Idea of national parks

CONSERVATIONISTS, indeed all TT-loving citizens, will be pleased with the Prime Minister's announcement on Monday of a new environmental thrust for the country. This is an area of the country's national life that, for whatever reason, has never received the kind of caring and consistent attention from the authorities that it deserves. The result has been a gradual deterioration of the environment not only from deliberate or uncaring polluters and degraders but also from a lack of official concern, a failure to enhance and promote TT's rich natural and historical heritage. While governments have seen fit to have a Ministry of the Environment as part of their administration, we cannot recall this office undertaking any positive programme of improvement on a national scale or any initiative to inculcate a love and appreciation for the environment among our people, particularly members of our school-age population.

In this lamentable context, one can only hope that the plans announced by Mr Manning on Monday will be more than the earnest but empty rhetoric that officials have ritually bestowed on the environment over the years. To a large extent, Trinidadians, enjoying a high degree of mobility, are lovers of the out-doors, the evidence for which is obvious in the crowds which flock to our beaches on weekends. This is why, we feel sure, they would particularly welcome the plan to establish a number of National Parks and Wild Life Conservation Projects to be funded and assisted by international sources. As far as we know, only the Queen's Park Savannah and the Botanical Gardens serve as unofficial national parks but they do not have the kind of organisation, supervision and security that national parks should have. There are areas in north, central and south Trinidad and also in Tobago where such parks can be ideally established. Such places will offer our citizens additional opportunities for quiet relaxation in natural and scenic surroundings which we expect will have adequate protection and security. Civilised countries all over the world have their national parks which exercise their own kind of therapy by providing their societies with the space to engage in a number of healthy activities which ease the burden and tensions of the workplace or the monotony and drudgery of domestic life. We feel sure that many of these countries will be willing to help the TT government in this environmental thrust.

Two other considerations come to mind with the PM's announcement. The first is the present public alarm over the level of crime in TT and the caution, even worry, that our citizens now have as they move about in the conduct of their daily business. If this menace is not controlled, how prone will our people be to venture out to national parks which may be situated in relatively remote places? The second concerns the need to instill in our young people a love of their country, both in terms of its natural heritage and what it offers for their individual personal development. National parks can also serve this purpose but we wonder to what extent they would be appreciated, having regard to the sorry experience the National Library has had from the influx of students given free access to its facilities. It is sad to realise that generations of young people are growing up without a true sense of patriotism, an appreciation of their country and what it has to offer, a genuine respect for authority and the established order. We remember many years ago, the annual school outing to interesting and historic places in TT was an exciting and much anticipated event in the lives of students. Nothing, as far as we know, has ever replaced that as a means of fostering the love of country in our young people.