Biodiversity v. Industrialisation

Trinidad and Tobago needs to find new ways to confront the ‘classic clash’ of the protection of a rich biodiversity pitched against industrialisation, says world renowned Trinbagonian biologist, Professor John Agard of T & T’s St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies.

In geological terms Trinidad and Tobago is a relatively new country, having disconnected from the South American mainland just 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. It means a distinctive South American fauna and flora (akin to Brazil’s and Guyana’s) yet, like many other Antillean islands, it has a high number of indigenous fauna and flora including birds, reptiles, butterflies, frogs, marine turtles and mammals. “On a world tabulation of species per square metre, Trinidad and Tobago is right up in the top group which is quite extraordinary”, says Professor Agard, who heads St. Augustine’s Department of Life Sciences.

Yet the twin-island state of Trinidad and Tobago is one of only two islands in the world that are net exporters of oil and related products, Bahrain being the other. It is the world’s largest exporter of ammonia, the fifth largest exporter of liquefied natural gas and one of the top exporters of both ethanol and urea, says Professor Agard. Oil and gas fuelled industrialisation means thought is being given to evaluating “ecosystem services provided by the biodiversity”, he adds.

One such service is what Professor Agard refers to as ‘evapo transferation’ due to the fact that over a half of Trinidad and Tobago has forest vegetation. The forested areas cause moisture in the atmosphere to rise where it cools and rains in other non- forested areas. Tobago’s Main Ridge Reserve is one of the oldest protected areas in the Western hemisphere. “There is a lovely document dating back to the 1600s declaring it a protected area for the preservation of the rains”, says Professor Agard. Other ‘ecosystem services’ are the development of pharmaceuticals from plants and the erosion protection through coral reefs. A study done in Tobago by the World Resources Institute, together with some associations in Trinidad and Tobago, found that the coastline in Tobago is eroding faster where there are no coral reefs. It puts the value of erosion services of coral at US$30M per annum, a not inconsiderable sum given that Tobago has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$250M per annum.

Lines of communication

Together with other scientists and economists, Professor Agard says he is working on an EU-funded study that is using the economists’ bag of tricks to a do a proper cost/benefit analysis of ecosystem services in T & T. Although reluctant to place a value on everything, he sees advantages in this type of approach since it opens lines of communications with the decision-makers on biodiversity who would otherwise view biologists as, ‘hysterical tree huggers’. This allows planning choices to be made, he says; the economic benefits of building a hotel weighed against the destruction done by blasting out coral for hotel construction.

Another biodiversity service is eco-tourism. “Tobago has a unique character; low level development, mostly original vegetation, ancient forests and a more genteel atmosphere. People like its ‘islandness’; the mangroves, coral, different vegetation culture, way of speaking. This has a value and without the biodiversity, this advantage would disappear”, says Professor Agard. He says that naturally occurring bacteria that break down oil present in oil seeps on Trinidad are also being researched.

“In the Convention on Biological Diversity, a target was set years ago for no significant loss of biodiversity by 2010 and this has not happened anywhere in the world”, says Professor Agard. He would like biodiversity to have the same global status as climate change including the setting up of an Intergovernmental Panel. “Unlike climate change, biodiversity is not on the lips of all the presidents and prime ministers”, he says, adding, “it costs more the longer you wait”.

And in Trinidad and Tobago, Professor Agard feels the government should embark on more long-term planning about where the country is heading beyond the exhaustible resources of oil and gas. This should include more emphasis on protecting biodiversity and encouraging renewable energy and a more information-based and services economy, not forgetting the need for more and better managed protected areas to preserve biodiversity, he says.

Trailblazers: Fondes Amandes

“This is fever grass (lemon grass) which can be used to make a tea when you have flu”, points out Akilah Jaramogi who is the Project Manager of the Fondes Amandes Community Project in the hills behind Port of Spain. Jaramogi pioneered the project 27 years ago with her late husband, Tacuma and a “bunch of people squatting in the hills”. Now a community of 27 people, it sells organic plants and seedlings and is a place where schools, other groups and individuals go to find out more about the medicinal benefits of the flora on well-maintained trails cut through the forest vegetation. She explains how the forest cover also creates a fire climax zone, preventing the spread of fire towards heavily populated Port of Spain.

The Community has been able to develop with backing from international donors, including a small grant from a three-year project, ‘Practices and policies that improve forest management and the livelihoods of the rural poor in the insular Caribbean’, funded under the European Commission’s (EC’s) Programme on Tropical Forests and other Forests in Developing Countries. Run by the T & T-based Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) the project is empowering local communities to take the lead in forest management in similar projects in eight Caribbean nations, explains Nicole Leotaud, CANARI’s Executive Director. Akilah Jaramogi would like to take the Fondes Amandes project to another level, including the development of an eco-tourism lodge where visitors can stay overnight. One issue she would also like to see resolved is the security of tenure of land occupied by Fondes Amandes to ensure the Community’s longevity.

Debra Percival