By SUZANNE SHEPPARD Thursday, August 21 2008

MORE THAN a decade after thousands of hectares of land within the Nariva Swamp were deforested by illegal farmers, a project has been launched to restore those wetlands.

The Nariva Restoration Project (NRP) is one of several activities being undertaken to protect Trinidad and Tobago’s “living natural resources”, said Housing, Planning and Environment Minister Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde when she spoke at a “Show and Tell” on the project at Plum Mitan, Nariva.

The project, which is being undertaken by the Ministry of Housing, Planning and the Environment, the Forestry Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Environment Management Authority (EMA), involves replanting of approximately 1300 hectares of land.

The replanting is being done by villagers of Plum Mitan and Kernahan over a five-year period.

The World Bank provided grant funding to develop the reforestation plan, hydrology studies, a social impact assessment and the remote sensing of greenhouse gas emissions.

A brief on the project states: “The Nariva RAMSAR wetland has the most varied vegetation of all wetlands in Trinidad and Tobago, with distinct zones of swamp forest, palm swamp, herbaceous swamp and mangrove woodlands of distinct global biodiversity value.

“It is important for the large numbers of waterfowl, including migratory species, and it is the major wetland in Trinidad which still sustains anaconda (Eunectes murinus), the blue and golden macaw (Ara ararauna), and manatee (Trichechus manatus).”

The Nariva Swamp, which has been declared an Environmental Sensitive Area, covers 15,568 hectares of one of the most important natural habitats in Trinidad and Tobago. The wetlands cover approximately 7,000 hectares. The remainder is mostly covered by up-land forest, which surrounds the wetland and could be interpreted as a buffer/protection belt to the inland areas.

For several decades the area was subjected to “large scale ongoing deforestation and degradation”. In the1960s the Navet Dam was built upstream to divert water from the Navet River (the Nariva watershed) to the expanding developments in the West coast of Trinidad. Then from 1987 to 1996 illegal large commercial rice farmers caused further damage when they squatted on more than 1500 hectares of land. They cleared the forest, dug canals, burned the vegetation on a regular basis, and extensively used agrochemical as well as heavy machinery.

The illegal farmers were finally evicted in 1996, but their activities profoundly affected the hydrologic behavior of the Nariva Swamp and surrounding areas. Not only water was diverted away from the basin, but canals were dug preventing and restricting the flooding characteristic of the swamp. Forest fires became a serious concern.

“These alterations also resulted in swamp conditions favouring the growth of marsh vegetation and weed species. The proliferation of these plants causes drastic ecological changes to the swamp, affecting many animal species dependent on the vegetation for habitat and food,” the brief stated.

The restoration is being undertaken because, according to the experts, the pace of recovery of the wetlands, if unaided, “would take an exceedingly long time”.

The Minister noted: “Forests and natural communities, such as those of the Nariva Swamp, will play a key role in our nation’s mitigation and adaptation strategies to allow us to cope with climate change.

“Projects such as this restoration project will allow us to partly redress some of the consequences of traditional practices used in the past with respect to the management of the Nariva Swamp, while at the same time allow us to conduct important research to improve our understanding of the role of the swamp in removing carbon from the environment and storing it.”

TT’s government has ratified the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, making a commitment to conserve and manage the country’s natural resources in a sustainable way. The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilisation of wetlands. It recognises the fundamental ecological functions of wetlands and their economic, cultural, scientific, and recreational value. The official title is “The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat”. The convention was developed and adopted by participating nations at a meeting in Ramsar, Iran on February 2, 1971 and came into force on December 21, 1975.

Government has also ratified the Convention on Climate Change and signed the Kyoto Protocol and is giving priority to reducing rates of deforestation and protecting coastal ecosystems.

Other activities currently being undertaken to protect TT’s natural resources include the National Watershed Rehabilitation and Restoration Project, which aims to reforest 33,030 acres of forests over a ten-year period.

In addition the National Forest Policy is being revised and a new policy on National Parks is to be adopted.