserve and one MPA-Marine protected area for NE Tobago being declared. Mining zoning and licenses Implementation of coastal zone monitoring An IMA station to be set up in Belle Garden.
The dark areas still remain and are a threat to the future of our island and our health. We must tackle issues of marine pollution, waste disposal, mining of our rivers and beaches, unsustainable development in and on our wetland and coastal ecosystems with renewed determination. Lack of Law enforcement is the largest deterrent to sustainability on the island and this must change to bring about respect and reduce indifference. Our cavalier attitude towards law enforcement is undermining our ability to move forward, we cannot continue with the belief that no repercussions exist. 2014 is here- help us develop the pathway to understanding that ecology is life. Our lives are inextricably linked. Take care of our island and it will take care of us. Happy New Year to you all.
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Environment TOBAGO newsletter
THE LAST QUARTER IN PHOTOS December 2013 Editor: Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Assistant Editor: Christopher K. Starr Design & Layout: Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Technical Support: Jerome Ramsoondar Enid Nobbee Contributors: Bertrand Bhikarry Scott Landry Adana MahaseGibson Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Christopher K. Starr Patricia Turpin Photographs: Scott Landry Environment TOBAGO
Consultation on COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT hosted by Rahanna Juman—IMA (Institute of Marine Affairs)
Board of Directors 2012-2014 President:: Patricia Turpin Vice-President: Bertrand Bhikkary Secretary: Wendy Austin Treasurer: Shirley McKenna Other Directors: William Trim Kai Trim Rupert McKenna Fitzherbert Phillips Renee Gift Geoffrey Lewis Darren Daly Allan Sandy
Juliana Antoine—ET presents at Let‘s Talk Eco Action
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The CREWS workshop hosted by NOAA and IMA was attended by Environment TOBAGO The CREWS buoy is part of the Coral Reef early warning systems and are deployed at Speyside and Buccoo Reefs
ET‘s Coastal Mapping Workshop for Climate Change was held by intern Samantha Page
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Environment TOBAGO newsletter
ARTICLES How to clean oil-covered animals: Dish soap is not the solution Adana Mahase-Gibson Some people spill coffee; some people spill the beans. But in 1979 off the coast of Tobago, two oil tankers, the Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain ran into each other and spilled an estimated 88 million gallons of oil. That‘s a different kind of spill. T&T is famous internationally for Brian Lara, nesting leatherbacks and steel pan. Thanks to that 1979 spill, we‘re also on the list of the world‘s largest oil disasters; right up there with the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill and the 1991 Gulf War. To date it‘s still the largest ship-sourced oil spill on record. Ouch. Love them or hate them, oil and gas companies fuel T&T. There‘s no denying we are heavily dependent on the sector for its contribution to our prosperity. To access our nonrenewable resources, multinational energy companies undertake aggressive industrial acti-vity. In T&T there is both land and offshore activity with increasing exploration and production in deep water areas. We also have large quantities of hydrocarbon-based pro-ducts in tankers and carriers in transit through our waters. With increased acti-vity comes increased risk. Oil is not something that can be mopped with paper napkins. An oil spill is an environmental catastrophe affecting human health and livelihoods. Is T&T prepared? As of 2013, we have an updated National Oil Spill Contingency Plan. According to the website of the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs, this plan is designed to miti-gate the impact of all oil spills on the environment by setting standards, establishing time frames for oil spill response and increasing collaboration among partner agencies. The website states increased exploration and production activity warrants an increase in precautionary measures, especially in light of the ma- Training session—for instructors in oil clean spill up jor oil spill incident in the Gulf of response Mexico in 2010. An iconic image from oil spills is floundering birds slowly dying, coated in oil. Oiled wildlife is an inevitable victim of such disasters and the national plan briefly addresses the establishment of an oiled wildlife response programme. To its credit, bp Trinidad and Tobago (bpTT) took the initiative in November to host an intensive oiled wildlife response workshop and train-the-trainer exercise under the guidance of Tyrone Kalpee, vice-president—Safety and Operational Risk. The sessions were run by international nonprofit organizations Sea Alarm Foundation and Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research, which have worked globally with numerous spills. Objectives included preliminary steps toward an oiled wildlife response plan and training to manage, treat, rehabilitate and release oiled animals. Key stakeholders at the workshop included NGOs such as Wildlife Orphanage and Rehab Centre (WORC), El Socorro Centre for
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Wildlife Conservation, Council for the Presidents of the Environment (COPE), Environment Tobago, Asclepius Green, Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago Veterinary Association; governmental agencies such as THA, Wildlife, Ministry of Energy; and others. Dealing with animals covered in oil does not mean washing them off with dishwashing liquid. Oil is a toxic, hazardous substance that affects the environment, animals and us. Wildlife teams use specialized gear and personal protective equipment. An effective response requires search and rescue, stabilization and husbandry, veterinary care, cleaning to remove hazardous substances, appropriate housing, facilities and equipment and personnel who are trained and ready to act. Although training and equipment are necessary, they are not sufficient. As a World War I general famously said, no plan survives contact with the enemy. In T&T, we are prone to headless-chicken behaviour during a disaster—running around getting angry, trying to figure out who‘s in charge, who‘s paying and who‘s to blame. No one wants a spill, but if it should happen, our success will depend on how well we work together. We look forward to continued support from bpTT and the energy sector to empower all stakeholders to collaborate and respond to oiled wildlife in the event of a disaster. In T&T, we have a lot at stake; people, wildlife and ecosystems all connected and dependent on each other for continued well-being. As useful and interesting as this training was, I sincerely hope we never have to put it into practice.
Keeping an eye on the waterfront Bertrand Bhikarry Environment TOBAGO Interaction with the ocean is limited by our ability to swim or to sail. If we can forget for a moment that we need to work on our breast stroke, the only other option for Tobagonians wanting to make better use of the sea is to employ a vessel, something that can float. The thing is boats need shore-side care, things like jetties, piers, marinas. Tobago has not paid a lot of attention to this in the past, but that may soon change, given the opportunities we stand to lose both in tourism income, or in other areas like the more mundane business of finding food. In a bid to offset this lack, the Central Government is looking at making sure conversations develop around the waterfront. That‘s commendable, given the other less positive shenanigans some parliamentarians get up to in the nation‘s ports. Starting in present time but looking back, we observe in hindsight some of the sea based opportunities which have come and gone. Petro-Canada did not want to use our vaunted seamanship skills during its brief stint offshore. The same is true with the National Gas Company which brought the gas pipeline into Cove. The NGC, although a local entity, did not use or hire our seamen either and logically so, because our guys do not have the kind of boats nor the type of shore infrastructure needed for that job. But fishing is something Tobago should have first dibs on. We‘ve got the fish, got the experience, got the inshore facilities such as endless cheap fuel and really inexpensive ice. So what‘s our excuse for such poor jetty facilities so deep into the game? It cannot be legislation. The Fisheries Division of the Tobago House of Assembly ‗owns‘
“The Fisheries Division of the Tobago House of As s em bly „owns‟ the waterfront “
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“All s p e c i es uniquely express evolutionary brilliance and have a purpose“
“ To many p eopl e t hes e tall pea ks make fo r a c hallen ging b ut s cenic hike. B u t t hey a re not jus t a no the r t all m oun tain to climb . ”
Environment TOBAGO newsletter
the waterfront and to a large extent it also has the support of the larger line ministry in Trinidad managing food production. In theory the THA Fisheries budget ought to have enabled suitable marine facilities for all of this island‘s fishermen by now. If that hasn‘t occurred it might simply be because someone doesn‘t understand the critical nature of having a national framework for jetty development or cannot field the logistical requirements or something worse. Not that jetties of a sort weren‘t built. They were and yet the fishermen bawl, to the point where it seems the authority vested in Tobago – its THA - may have to concede that it failed to provide for its own and the Trinidadians might do a better job. Should it get around to that (and with local politics being what it is) there are two areas in particular that neither the (THA) Fisheries nor any Central Government Ministry should play fast and loose with. To repeat if someone somewhere has an intention to build jetties, marinas and slipways in Tobago, the Pigeon Point area where it dovetails (and drains) into the Buccoo Marine park, and upcountry Tobago (where the proposed North East Marine Park is going to be set up) should be left alone for some time, at least until a proper assessment can be made for such man-made incursions. Keep in mind marine parks. There are usually designated so because of their value to the local or regional ecosystem and quality of life for the human population. Requirements for jetties and marinas in marine parks are not ambiguous; they require environmental impact studies – the now ubiquitous EIA‘s. In fact the THA through its recuperating Secretary Hilton Sandy have already acquired big knowledge on the way the EIA- CEC process works. Indeed, it is more than probable that the THA already knows it should first fix shore-side facilities for the fishing villages lying outside the MPA‖s, even as it commissions proper baseline studies for the ‗trickier‘ installs required at Buccoo and the (proposed) North East Tobago Marine Park. But in Tobago the life will not stay simple. Last week, the Ministry of Tobago Development opened public consultations seeking to inform its government (and by extension everyone else) about a framework that maybe could inform a ‗jetty, marina and pier‘ policy. Without even looking close, this writer can see the gaping chasm between them wanting to do good and actually doing it. My skepticism is rooted in the knowledge that our local idea of environmental regulation is farcical. If the government is drafting a ‗jetty‘ policy that will be informed by a framework - which in turn will guided by international accords protecting the global environment- then all that Trinidad and Tobago needs to do is hire a few committed people, pay them well and watch what great things could happen. Take this to mean, in the ideal scenario, the Environmental Management Agency will have an accurate baseline map of what‘s on the ground, will keep close tables on all developments as they progress, and break down structures where the rules are not adhered to. Actually, whether or not the call for a ‗framework for a jetty policy‘ from the Ministry of Tobago Development is well meant shall be determined pretty quickly, certainly before the next general election. Because if in the afterglow of its public consultation Central Government talks about a marina in Buccoo or anywhere in the marine park, then the Tobago public will know they‘re being taken for a (boat) ride. Any framework/policy should clearly state that proper EIA‘s must be done before anything is approved in either marine parks or around wetlands. Just as it goes without saying that post-EIA Certificates of Environmental Clearance should not be granted for any jetty, pier or marina that displaces wetland fauna and flora. As Hummingbird Medal winner Patricia Turpin observes, ―the GEF (Global Environment Fund) states the new paradigm of environmental sensitivity insists there should be no net loss of any wetland anywhere‖.
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The GEF thinking makes sense. Look at our coastlines for example. No matter how much we attempt to replant mangroves to mitigate or offset incursions into wetland communities, the result has always resulted in a damaged coastal zone – with net loss a result in fish stock, coral cover, and degraded coastal or intertidal functions. By now it ought to be pretty apparent to even the most naive and uncaring person that messing with the wetlands will cost us more than we can afford to pay. None of this is meant to imply that the fishing community cannot have jetties, piers or marinas in the environmentally sensitive zones. All that is required is proper facilities enabling men, boats and nature to co-exist, and for governments to make sure there is better enforcement of the rules. This suggests that more resources should be spent developing the police force than on buying boats, but perhaps the government‘s logic will eventually show.
Biodiversity in our Food Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies Market day in Trinidad and Tobago is a reflection of our country‘s culinary diversity, evident by the variety of fruits and vegetables on sale. But I am sure that when you think about the food you buy in markets across the country when you make your weekend shopping trip, the country‘s biodiversity is not on the top of your list. Many people would not think of fruits and vegetables as a source of biodiversity but, we have to keep in mind that all living organisms contribute to a country‘s biodiversity. One of the reasons that Trinidad and Tobago has such a wide variety of fruits and vegetables is due to its colourful past as each ethnic group that has come to our sores have brought with them in the form of plants, tubers and seeds. People have preferences especially when it comes to what they eat. So for example, if the public prefers a sweeter variety of carrots then farms would grow a sweeter variety over others. In Trinidad pigeon peas are an major part of our local cuisine especially in pelau. However in India from where pigeon peas came from, the people there prefer it in a drier form. Preference will have to be given to the bestselling varieties of crops, with increasing urbanization putting a strain on finding suitable land for agriculture. As a consequence less popular varieties are grown less and less and eventually become extinct. One may think that because these crops came from another place if we lose them we can just take plant from their country of origin and replant them and their biodiversity is preserved. But over the years, centuries in some cases the species brought here have become adapted to the local growing conditions. Therefore they have become quite different to the parent stock in terms of factors like affinity for certain temperatures, soil conditions. There are also accustomed to pests and diseases from their country of origin so when they are transplanted here they will not do very well compared to those that have evolved to withstand pests and diseases found in this country. All of these adaptations to certain local conditions lead to the development of landraces which is one factor that affects their biodiversity.
“People have preferences especially when it comes to what they eat. “
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Entanglement and disentanglement of leatherback sea turtles Scott Landry Director of the Marine Animal Entanglement Response program Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, USA.
“ To many p eopl e t hes e tall pea ks make fo r a c hallen ging b ut s cenic hike. B u t t hey a re not jus t a no the r t all m oun tain to climb . �
Entanglement in fishing gear and marine debris is one of the leading, human-induced causes of injury and mortality in large marine animals, including whales, seals and sea turtles. For species or populations recognized as endangered, reducing the impacts of entanglement is seen as one of the leading conservation challenges of the day and a major animal welfare concern. Entanglements may be acute (leading to drowning) or chronic (leading to starvation, lacerations and infection), with some animals carrying entanglements for months or even years. Sea turtles face the risk of drowning in their entanglements or may be cut loose by wellintentioned mariners, leaving the animal with portions of their entanglements remaining that will cause injury or death at a later date. The leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) is a globally endangered species facing multiple threats, from disturbance at nesting beaches to climate change. Entanglement is also a threat to this species, but a threat that is poorly defined and difficult to study. In the story that follows, of the disentanglement of one leatherback out of nearly 200 whales and sea turtles we have disentangled, is a description not only of our efforts to help an individual animal, but also of a concerted effort to study and understand entanglement from the perspective of its population. In waters as dark and green as the mountains of Trinidad a leatherback sea turtle surfaced for air in Cape Cod Bay, not far from the city of Boston. All around him brightly painted buoys marked lobster traps at the seafloor, 30 meters below. Durable rope connecting the buoys to the traps bent or pulled at the whim of tides and currents, bearing some resemblance to the grace of a kelp forest. Diving back below, the leatherback, a mature male weighing some 300 This leatherback, an adult male nicknamed Bob, was kilos, had found a thick shoal of lion‘s found entangled in Cape Cod Bay. CCS image taken mane jellies. The jellies were bright yellow-orange, with long hair-like tentacles under 50 CFR 222.310, with authority of the US ESA. that flowed behind them, straining animal plankton from water stained green by plant plankton. He began to feed on the jellies as he had done summer after summer. As the turtle reached the end of the shoal he turned to head back in for more, a choice that would normally be of little consequence. As he turned, a buoy line caught the front edge of his shoulder. Mildly alarmed he turned again and the line folded over his flipper. In an attempt to evade this novel problem, he dove quickly and began to spin and pull. In no time the line wrapped his neck and both front flippers and he found that no matter how hard he sculled something pulled him back. By now he was at the end of his new leash. Returning toward the surface the turtle was just able to raise his head above the waterline to breath. Now in a full panic he swam mostly at the surface, circling. With each pass the wraps of rope around his neck and flippers increased in number and tightness. An unfortunate effect of this was a shortening of the buoy line. As time wore on the turtle found that he had to pull hard to clear the surface for air, pulling the heavy trap off the seafloor in order
Environment TOBAGO newsletter
to breath. What this leatherback was experiencing is not an uncommon experience for many sea turtles and whales today. As a burgeoning human population increases its fishing effort, either by intensifying and diversifying fisheries in traditional fishing grounds, or by exploring new fishing grounds, the interaction between people and marine animals is also increasing. A turtle departing the nesting beaches of Trinidad and heading out to foraging grounds across the North Atlantic in summer effectively surveys the full diversity of the human endeavor to make a living from the ocean: gillnets set just outside the nesting colonies for shark, longlines set far out at sea for billfish and tuna, trawls dragged for shrimp, and traps set for crab and lobster along more inshore waters. Rope, nets and hooks, whether actively used or lost at sea, are making life hard for individual leatherbacks. Even worse, these interactions are impacting populations. Here in the North Atlantic we may be relatively lucky. Trinidad hosts some of the largest nesting colonies of leatherbacks on earth, and great effort has been taken to protect this vital habitat. But recent experiences in the North Pacific indicate that we should not be too relaxed. Despite protection of nesting colonies along the Central American coast, the number of females coming ashore there to nest has crashed, due mainly to the loss of adults as bycatch in fishing gear. Nesting beaches can be lavished with great care by people but they serve little if no females make it ashore to nest. Protecting leatherbacks from entanglements, throughout their range, will be critical even if difficult. Back in Cape Cod Bay, the turtle was now running the real risk of drowning. Line had wrapped his flippers so many times that the buoy line was now significantly shorter and drawing him under. Either the turtle would sink under the weight of the trap or he would be forced to use his strength to scull at the surface for air. This tension also worked on his skin, abrading away the healthy black outer skin, exposing bruises beneath. Already panicked, the turtle now heard the approach of an Bob just prior to release, after being disentangled and engine closing in on him. In an effort to tagged. CCS image taken under 50 CFR 222.310, with flee, the turtle dove, but couldn‘t make authority of the US ESA. headway in any particular direction. Back on the surface a boat full of sports fishermen radioed the Coast Guard. Normally cryptic and shy, this leatherback was the first they had ever seen despite many days on the water. As they patiently waited by the turtle, the Coast Guard called the entanglement hotline at the Center for Coastal Studies. Our team is on-call every day of the year and ready for reports of entangled whales and sea turtles. Aboard our 10m response vessel, Ibis, we were alongside the turtle within an hour. Sea conditions were unusually calm and the bright August sun allowed us to see well through the water. This was especially helpful since entering the water with such a large, panicked animal was out of the question – leatherbacks are strong enough to pull a person under should they become entangled with the turtle. After carefully assessing his entanglement configuration, the team threw a specially-designed grappling hook into the buoy line beneath the turtle. This allowed the team to haul the lobster trap off the
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“ To many p eopl e t hes e tall pea ks make fo r a c hallen ging b ut s cenic hike. B u t t hey a re not jus t a no the r t all m oun tain to climb . �
Environment TOBAGO newsletter
sea floor, relieving the downward pressure on the turtle and making his breathing less labored. In most instances the turtle would then have been measured, scanned for identification tags, unwrapped from the entanglement and released. Instead, the team and the turtle waited. Heading out to join us was a team of veterinarians and researchers from the Large Pelagics Research Center and the New England Aquarium. Together we would attempt something new: carefully haul the turtle aboard our vessel, disentangle him, give him a full veterinary assessment and attach a satellite telemetry package before release. This would generate new information about leatherback health, physiology, migratory patterns and habitat use. But for our entanglement response team, the most important question was: what happens to the turtles we disentangle? After a long and challenging struggle, we managed to release the turtle, affectionately nicknamed Bob, complete with a telemetry package. Off he swam into Cape Cod Bay. Over the subsequent days he was tracked remotely by the Large Pelagic Research Center as he continued to travel throughout the Bay. One evening, twenty days into his release, Bob suddenly went still. At dawn the following morning we headed out to his last The carcass of Bob twenty days after being disentangled known location and found his carcass. and released. He had become re-entangled and He had become entangled in more lob- drowned. CCS image taken under 50 CFR 222.310, ster gear and had so many wraps with authority of the US ESA. around his flippers he had been pulled under and drowned. While other leatherbacks that had been disentangled, tagged and released had made it out of the bay, some migrating to as far as the nesting beaches of Grand Riviere, Trinidad, Bob highlighted the level of risk many turtles face. Certainly, disentanglement can and has helped many turtles, but the most effective solution will have to be prevention: finding a way to continue fishing without incidentally catching sea turtles and whales.
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Environment TOBAGO newsletter
ECOLOGY NOTES What are faunal regions? Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies When it comes to describing the distribution of species the literature is full of many long and complicated terms. But in this brief article I aim to bring them to simple terms everyone can understand and explain their ecological significance. Faunal regions are also referred to as zoogeographic regions and are defined based on the distinctive animal life they contain. These consist of seven regions; Palaearctic, Ethiopian, Oriental, Australian, Nearactic, Neotropical and Antarctic. The Antarctic and Australian regions represent the land masses their names suggest. The Palaearctic region includes Europe, Northern Africa and Northern Asia. The Ethiopian region is the region of Africa south of the Sahara desert. The Oriental region includes India and extends eastward to ―mainland and much of insular Southeast Asia‖. While the Nearactic includes North America and Greenland. The Neotropical region consists of South and Central America, Central Mexico and the Caribbean. Each region houses a number of habitats and is usually a continental land mass separated from the other regions by geographic formations like mountain ranges, oceans or deserts. These geographic features act as migration barriers. These barriers may not seem much of a barrier to humans but to some animal species they cannot be crossed especially to those that are very small or are not very mobile. In some cases it may just be too risky to cross these barriers as it makes them vulnerable to predators. This means that the animals in each region evolved in isolation to animals in the same group in other parts of the world. The length of time the animals in each of these regions remain isolated, the greater the number of endemic species. But if we look to the past, some of these regions were once connected for example, approximately 65 million years ago in Gondwana which is one of the second supercontinent comprising most of the land masses in the southern hemisphere that was connected to the supercontinent of Laurasia to make up Pangaea. This explains the relatedness of these animals on a family level in the Neotropical, Ethiopian and Australian regions as they were once connected, thus animals could move freely among them. However, some families of animals are not hampered by these natural barriers and have a worldwide distribution, for example birds where most aquatic species like gulls, herons and ducks and terrestrial species such as hawks and owls. Knowing the distribution, that is where individuals of a species is found is very important not only to the ecology of the species but to the area or country it is found in. For instance with respect to invasive species which can bring with them diseases and pests that are new to the area and to which the native species do not have any defenses against. Some of these invasive species may thrive in a new area and beat out the native species while competing for resources. If not recognized in time they may eventually replace the native species thus changing the biodiversity of the area.
“Geographic formations like mountain ranges, oceans or deserts act as migration barriers.”
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A NATURAL SELECTION Thomas Belt 1874. The Naturalist in Nicaragua. London: John Murray 403 pp. Second edition reprinted 1985 by the Univ. of Chicago Press. Available online from Project Gutenberg or at http://www.biodiversity.org/bibliography/1390#/summary . [Thirty-fourth in a series on "naturalist-in" books.] Christopher K. Starr Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies ckstarr@gmail.com
“ To many p eopl e t hes e tall pea ks make fo r a c hallen ging b ut s cenic hike. B u t t hey a re not jus t a no the r t all m oun tain to climb . �
The English mining engineer Thomas Belt (1832-1878) traveled extensively for work, ending his short life in Colorado. In 1868 he went to Nicaragua to supervise operations of the Chontales Gold-Mining Company and stayed for four years. The mines in that period were just at the point between profit and loss, so that superintending them was a worrisome business. Belt had a thorough grounding as an amateur naturalist, which he put to good use in the course of traveling about Nicaragua -- mostly on mules and boats -- on mining business. Approximately the second half of the book is taken up with two long overland journeys, one to the northern border area and the other to the Atlantic-coast area. He collected many birds, butterflies and beetles, especially long-horned beetles (Cerambycidae). The specimens went to specialists in Europe, who used them to significantly advance knowledge of the Nicaraguan fauna. The 21 chapters are supplemented with 28 illustrations, including a map of Nicaragua. The chronological narrative serves as a framework for his observations, in the emerging pattern of naturalist-in books. It starts with his arrival at the port of Greytown on the Atlantic side. Greytown was established as a British trading post and had formerly been an important port, but shifting currents in the delta in recent years had caused the harbour to silt up a great deal, and Belt thought it would probably slip into insignificance. He was right, probably more than he imagined, as it is today an overgrown ghost town, its last residents relocated in 1984. The party took several days to travel upriver to Lake Nicaragua, at 8264 km2 the largest lake in Central America, yet remarkably shallow. It is home to bull sharks, Carcharhinus leucas, individuals of which move between the lake and the Caribbean Sea along the river. There is also much attention to "alligators" (possibly a conflation of the spectacled caiman and American crocodile) in the river and lake. From there, they rode inland to Santo Domingo, headquarters of the mining company. Belt published several research papers in geology, but as far as I know The Naturalist in Nicaragua comprises all of his published original biological observations. In his introduction to 1985 reprint, Daniel H. Janzen refers to Belt's "disciplined and eager inquisitiveness" and says of his book that "On nearly every page ..., Belt gives us a superbly drawn description of an animal or plant, and what it is doing, and then he tells us that all this suggests to him and why." Stated another way, he combined the key components of an outstanding naturalist: extensive knowledge, an attention to detail, and a coherent theoretical outlook. The book's subtitle indicates that his observations were "in reference to the theory of evolution". To today's naturalists it is second nature to interpret in the light of nat-
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ural selection, but in Belt's time it was still a rarified attitude. We can illustrate his virtuosity by reference to three social insects. Belt kept a garden with fruit trees and other crops. The greatest pest, he found, was the leafcutter ant (bachac) Atta prob. colombica. Members of this genus are a prominent feature of lowland neotropics, where they strip vegetation from many kinds of plants, sometimes destroying entire citrus plantations in short order. Belt "had to wage a continual warfare against them." He tried with little success to destroy their colonies by various means, including brute-force excavation. This led to a description of the nest mound, the many tunnels into it, and the many round chambers connected by tunnels, maintained by constant digging, an enterprise must have impressed a mining engineer. The magnitude of their leaf cutting and transportation was also striking. "The ceaseless, toiling hosts impress one with their power, and one asks -- What forests can stand before such invaders? How is it that vegetation is not eaten off the face of the earth?" he asked. The answer, he supposed lay in the chemical defenses and immense recuperative power of tropical vegetation. Although Atta had already attracted much comment at that time, it was not plain what could be the use(s) of the leaf fragments. Some naturalists supposed that they served directly as food and/or to thatch the ceilings of the nest chambers, while Belt proposed that they were compost "on which grows a ... fungus, on which they feed." The ants, then, are mushroom gardeners. He recognized that an extraordinary hypothesis requires extraordinary evidence. Despite a constant flow of leaf fragments into the nest, he never found any substantial quantity of them inside and concluded that they must be used up on arrival. The chambers were about 3/4 full of a loose, spongy, light-brown mass, which on closer examination were seen to be minute pieces of leaves, withered and brown and overgrown with a minute white fungus. There were larvae and pupae among these masses, and he found chambers with exhausted leaf refuse without workers or brood. During that same year, Fritz MĂźller independently arrived at the same conclusion in Brazil. Raids of Eciton spp. were similarly impressive. Belt describes how these army ants climb plants and push everything that cannot fly off to nestmates below. Some spiders escape by hanging down on draglines. The raiding columns are accompanied by ant thrushes, which feed on bugs flushed by the ants. Army ants and some others make no use of vision and much use of scent in holding the colony together and coĂśrdinating its activities. Belt performed the same simple field experiment that many have done before and after with column-foraging ants. He scraped away part of ground along the route of a column, leading to agitated confusion at the site of the breach. Belt showed his speculative tendency in regarding Eciton as the most intelligent of Central-American ants and ahead of social wasps and social bees. He cited examples of army-ant behaviour that seemed hard to explain as innate and became just a bit rhapsodic about their social intelligence. One could cite numerous other examples of his bold curiosity, such as thoughts on why forest trees are so much more diverse in the tropics than in English forests and on the relative range sizes of land versus freshwater species of the same taxon. The bull's-horn acacia, Acacia cornigera, has conspicuously swollen hollow thorns what
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are inhabited by Pseudomyrmex ferruginea. This pugnacious ant responds vigorously to any intrusion on its plants and so safeguards them from both large herbivores and leafcutter ants. At the leaf bases are extrafloral nectaries and little yellow fruit-like bodies. Belt noted that when the latter ripen, ants carry them into the nest, presumably as food. There is much comment on "honey-secreting glands" in these and other plants" -which he noted were especially found on young leaves and sepals -- and the protection furnished by ants attracted to the nectar. His conclusion -- that these plant devices serve to attract and keep pugnacious ants, which defend the acacia -- makes very good sense in the light of natural selection and was experimentally corroborated almost a century later. He also makes a case that some other plants, including Cecropia and Melastoma, gain a similar advantage by providing ants with dwelling places and that yet others, including Passiflora spp., provide only extra-floral nectaries. Belt's ingenuity is shown by a further twist in this topic. He noted that the extrafloral nectaries of Passiflora were sometimes neglected by the ants. Finding honeydewproducing scale insects on the stems, he watched ants stroking them and drinking the exuded droplets and deduced that the ants' attention had been largely transferred to the insects. The plants and scale insects, he concluded, were in competition for the ants' protective services. There was ample opportunity to observe the 13 species of hummingbirds found around Santo Domingo. In one interlude, he watched two male white-necked jacobin, Florisuga mellivora, competing for a female. They displayed ostentatiously, ending in a physical fight, and Belt asked whether the issue was settled by the female accepting the better displayer or the better fighter. Without saying so explicitly, he was referring to Darwin's (1871) very recent distinction between the two basic forms of sexual selection. Travel in Central America at that time was not nearly the rough business experienced by Bates in the Amazon or Wallace in Southeast Asia, but it had its hardships. Perhaps the worst of these -- the one that comes up over and over -- was mosquitoes. One mosquito-infested night, a Jamaican companion addressed a philosophical question to him: "'Mr. Belt, sir, can you tell me what is the use of mosquitoes?' 'To enjoy themselves and be happy, Jacob.' 'Ah, sir! If I were only a mosquito!' said Jacob, as he can down with another fruitless whack." There was very little commercial accommodation in Nicaragua, but travelers could count on customary local accommodation at ordinary households. Local hospitality was so much the custom of the peasantry that on long overland journeys Belt's party could start out each day with no certain knowledge of where they would be at nightfall, much less advance arrangements. Belt was markedly sympathetic to the mostly Amerindian peasantry, but with little admiration. He draws a strong contrast between what was known of them before the Spanish conquest and their present condition, which he regarded as much degraded. "In destroying the ancient monarchies of Mexico and Central America, the Spaniards inflicted an irreparable injury on the Indian race." Assuring us that "I shall not harrow the feelings of my readers with the mass of treachery, avarice, blasphemy, and horrible cruelties with which the conquerors rewarded the noble people who entertained them so courteously", he characterized the conquest as "one of the darkest pages in modern history". He likewise deplored the condition of peasant women as hard labourers and suggested that there had been much greater equality of the sexes before the conquest. “ To many p eopl e t hes e tall pea ks make fo r a c hallen ging b ut s cenic hike. B u t t hey a re not jus t a no the r t all m oun tain to climb . ”
“What forests can stand before such invaders? “
Environment TOBAGO newsletter
The problem with both Amerindians and the descendants of Spanish settlers, he thought, was a lack of ambition due to the ease of gaining a subsistence living, so that "the bands of indolence have wound round them generation after generation, and now they are so bound up in the drowsy folds of slothfulness that they cannot break their silken fetters." His flabbergasting upshot was that no progress could be expected until Mexico joined the USA, followed by rest of South America, giving rise to a flood of vigorous new immigrants from the north, who would transform the region ... well, I think you get the point. It illustrates how smart people of good from one age can reach conclusions that in another age seem quite incredible. Travel about Nicaragua was quite safe except during occasional periods of insurrection. One such outbreak kept Nicaragua occupied for four month's during Belt's stay. Most of the able-bodied men were pressed into one army or another, giving rise to a great deal of activity, but very little actual battle. One town with which Belt was familiar changed hands a number of times with hardly any casualties. So, how were issues settled? "The usual course was for the two armies to manoeuvre about until one thought it was weaker than the other, when it immediately took to flight." Although he makes no comment on the ritualized intraspecific combats of animals, the parallel is clear. And what does the winning faction gain? Rule over the country. In Belt's view, elections in central-American republics were always fraudulent, so that an unpopular government could not be recalled except through force of arms. It would have been undiplomatic for an Englishman to cite the American Declaration of Independence in this respect, but I expect he had read it and approved. Reference Darwin, C. 1871. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Vol. 1-2. London: John Murray.
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“Travel in Central America at that time was not nearly the rough business experienced by Bates in the Amazon or Wallace in Southeast Asia, but it had its hardships. “
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Environment TOBAGO newsletter
UPCOMING CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS The Caribbean Academy of Sciences (CAS) 19th General Meeting and Biennial Conference The 19th General Meeting and biennial conference of The Caribbean Academy of Sciences (CAS) is the second to be held in the beautiful island of Tobago which forms one half of the twin island state of Trinidad and Tobago. The Biennial Conference, which is being held in collaboration with The Tobago House of Assembly, will commence on the November 21st, 2014 with an impressive opening ceremony and ends on the 23rd November, 2014. The theme of the Conference is “Harnessing Science And Technology To Create Knowledge-Based Economies And Preserve Caribbean Ecosystems.” This conference aims to assemble regional and international natural scientists, social scientists and engineers to deliberate and focus their thoughts on the two areas identified in the theme. Using the best available models, scientists will be encouraged to develop road-maps suggesting ways towards the establishment of knowledge-based economies in the Caribbean region, and propose steps that might reverse some aspects of climate change and strategies that could minimize the adverse effects of climate change on the fragile ecosystems of the Caribbean.
“ To many p eopl e t hes e tall pea ks make fo r a c hallen ging b ut s cenic hike. B u t t hey a re not jus t a no the r t all m oun tain to climb . ”
The scientific programme will consist of plenary lectures by invited experts and short papers of 20 minutes total duration by participants. Short papers may be in any area of natural science and social science, including Agriculture, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Anatomy, Physiology, Pharmacology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, Biotechnology, Energy, Food Science, Physics, Engineering, Education, Economics and Health Economics. Abstracts for oral and poster presentations in all areas of natural and social sciences are invited. Applications are also invited for the CAS-TWAS Young Scientist Award for 2014. The Award is worth US$2000.00. Nominations for the 2014 Award (on the required forms) should reach the Office of the CAS Secretariat by July 30th 2-14 and forms are available on the CAS website at http://www.caswi.org. Details on registration, accommodation and presentations are in the 1st announcement posted on the CAS website: http://www.caswi.org. Updates will be posted on this website.
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The Caribbean Academy of Sciences (CAS) Trinidad Chapter presents a workshop on Food Safety and Food Security in a Globalized Environment as part of its 25th Anniversary celebrations
ALL ARE WELCOME!!!
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WHAT’S HAPPENING @ ET Environment TOBAGO Environmental and Services Map of Tobago
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The Tropical Rainforest of Tobago — The Main Ridge Graham Wellfare and Hema Singh Published by Environment TOBAGO pp 37 Price: TT120.
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READERS’ FORUM Dear ET Newsletter Readers, Office:
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Deadline for submission of material for the 1st Quarter 2014 issue of the Bulletin is March 10th, 2014.