The mischief of bush fires

As it was last year, so it was, too in 1979 when there were showers damping down the bush fires threatening to bring down floods and dry up our water resources — and I wrote . . . “All through March God, or Providence or whichever Power has dominion over our weather has been marvellously good to the children of Trinidad and Tobago. The unexpected, unseasonable, truly blessed showers of soft rain have saved this land from those terrible enemies of our own making —bush fires.

Although we might have hoped that the Ministry of Education and Culture would also be making a special effort to save the children in this International Year of the Child, we hoped in vain. Day after day, week in, week out, in shifts or full-time classes, the lessons continue: lessons in reading and writing and new maths, in social science, French and Spanish, physics and chemistry, trades and crafts. All this, so the Ministry seems to think, will prepare future citizens and voters to take their places in our green and pleasant land. Or what was a green and pleasant land when the citizens and  voters of two thousand and two were learning their ABCs. (2003 note — oh, how I hate to be proved right! Look around you today and for “green and pleasant” substitute “scorched and desolate”.)

I can’t help wondering what will be left of our native forests by the time those children grow up. Already half the hills around Diego Martin, Port-of Spain, all the way out to Arima and beyond have been stripped of forest cover, where only the highly inflammable razor grass replaces the tall trees. The men and women in the Ministry of Education and Culture have only to look around the country to see that man is the most destructive creature on God’s earth. They, too, should know that of all human beings, it is children who can do the most damage at home, in school, in the world outside, because children aren’t angels (2003, and how, as we’ve been learning — to our cost). Children are curious; they like to experiment and, when they find a good game, they want to go on playing it over and over again.

One of the favourite games in March and Easter holidays is to start a fire with a box of matches and some dead leaves, and then run a little way away to watch the fire appliances come screaming up the road to “out” the fire. That game is much, much better than TV because it’s real. No one has told the children that fires are dangerous. No one has taught them that the bush preserves their water supplies, stops flooding and so protects cattle, poultry and crops to keep down the cost of food. Some say parents ought to teach their children about the laws of nature and the damage done by bush fires — but too often the city-bred parent has never learned those laws, doesn’t know how dreary, hot and dangerous life will be when Trinidad and Tobago has no more bush to clean the air.

Teenagers liming under a tree in a city street probably never stop to think that if one tree can cool a patch on burning hot pavements, then a whole hillside will keep all the land fresh and cool. In this International Year of the Child we can’t blame the children for the bush fires that broke out after school, every weekend and reached their peak every day in the Easter vacations of 1977 and ‘78. The blame is ours because we did not teach the children that what they were doing was wrong and a threat to their own future. Up to the moment of writing (2003: The first week in April), a miracle of nature has saved Trinidad in 1979. Commuters cursed the wet, slippery roads, sportsmen and women swore when rain stopped play, outdoor evening fetes were ruined and road and building projects held up by the extraordinary rains of March. On the other hand, gardeners gave thanks, field naturalists and conservationists blessed the rains. The Forestry Division breathed a sigh of relief that TT$600 million worth of teak plantations and an untold wealth of wild mahogany, crappo and other economically valuable timber trees were safe from bush fires. WASA and the Water Resource Agency knew that at least this year they wouldn’t have to face the wrath of the waterless masses.

Only the Ministry of Education and Culture remained unmoved by the miracle of the March rains.  They have no plans to teach the children of the many dangers of bush fires. The Minister himself would be interested to see plans for a pilot project on the subject — if someone else would draw them up, submit them to the Ministry and hope all that hard work doesn’t get lost in a bureaucratic file or sub-committee. One gets the impression that planners in the Ministry are far too busy drawing up syllabuses (syllabi?) for the new local examinations and teaching useful trades to spend time on a matter of life and death for the long-term future of our children. Meanwhile squatting gardeners set the example of slash-and-burn for mischievous, thrill-seeking children . . . Isn’t it more than time that we taught the children to fear bush fires — lest we allow this land to be destroyed by ignorant children (teenagers included), criminally careless motorists, deliberately destructive slash-and-burn gardeners — and the studied indifference of those whose job it is to educate us all?”