Tragedy on Lady Chancellor

Seeing the work of years going up in the smoke and flames of bush fires — is the answer. All are involved in the National Reforestation and Watershed Rehabilitation Programme (NRWRP), a programme of vital national importance to prevent soil erosion and the floods of the rainy season that wreck roads and bridge, ruin household appliances and furniture, sweep away humble homes and cause huge losses in the private sector.

I’m past the stage of climbing steep hills to photograph the damage myself, I’ve found some Sunday Newsday photographers not as fit as they thought when faced with steep slopes — which is why I’ve not been able to feature the Port-of-Spain community groups planting trees on the steep sides of the St Ann’s Valley, nor the Almond Court group above and well beyond the Lady Young, or those planting trees high on the hills above Tunapuna (I may yet make Kernahan).

Fortunately for the United Welfare Organisation I was able to photograph the damage wrought by bush fires on their plantations from the Lady Chancellor Look-Out (or Belvedere as it once was?).

President of the organisation, John Belgrave, was waiting to show me the ruin of five years’ work by (so it appears) someone who was determined to dine on wild meat.

I wish I had visited the United Welfare Organisation’s 150 acres late last year to see and photograph their plantings of mahogany, cyp, poui, jamoon, chennet, mango, coconut, tamarind, pine, hog plum, crapaud, balata and Caribbean pine. But, as I hope you may see, all I saw from the Lookout on May 5 were scorched pines, blackened stems of once-vigorous young trees and — ashes.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the hill of Lady Chancellor is (or was) an island of refuge for wildlife. Alpheus Ottley, vice president of the United Welfare Organisation ticked off a list of animals and insects that lived and thrived on the slopes under the young trees; these were: tattoo, manicou, iguana, matapal, agouti, macajuel, mapepire, butterflies and birds (he did not specify the species). It may surprise some Sunday Newsday readers to hear he also lamented the fiery end of a corbeaux nest. He knew most people don’t much like corbeaux but he pointed out that they are useful, being nature’s own garbage disposers.

United Welfare will have to wait for the rains before they know exactly how many trees have been lost. Some are fire resistant and could recover, even in their weakened condition, provided there are no more bush fires next year or the next. But some have been destroyed completely by the fires.

In fact the group assembled that morning were about to prepare the land ready for re-planting once the rains set in in earnest. They had seen the wreck of three-quarters of their five years’ work in sun and rain on the slopes of Lady Chancellor, but, knowing the importance of the programme, they knew that, even though it would take another five years to do so, they had to do their endeavour best to repair the damage … only provided Government will continue to support the programme.

But there have been problems. Fondes Amandes, given a grant from the Green Fund specifically to protect the watershed as requested by WASA, were dumbfounded when the Ministry of Agriculture ceased to pay worker’s wages for the reforestation programme that, as I understand it, is entirely separate from the WASA project. With no funds, reforestation comes to a grinding halt, together with the most necessary construction of check dams and the clearing of watercourses before the rainy season to help prevent flooding.

All groups planting on hillsides should be clearing watercourses and constructing check dams and preparing land for planting. However, I get the impression that money is a problem, that the ministry has instituted a strict accounting system, suspecting some (possibly with reason) of abusing the system so that all find themselves paying (or not getting paid) for the sins of a few.

But, to return to the United Welfare, they, too, have attended courses in growing fruit and vegetables, in anger management, in small business management, in payroll preparation and in First Aid.

As with other groups, over the years there has been some turnover in the membership. Those finding permanent employment elsewhere, left, others didn’t find the work congenial.

Those who stayed with the programme said they’d learned to appreciate nature (most no longer feared, or killed snakes including mapepires); they had come to understand the role of trees in protecting the watershed and preventing flooding. At present the group is short of about ten of the full complement of 35 — and with so much work to repair the fire damage, more hands are needed for replanting, due to the tragedy caused by the wickedly selfish who set those fires “to eat some wild meat”.