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
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ET News Articles
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Ecology Notes
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Book Review
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Community Announcements
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What’s Happening @ ET
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Notes to contributors
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Environment TOBAGO
March 2015
A strange phenomenon occurred in the Caribbean in 2011 Bertrand Bhikarry Environment TOBAGO A strange phenomenon occurred in the Caribbean in 2011. A massive tide of sargassum, brown invasive algae, washed on to the shores of the region’s popular beaches. A similar event is occurring today. Tourism officials are disgruntled by the masses of smelly brown seaweed that are inundating coastlines. Although seaweed is normally seen as a nuisance for local residents and travelers, it does offer some ecological benefits. Plus, sargassum is only temporary and it’s fairly unpredictable, so don’t let its presence in the Caribbean affect your travel plans. Here’s what you need to know about sargassum in the Caribbean. The algae originates in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean around Bermuda. The Atlantic is home to two species (S. natans and S. fluitans) which reproduce vegetatively and travel on the ocean’s surface. These two species are also found throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, transported by the Gulf Stream. An explanation for the sudden invasion of tons of algae on Caribbean shores is changing weather patterns and creating warmer temperatures in the region. According to one marine bioloSargasso Sea gist, cooler autumn weather traditionally slows the algae’s growth, plus changes ocean circulation patterns, water temperature and nutrient systems and “typically keep the weed at sea.” As the sea temperature increases, sargasssum is more likely to make its way to the shores of Caribbean beaches’ Inhabits all the world’s oceans except the Arctic. Sargassum can be found floating on the surface of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, but you will not see the brown algae in the world’s most southern body of water. Sargassum has healing powers. The brown algae has been used in traditional Chinese medicine since the eighth century. Sargassum seaweed is a source of iodine used to treat goiters, thyroid disorders, and as a diuretic. It also treats pain from hernias and swollen testes. In Tobago, the government has been encouraging farmers to use it as fertilizer. Sargassum is full of nutrients and carbon, making it an excellent natural manure for farm-
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March 2015 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 Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Christopher K. Starr Photographs: Matt Kelly Environment TOBAGO Wikipedia.com
Board of Directors 2012-2014 President:: Patricia Turpin Vice-President: Bertrand Bhikkary Secretary: Wendy Austin Treasurer: Shirley McKenna Other Directors: William Trim Hugh Baker Fitzherbert Phillips Renee Gift Andy Roberts Darren Henry Ken Biscombe Nathaniel Licorish
Environment TOBAGO newsletter
ers in the region. Sargassum is also an excellent fertilizer for worn beaches. When sargassum is traveling in the ocean, it acts as both a shelter and food source for turtle hatchlings who are not strong swimmers yet. Green sea turtles will eat large amounts of sargassum throughout their lifetimes. Besides sea turtles, this floating habitat provides food, refuge and breeding grounds for an array of other sea life including crabs, shrimp, mahi mahi, jacks, and amberjacks Sargassum protects the beachfront. The algae serves as buffer on the beach by reducing wave and wind erosion. It also protects the sand in dunes, making them more resilient. Less erosion means more sand on the beaches to structurally support beachfront properties and for people to play in. When the sargassum and all of the organisms living within the masses of seaweed wash ashore, it provides food for pelagic seabirds and pelicans When sargassum sinks, berry-like gas-filled structures, called pneumatocysts, make up the plant. These “berries,� which are filled mostly with oxygen, cause the algae to float. When sargassum loses its buoyancy, it sinks to the seafloor, providing energy in the form of carbon and also food sources to fishes and invertebrates in the deep sea. Many are wondering if the invasion of sargassum in the Caribbean will be a cyclical occurrence. Marine biologists note that as weather patterns, temperatures and wind speeds change within the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, sargassum can be expected. Biologists are Dog rolling on a large mat of sargassum working hard to understand the source and patterns.
Our ET Board of Directors hard at work at our monthly meetings
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What ET has been up to World Wetlands Day 2015 “A Cultural Extravaganza� Presented by the Division of agriculture, marine affairs, marketing and the environment. Held at the Buccoo Integrated Facility on Thursday 26th February.
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What ET has been up to (cont’d)
World Wetlands Day Fieldtrips
“ 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 . ”
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Birds of Tobago Photos by Matt Kelly
Top row (left to right): Blue-crowned Motmot and Black-bellied Plover Middle row (left to right): Black-crowned Night Heron and Black-headed Gull Bottom row (left to right): Cocoi Heron and Black-throated Mango Hummingbird
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Birds of Tobago (cont’d)
1st row (left to right): Juvenile Blue Heron (left) with a Western Reef Heron (right) and Perigrine Falcon 2nd row (left to right): Common Potoo and Golden Olive Woodpecker 3rd row (left to right): Great Black Hawk and Red-legged Honeycreeper 4th row (left to right): Collard Trogon
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ARTICLES What’s really going down at the Bon Accord Lagoon? Bertrand Bhikarry Earlier this week, the top brass of the Tobago House of Assembly’s (THA) Division of Agriculture, Marine Affairs, Marketing and the Environment (DAMME), along with an erstwhile landowner from Gaskin Bay Road South, attempted to convince island stakeholders that Bon Accord Lagoon needs a command centre, a physical base to ‘take control’ of certain misbehaviours that occurs there. This is indeed a commendable venture on the part of the DAMME, as it arises out of another three year slumber. But shouldn’t the THA be dusting off those park management proposals passed to them by the Institute of Marine Affairs over ten years ago? Surely, given the enlightened times, it is advisable for island bosses to proceed as good sense dictates, rather than to risk public funds to benefit a few hasty souls, a somnolent (some say defunct) non-governmental organisation (NGO) and Lord knows which private interests. Obviously, there is room here for caution as the THA proceeds to develop the area around the lagoon, and it is in this light that this commentary was written. However, clarification is necessary before the critiquing can proceed. First, let’s examine the geography of the situation. The marine restricted area includes everything inside a five-sided block: It begins at the Pigeon Point Park entrance (just past the cluster of shops after the Conrado Hotel) to about a mile north out to sea (where there was once a light), to another point east of there (where there was also another light), then back to land just passing the ‘Graveyard’ (west of Buccoo Village). Its landward limits are a swathe of mangrove, about 198 feet (or three chains) wide. Everything within this area has been under consideration for some time now to become the Buccoo Marine Park and all defaults to THA control. Bear in mind though, the ultimate authority is really the Minister of any Ministry back in Port of Spain with the ‘Environment’ portfolio. Historically, the fact that the geography is in Tobago and the political controls are in Trinidad means that nothing has worked to the benefit of the reserve. Ministers of Environment have largely kept away, probably in deference to the Tobago House of Assembly. Conversely, the Assembly never really saw it fit to get their hands dirty in the reef and the surrounding mangroves. This was probably because Buccoo’s role as a food source and food chain protector or its potential to boost tourism weren’t priorities. That is until this year. 2015 has thrown up quite a few surprises for Trinidad and Tobago. The most painful though is the low oil price and its concomitant effect on the T&T economy. Consequently, Tobago - read this as the House of Assembly- has finally woken up to the fact that it has to produce something if it is to have money to spend. However, barring stepping up its productivity, a mindset which has never been the island’s selling point, the only thing left for the THA to do is to secure the island’s assets, among which the much maligned marine park now ranks quite high. The problem for the Assembly is it is faced with a Division not adequately endowed to manage such an endeavour. ‘Fisheries’, as the one’s directly in charge of the reserve, has never invested properly in hardware or in human resources. The THA may argue otherwise, citing possession of its vast range of scuba gear (in a container lying at the back of Buccoo Village) and the readiness of a reef patrol fleet, which, as all poachers know, is terribly undermanned – when they are actually shipshape. The thing is, the written
“The Order states clearly that all works to jetties must be subject to a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).”
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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
reports are at considerable variance with the eyeball view, which is probably why the THA now finds it germane to consider another facility, a new outpost from which to ‘take control’ of activities at the park. Sadly, as regards the public purse, it is looking at acquiring a piece of property that wouldn’t really address the endemic management problems of the Fisheries Division. The land, close to the slipway built by Mr. Ralph Gibson (RIP) was once earmarked as a gift from CLICO to a Tobago-based environmental NGO whose best work is well documented – a long time ago. The validity of the organisation as a civil society group may require some explanation, given its (extremely) short membership listing. An ethical issue probably looms here, but there’ll be other questions to answer should ‘purchase’ proceed. From their close association on the public stage, the THA seems especially keen to involve that same NGO in the transaction, although the title for the property apparently resides elsewhere. Probably with the State, since the CLICO group went belly up under Lawrence Duprey in 2009. The legality of the THA sending good cash to the bottomless pockets of a dead conglomerate, whose assets were garnished by Government, is an iffy prospect to say the least. That it may, instead, pay another party who does not, have, hold, or was merely promised title is malfeasance beyond imagination - although in this country, probably not without precedent. That it promises to emasculate the Fisheries Division’s mandate for which there is already a substantive team in place, even a park manager on payroll, is another consideration entirely. As such, questions are begging for answers. Will the building of a facility touted for the mangrove belt not represent a negative factor for the preservation of a functional ecology around Bon Accord Lagoon? Will ad-hoc steps to ‘protect users’ at Gibson Jetty not make a mockery out of the Restricted Areas Order? The Order states clearly that all works to jetties must be subject to a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). But surprise, surprise, the tone of certain people - and these include the odd environmentalist turned politician - implies that an EIA will merely suffocate, slow or shutdown what ought to happen down at the lagoon. Odds are that no one, not the THA, not the would-be beneficiaries of any transactions that may occur done there, realises that a properly commissioned and duly executed EIA will work to the benefit for all concerned. This includes people, nature and economy. C’mon guys, let’s do it right for once. The stakes are too high this time for tomfoolery.
Water’s role in sustainable development Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies This weekend will be a double celebration in terms of highlighting aspects of the environment. Marking both International Day of Forests and World Water Day. But both celebrations and their themes for this year cannot be fully covered in a single article, so this week’s article will focus on World Water Day and next week’s article will focus on the International Day of Forests. The observance of World Water Day started in 1993. It was formally proposed in Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Agenda 21 is a voluntarily implemented, nonbinding action plan of the United Nations regarding sustainable development. One of
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the main practises for the day is that the public is encouraged not to use their taps for the day. This year’s World Water Day theme is “Water and Sustainable Development” and highlights issues that affect our planet’s supply of freshwater. The theme for each year’s celebration is decided and the World Water Week held the previous year. This theme is unique in that it allows one not only to focus on the role water plays in sustainable development, but builds on previous World Water Day themes. The most natural connection between water and sustainable development is the use of water is the generation of electricity. Water is used to generate electricity, both in terms of its flow (hydroelectric power), or it is heated and the steam produced used to turn turbines to produce electricity. However, if more attention is placed on using saltwater or wastewater for producing energy. But water is not needed solely for heating, but for cooling the machinery as well. Although water is viewed as a source of alternative energy, to cut down our use of fossil fuels. They are needed to pump this water into the power plants to generate electricity. Other methods such as, dry-cooling or closed-loop cooling technologies are highly efficient. But in terms of sustainable development the role water plays is much more diverse than we thought. Another major demand for freshwater comes from industries. Every product manufactured requires water in some part of its production process. However, some products are more water intense than other for example, it takes ten litres of water to produce a single sheet of paper. While 91 litres of water is used to produce half a kilogram of plastic. The demand for water in industries is always increasing and for the period 2000 to 2050 a 400% increase in demand is projected. Water is also required in industries to cool machinery. However most of the increase in industries will take place in developing countries. This is where both large and small scale businesses need to monitor their water use. Wastewater also needs to be monitored in terms of the toxins they can contain before they are released and where it is released. Since, if not attended to, one is actually poisoning the existing supply of freshwater both in surface watercourses and underground aquifers. The role of water in food production is not to be ignored or taken lightly. When we think of water and our food, I am sure that first image that comes to mind is a salad, since once it needs to be irrigated it can affect our supply of freshwater. But water is needed in meat and dairy production, in that water is needed to irrigate the grass needed as food for livestock. Also as economies grow, diets change from being starch-based to incorporating more meat and dairy. But if we were to look at our diet and critically examine our water use in preparing our meals we would realised how water was used in irrigating the produce, washing it and cooking it, including the vegetables, meat, seasonings, sauces and fruit since water was used to produce each ingredient. The use of water for food production increases as our global population grows. Inefficient use of water can lead to depletion of freshwater sources like rivers, aquifers. The lack of water in watercourses could cause saltwater to flow higher into these watercourses. Therefore the volume of freshwater affects the flow of watercourses and changing salinity affects the habitat and conditions for aquatic plants and animals. This leads to the point that water is also a habitat for aquatic plants and animals. The conditions needed by these organisms are quite variable and the combination that is optimal for one species is not for another. So that changes in the water content caused by pollution or if the amount of water is reduced by overuse, this in turn can affect the composition of species found in the area with some becoming locally extinct. Therefore it affects aquatic biodiversity as well as terrestrial animals that depend on these organisms for food, or on aquatic habitats for some stage in their
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“91 litres of water is used to produce half a kilogram of plastic.”
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life cycle. But water is necessary for human health in that it is needed to hydrate the body and for the carrying out of vital metabolic processes. Water is needed for drinking, cooking, cleaning and personal hygiene for instance, hand-washing so that germs do not enter our bodies when we eat, or rub our eyes if they itch. According to the United Nations, one in every two people live in a city and it is estimated that by the year 2050, 2.5 billion people will move occupy cities, with the largest growth taking place in Nigeria, China and India. However, such high concentrations of persons need to be supplied with freshwater, for health reasons. But, many cities have not updated the infrastructure that delivers freshwater to these areas and remove wastewater such as pipes. As a results, more water is wasted than the amount delivered. But this is not a message to encourage people to hoard water or not use it but to use freshwater in a more sustainable manner so that it will last in for future generations.
Navigating our sea of waste Bertrand Bhikarry
“Tobago is blessed with a population of clos e to 60,000.”
Over a period of five months ending this February, Environment Tobago arranged for the collection of discarded beverage containers from the coastal zone. The material, approximately 2000 bags of plastic, aluminium, glass and waxed paperboard was shipped back to Trinidad for central government to determine its fate. This is well and good for Tobago in the short-term, but what of the daily stream of assorted plastics, Garbage collected by Environment TOBAGO project Styrofoam, rubber paper and organic waste that continue to pollute the island? Must volunteer groups like Environment Tobago lead the way, always taking the dirty end of the stick as it were? This should not be. Tobago is blessed with a population of close to 60,000 people, many of whom are securely ensconced in the public workforce. Hopefully, if they get their act going, the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) will never again have to suffer the pain, the embarrassment, of watching a small civil society run rings around the public sector. This more so given Tobago’s ambitious drive to handle its own ‘stories’. Speaking frankly though, if the rhetoric from the THA for effective waste management has been upbeat in the past, the ‘actioning’ of those promises fall short of the mark in the present. Maybe it’s a culture thing, but the THA and by extension your average
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Tobagonian has never seemed comfortable handling waste. At the street level, this is manifest every time a ‘bess dress’ Tobagonian tosses a food box in the near gully drain or alley. From observation, they do this as a matter of routine: It does not matter if it’s a little old lady pecking a snackbox after church, or construction or utility workers having lunch on the road, or even rude boys pigging out after the party. To give charity where its due though, not long ago, the THA made public a new move to responsibly address municipal solid waste. The press reports spoke of a consultancy which early in the game, has already pigeonholed Tobago’s waste solutions as something best solved by plasma-fired incineration. It would be a waste of this space to describe the technology behind conversion of garbage into gas, the internet provides ample reading on PAG, plasma converters and electrical gasifiers. Certainly its more useful at this stage - since neither the consultant nor THA has yet submitted anything for public comment, to open a discussion on the logic of deploying PAG in a country where fossil-based fuelderived energy defies the global norm. This is because gas in T&T is abundant, priced competitively, and the present upstream sector looks very set to stick around probably due in large part to the enticements the Ministry of Energy affords large energy investors. It behoves anyone thinking of a PAG plant in Tobago therefore, like the THA, to factor in the low cost energy that Trinidad produces so easily. After all, the underlying rationale for plasma gasification in the first place would be to create energy efficiencies and lower the incidence of greenhouse gas from economic activity. Further and underlying any such initiative would be the need for the commissioning party (even if it were THA) to make sure some dollars are generated. There will be problems on the ground. Skilled labour in Tobago is prohibitively dear or nearly impossible to find, according to local business interests. Consequently, installing a plasma arc gasification system here will require considerable more effort than if it were in San Fernando, where workers are exposed to cutting edge power generation technologies for generations. Tobago, a largely agrarian community can not dare boast of such exposure, nor can it develop such capacity overnight. Among the other problematic considerations is the arithmetic. A plasma plant does not work on known or static equations. Cursory research shows a medium PAG plant will require about 35 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) to make electricity to run twenty-eight modern homes daily. This volume is actually quite close to what Studley Park collects each day. Keeping to the idea of a central plant, 100 % of Tobago’s garbage could (in theory) disappear and .8 megawatt of energy benefits will accrue on top of the vapour. Yet how could anyone ever justify a US$9m - using figures based on same-sized deployments in Florida, to provide clean electricity for only 28 families. What about fulfilling demand when those homesteads need more juice? What about the rest of the population? Will they remain on the conventional grid, forced to pollute the atmosphere with electricity derived from fossil-based fuels? Will Tobago be forced to import MSW? The last is not actually a bad idea, Norway is doing it. Perhaps it may be a better idea to deploy smaller plasma gasification units for the different villages but then again who will maintain them. Tobago has trouble keeping even its shovels or forks in good repair. The global drive to responsible tourism (and aggressive environmental NGOs) may be what’s putting pressure to manage waste well, but Tobago does not need to break ground and buy into PAG unthinkingly. Something which would satisfy both the tourism and health sectors is deploying PAG to process medical waste. This is an ideal application for smaller units as the high temperatures PAG obtains obliterate all possible contaminants. For anything bigger though, Tobago may do bet-
“At the street level, this is manifest every time a ‘bess dress’ Tobagonian tosses a food box in the near gully drain or alley.”
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ter to simply wait and see. Moving away from PAG, here’s another suggestion. The THA could consider a more normal type of waste reducing mechanism; such as a mass burner of gas fired incinerator suitably outfitted to reduce toxic emissions. It could even make money off of the National Gas Company by disposing of the condensate collected at Cove. Even if they don’t feel comfortable with the idea now, there’s something Tobagonians need to keep in mind. Bespoke advice or not, Tobago can never justify spending millions of dollar on PAG or any other similar high tech waste reduction plan unless people here are willing to pay for the privilege of going green. Then again, they might. Tobagonians hate rubbish, they toss it out everyday.
Putting an end to wildlife crime Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies
“Many wildlife species are taken for their use as food, medicine, clothing and accessories, cosmetics and plants as building materials and furniture.”
To many, the purpose of preserving wildlife is for their aesthetic value in that they are beautiful and unique organisms and we will want them around so that our children and future generations will see them alive and not as taxidermied corpses in museums or only in photos in books. But wildlife also contributes to the scientific, ecological, educational, cultural, recreational, social and economic aspects of the well-being of humans and sustainable development of our environment. The 5th of March was the second World Wildlife Day, and this year marks the second time that world Wildlife Day will be celebrated after being declared on the 20th December 2013 at the 68th session of the UN General Assembly. The date commemorates the day the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) back in 1973. The purpose of this convention is that international trade should not jeopardize or threaten the survival of species. Basically what is now known as “wildlife crime.” Every year as is common with United Nations celebrations there is a theme that highlights a certain environmental problem. The theme of this year’s celebration is “Wildlife crime is serious; let’s get serious about wildlife crime.” So why has it taken so long to recognize this problem? Wildlife crime differs from country to country but the United Kingdom’s definition is one of the most concise where it is considered any action which contravenes current legislation governing the protection of the country’s wild animals and plants. Wildlife crime is regarded as the world’s fifth most profitable illegal trade falling behind; counterfeiting, drugs, guns and human trafficking. In terms of being a threat to the survival of species, it only ranks behind habitat destruction. It is regarded as “one of the largest transnational organized criminal activities in the world.” In 2013, 20,000 African elephants were killed and in 2014, 1,215 rhinos were poached. Wildlife crime is not only deadly to the organisms they steal but to those who protect them and in the past 10 years 1,000 rangers have lost their lives. Before going on any further it must be made clear that wildlife does not solely refer to animals but also includes plants. Actions that are considered wildlife crime is poaching of large animals like deer and aquatic animals such as fish. There-
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fore wildlife crime is not restricted to terrestrial ecosystems but can occur in aquatic ones as well. Persecution of animals is also considered a wildlife crime. Some animals that are frequently persecuted are bats and birds. Persecution of such animals includes disturbing their roosts and nests, trapping, shooting, poisoning or theft of offspring. The theft or collection of eggs of certain species is also considered a wildlife crime. Trade in the entire organism or body parts such as horns of elephants or rhinos, shells of tortoises, even caviar; recall that these are fish eggs. Therefore if the eggs are continuously collected and some are not allowed to develop, the species will go extinct. In some countries, the non-registration of certain animals and birds are required if they are to be kept in captivity or sold. But bear in mind that different countries will have different laws governing wildlife crimes. The targets of wildlife criminals are biological hot spots, which are typically the Neotropical regions such as Asia, Africa as well as the Caribbean. In the Caribbean we will feel the effects of wildlife crime more readily due to the small size of our islands and in turn the small areas of natural ecosystems found there. Also many of the islands in the Caribbean Archipelago were formed through volcanic activity so that their isolation from large land masses they enjoy a high level of endemism. Also many islands are dependent on ecotourism as a major source of income for their economy and supports the livelihood of many people. It is this section touted as the saviours of biodiversity may lead to their downfall. As mentioned earlier ecotourism is quite a large industry, however, wildlife criminals may pose as tourists to gain information and access to these animals and plants. Ecotourism is so popular in some areas that there are simply too any tourists and guides in a nature reserve at a time leading to difficulty in keeping track of their whereabouts. Based on this wildlife criminals can be placed into three categories; 1) the person who only commits a wildlife crime once in their lifetime; 2) the tourist who habitually commits wildlife crime and 3) those that commit scientific crime. One of the major effects of wildlife crime is its ability to degrade ecosystems. We need to keep in mind that al organisms play an important part in the ecosystem they are found in. In most cases those species targeted for wildlife trade are major predators whose role is population control of the prey species, such as lions and gazelles respectively. However, poachers will move on to another species if their supply of one species is depleted. Although one major predator species is removed others remain. However eventually the numbers of prey species will be too much for the remaining species to handle. Gazelles are grazers, so without keeping their numbers in check they could in extreme circumstances graze to the point that the soil has little vegetation to hold it together against erosion. Also with so many hooves, the rate of soil compaction increases, making it difficult for plants to send out their roots. Also the pores in the soil that contain water and air are gone. Many wildlife species are taken for their use as food, medicine, clothing and accessories, cosmetics and plants as building materials and furniture. It is estimated that 30% of the global timber trade is illegal, causing deforestation in tropical areas contributing to 10 to 15% of global emissions. One of the major tools in fighting wildlife crime is legislation. However for it to be successful, laws needs to be widely understood, as well as accepted and be practical to apply. There is also a call for wildlife crime to be deemed “serious crime.” Another major weapon against this type of crime is consumerism. We have the power to refuse to buy products that have been obtained illegally or manufactured using animals and plants that have been illegally obtained. This goes for businesses and the individual consumer. Many of these products are stolen due to mysti-
“Wildlife crime is not only deadly to the organisms they steal but to those who protect them and in the past 10 years 1,000 rangers have lost their lives.”
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cal beliefs such as, rhino horns which are thought to be a panacea to cure everything from acne to cancer. In this case educating the public on these myths will strike a great blow in the demand for these products. One thing that almost everyone has these days is a smart phone or a similar portable device like a laptop or tablet. Therefore one of the solutions in combatting wildlife crime is the use of technology. As a result some new apps have been developed to combat this atrocity. One app is called “Wildlife Guardian” which is used in China and is based on picture identification. So there is a database of 475 species highlighting the body parts that are targeted by poachers and illegal trade. This app is beneficial in that it does not require an internet connection, so you can use them in the middle of the forest. The United States Department of Defense is developing a similar app for military police since military personnel unwittingly bring in such goods as souvenirs from their travels, without knowing their potential criminal origins. So with all these tools at our disposal, let us do our part to put an end to wildlife crime.
ECOLOGY NOTES Population growth curves Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Dept of Life Sciences, university of the West Indies
“But if populations are not regulated the balance of the ecosystems is thrown out of sync.”
A major environmental concern is increasing global human population. It is estimated that the resources contained on this planet can support an estimated population of 10 billion. There are currently at just over seven billion humans. But is there enough resources to support all of the species on this planet. How do you determine how much of a resource is enough to support a population? There is a special subfield of ecology that deals with populations and is aptly names population ecology. One of the principles in this field is survivorship curves. A diagram of these curves looks boring and difficult to interpret but they are quite easy. There are three survivorship curves; Type I, Type II and Type III. Type I curves are exhibited by individuals that have a high survival rate from you to middle age, with most individuals dying when they reach old age. Humans exhibit this type of survivorship curve. In Type II curves the age of the individual does not influence when it dies. In other words, an individual has an equal chance of dying when it is young Survivorship curves Photo: Wikipedia or when it is old. Organisms that
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exhibit Type II curves include small birds and mammals. This is because these organisms can be killed by a predator at any age. Organisms that exhibit Type III curves have a high rate of mortality during their youth, but a much higher rate when it gets older. Plants and animals such as oysters with low mobility usually exhibit a Type III curve. Plants may be immobile but their seeds are not and can travel very far from the parent plant via wind, water or hitch a ride either on or in animals, however they have no choice in where they are deposited. So if they land on unsuitable substrate there is an increased chance that they will not survive. But if they land on suitable habitat they will survive to a ripe old age. With lesser mobile organisms they cannot move very much to more suitable habitat. We have to remember that all organisms are linked to each other in some way. For instance the waste products of metabolism by one organism is necessary for the survival of another organism. But if populations are not regulated the balance of the ecosystems is thrown out of sync.
LONERS Henry David Thoreau 1854. Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Boston: Tickner & Fields 357 pp. (Available on the wire from Project Gutenberg and several other sites.) Edward Abbey 1968. Desert Solitaire. New York: McGraw-Hill 269 pp. [Thirty-ninth in a series on "naturalist-in" books; see www.ckstarr.net/ reviews_of_naturalist.htm ] Christopher K. Starr Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies ckstarr@gmail.com
Here we turn to two very influential books, the first in this series with a strong polemical aspect. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and Edward Abbey (1927-1989), separated by a century and a continent, were united in a common subversive spirit. These books are reflections on simple living in natural surroundings. David Quammen (1998) writes of Desert Solitude that "A man wrote a book, and lives were changed." He could have said exactly the same about Walden. In the summer of 1845, Thoreau moved to a Modern replica of Thoreau's cabin on the woodland owned by his friend Ralph Waldo shore of Walden Pond Emerson outside of Concord, Massachusetts.
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“Chattel slavery was still the mainstay of the economy in much of the southern United States.“
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He lived there at a cost of next to nothing for two years in a cabin that he built on the shore of Walden Pond, a small lake. There are other lakes in the area, which remains fairly well forested today. The lake, formed by retreating glaciers about 11,000 years ago, has a surface area 25 hectares and a maximum depth of 31 m. On GoogleEarth, placing the cursor at 42°26'21"N 71°20'26"W will put you on top of where Thoreau's cabin was. His motivation was unambiguous. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when it came to death, discover that I had not lived." Walden is the account of his life there, compressed into a single year. It is a large book and a fairly difficult one, with plenty of metaphor, allusion, hyperbole, and synecdoche. Still, it repays the reading and has many quotable moments. As an example, the first chapter contains his famous remark that "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." He was by no means a hermit. Concord was within walking distance, and the a railway ran past the western end of the lake (and still does). Even so, it was a largely solitary existence of his own choosing. The townspeople regarded his project with bewilderment, but Thoreau remarked that "I am no more lonely that the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself." And "I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. ... I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude." Thoreau was certainly not anti-social. He enjoyed companionship and welcomed frequent visitors to his cabin, he just didn't want to be immersed in society all the time. There was nothing spectacular about the scene, yet solitude and a certain closeness with wild plants and animals were enough to stimulate the wellsprings of thought about human nature, human needs, society, and our relationship to the landscape and other species, and the cycle of the seasons. Anyone in such a situation would spend long daily moments of contemplation at the water's edge, and Thoreau reflected that "A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." Chattel slavery was still the mainstay of the economy in much of the southern United States. Thoreau was an ardent abolitionist, who spoke publicly against the Fugitive Slave Law and participated in the Underground Railroad, by which escaping slaves were guided in stages to friendly northern states and often into Canada. On one of his trips into town, he was arrested and spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a tax whose use he considered enabled slavery. Out of this arose his celebrated essay on civil disobedience (Thoreau 1849). In a rather thrilling passage, Thoreau declared that "The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my own good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" Likewise, he was convinced that much of what his neighbours regarded as indispensable was not only unnecessary but positively detrimental to their happiness. This is, perhaps, the most central of Thoreau's several large themes. He could satisfy his economic needs by working about six weeks in the year, leaving him free to read, write and contemplate. Furthermore, the ownership of the unnecessary was seriously detrimental beyond the time wasted in acquiring them. The townspeople were burdened by their property. At a time of growing public agitation for the abolition of chattel slavery, he noted that no one seemed very much concerned about this other kind of
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slavery. Much of the admiration for former president José Mujica of Uruguay is due to his shocking freedom from property slavery. Thoreau was a great reader, including of the classics, but he also believed that great truths can be found in nature. He took pleasure in the sounds heard from his cabin, both those of wild creatures and of distant livestock. And he amused himself by watching wildlife during the winter, with observations of the owls, hares, squirrels and mice that came to his feeders. In the spring, he delighted in the sight of annual plants breaking above the soil surface the sounds of migratory birds flying north and the ice breaking up on the lake. The townspeople seldom had the leisure to take note of such things. His occasional natural-history observations are engaging, although far from exact enough to count as research. As an example, in an essay on "Walking" we find the famous remark that "in wildness is the preservation of the world." "Our village would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness -- to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe, to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls on tis belly close to the ground." Edward Abbey was an established novelist before his first non-fiction, Desert Solitaire, subtitled A Season in the Wilderness. It appeared with almost no advertising in the very noisy year of 1968, yet it has had tremendous impact and was an important influence in the founding of the radical Earth First! movement. Some people are known to have changed the directions of their lives after reading it. Quammen (1998) calls it "a book about the power of landscape, about the rightness of human connectedness to landscape" and characterizes Abbey as "at once eloquent, angry, poetic, crude and funny as hell." Abbey was not trying to please everyone, as he said openly: "Serious critics, serious librarians, serious associate professors of English will, if they read this work, dislike it intensely; at least I hope so." He is politically best described as an anarchist with a strong focus of environmental issues. From the time he was 20, the FBI watched him and kept a file on him. On learning this years later, he remarked that he would have been offended if they had not found him suspicious. Like Thoreau, he was not an unsociable man. Most of his desert wandering was solitary simply because others didn't want to go where he did. The core of the book is about his time as a ranger in Arches National Park (38°43'59"N 109°35'33"W) near Moab, Utah. It is a very different place from Thoreau's woodland. The landscape is dominated by bare rocks over sandy soil, with no forest, lake or town anywhere nearby. There are large temperature differences between day and night, but constant dryness is the main factor. There are temporary pools after rain, and the few perennial water holes swarm with life if they are not too salty or poisonous. With experience one can learn to smell water in a way, through the smell of the cottonwood tree, which signifies the presence of water. However, it may signify water far below the surface and inaccessible to humans.
Arches National Park
“The landscape is dominated by bare rocks over sandy soil, with no forest, lake or town anywhere nearby.“
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“The aboriginal Asanazi people left the area 700 years earlier, leaving pictographs and petroglyphs on the sandstone. No one knows why they left.“
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The aboriginal Asanazi people left the area 700 years earlier, leaving pictographs and petroglyphs on the sandstone. No one knows why they left. This is place where the realities of life and death are close at hand. In a time before mobile phones, if Abbey had been injured out there he might very well have died long before anyone found him or even knew to look for him. In one chapter, he tells of joining a search party for a middle-aged tourist who had gone missing in the August desert two days earlier. As expected, they found him dead. In the midst of all this, Abbey was awestruck by the scenery and reflected that the departed had shown very good taste in his choice of a jumping-off place. On a solitary ramble, climbing down from a high cliff, he came to a place where there was no safe way down and no evident way back up. He did the sensible thing and took out a notebook, figuring he might as well at least write down his last thoughts, to be found who knows when. Then, looking away from his scribbling, he spotted a way that he might be able to ascend. Over many trials and re-trials he was able just barely to make his way from one trap up to another until he was back on the plateau, from which he had free movement. He would live to tell the tale, after all. However, it was raining and too late to make it back to camp, so he took shelter in a little cave. "I stretched out in the coyote den ... and suffered through the long night, wet, cold, aching, hungry, wretched, dreaming claustrophobic nightmares. It was one of the happiest nights of my life." Faced with this ever-present possibility, Abbey has some advice. If you find yourself on the point of dying of thirst, "crawl into the shade and contemplate the lovely sky. See those black scrawny wings far above, waiting? Comfort yourself with the reflection that within a few hours, if all goes as planned, your human flesh will be working its way through the gizzard of a buzzard, your essence transfigured into the fierce greedy eyes and unimaginable consciousness of a turkey vulture." Abbey, then, is very much a friend of wild creatures and has little use for the tame ones. As far as he is concerned, the best use of domestic dogs would be to grind them up as emergency rations for coyotes. He appreciates not just the harmless ones but rattlesnakes, also scorpions, centipedes and the black widow spider and refuses to kill any of them. However, he would prefer not to have rattlesnakes in his cabin, so he introduced a gopher snake in order to get rid of the mice that kept attracting rattlesnakes. I like that. It was a clever solution entirely in keeping with his ethic. The chapter on "The Moon-Eyed Horse" is a rather gripping story about his attempt to bring back into domestication a horse that had been living wild for 10 years. In trying to coax Moon-Eye to abandon his feral ways, Abbey recites a list of the comforts of civilization in the company of other horses and the dreadful prospect of dying all alone in some dry, forsaken canyon attended only by buzzards. In the end, Abbey tells us whether the attempt is successful, but he withholds the true punch-line: Does he believe his own propaganda, or does he think it better to live and die in wild pain than in tame comfort? By now you are not surprised to find that real object of Abbey's appreciation is both wider and deeper than wild organisms. In harmony with Thoreau, wilderness is for him "not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit", so that to destroy it is to cut ourselves off from our origins. "Wilderness, wilderness .... We scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of
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commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination." The word, itself, has a powerful allure for humans, speaking to something primeval in us. This is not to suggest that we should all live in a wild place; just knowing that it is there fulfills a need. And that is what makes Desert Solitaire a call to action, because "most of what I write about in this book is already gone or going under fast. This is not a travel guide but an elegy." The bringer of death to wild places, small and easy to overlook at first, is known as "progress" and the "industrial tourism" that follows. Initially, as the area is largely unknown without good roads, there are few tourists, but development changes all that. Abbey's very simple demand is that the national park system take seriously its primary responsibility "to preserve intact and undiminished what little still remains." Instead, we are witnessing the deliberate destruction of some of the grandest wild scenery through dam projects and other "progress". The chapter "Down the River" relates a grand rafting trip down Glen Canyon before it was dammed. The dam divided the Colorado River into an upper and a lower section. There is now an enormous accumulation of sediment above the dam, slowly filling Glen Canyon. Abbey's polemic against the erosion of wilderness is not mainly aimed at government officials falling down on the job but at the ordinary people who push for bit-bybit erosion. Tourists are always commenting on how wild places could be "improved". Overlooking a great, flat expanse in the Badlands of South Dakota, I once overheard a moron commenting that that would be a good place to put a golf course. That utterly grossed me out. Desert Solitaire, like Walden, is an attempt at radically changing such attitudes.
References Quammen, D. 1998. Wild Thoughts from Wild Places. New York: Simon & Schuster 304 pp. Thoreau, H.D. 1849. On the duty of civil disobedience. (Anthologized in many books and available on the wire from Project Gutenberg and other sites.)
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“He tells of joining a search party for a middle-aged tourist who had gone missing in the August desert two days earlier. As expected, they found him dead.“
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