More than planting trees

Rowley opted out of portions of Thursday’s debate on his Minister of Finance’s mid-term review, visiting a sapling farm in Biche and Forestry Division facilities in Rio Claro.

We hope this was not intended by the Prime Minister as an indirect commentary on the quality of the discourse that normally fills the august chamber at the International Waterfront Centre.

It is understood Rowley gave Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Clarence Rambharat a mandate to have a million saplings ready for planting in time for the rainy season. And Thursday’s tour was to allow the Prime Minister to see what progress was made on this initiative.

Rowley, a former agriculture minister, reportedly told the workers at Maper Farm that he was concerned about the wanton slashing and burning of the Northern Range.

This, he said, has made it easy for forests fires to ravage the hillside and leave areas vulnerable to major flooding and landslides during the rainy season. Even in his own constituency of Diego Martin West, Rowley said, he is very concerned about destruction of the vegetation on the hills, recalling some constituents have lost their homes because of heavy flooding linked to deforestation.

Issues involving how we interact with the environment are not just matters relating to one public official’s personal views and preferences. As the case of forest ranger Keith Campbell last year showed, they are matters of life and death.

Indiscriminate slashing and burning is but one of the many offences on our charge sheet.

Also appalling is the practice of quarrying – sometimes at the behest of the State – which has scarred our landscape. Reforestation has been an ongoing activity in the ministry for years. However, there has been little transparency in how this programme has been working. How effective has it been over the years? And has it remained responsive to environmental changes? Reforestation is not only important in preserving physical safety, it is key to the atmosphere as well. As a nation this country has one of the highest rates of carbon emissions per capita in the hemisphere. Trees play a vital role in the delicate ecosystem that regulates our weather.

Last month marked exactly one year since Trinidad and Tobago joined 174 other countries in signing the historic Paris Climate Change Agreement at a special high-level signing event at United Nations Headquarters in New York on April 22, 2016.

However, the fact is this agreement is more or less in tatters given the position of US President Donald Trump and his Republican Party (American philosopher and historian Noam Chomsky this week reaffirmed that the Republican Party is “the most dangerous organisation in human history” because of its efforts to reverse climate change measures).

France’s new President, Emmanuel Macron, however campaigned heavily on a stance in favour of this agreement and has even called on US scientists to come to France to continue work on the matter.

It is a good thing to see the Prime Minister taking the lead.

It speaks volumes when the head of the Government makes an effort to underline issues relating to how we treat the environment as well as to the natural habitat of our precious wildlife.

It is also important that the Ministry of Agriculture be brought into the modern era and that it be repurposed to fit our needs in an era when so much is at stake at home and abroad. That should be the next stop.