Dozens of Venezuelan asylum seekers and refugees flocked to the Our Lady of Perpetual Help RC Church in San Fernando on Monday, hoping to get assistance ahead of the government's May 31 registration.
From as early as 7 am, the Venezuelans gathered at the church on Harris Promenade where they were interviewed by officials from the Living Waters Community.
A spokesman at the church said through the Living Waters Community, Venezuelans get assistance with housing, health, education, documentation, security and other social services. Living Waters Community is also the implementing agency for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNCHR).
Venezuelan national Joseph Figuera, his wife Daniella and their daughter Victoria were among those who came for help.
Figuera said he came to Trinidad nine months ago and was interested in getting registered as an asylum seeker.
Asked how he was coping, Figuera said his mother was Trinidadian so he was faring better than most Venezuelans.
During the interview, a security guard at the compound called Figuera and told him he will not get any help if he spoke to the Guardian.
Earlier the same guard barred Guardian Media from entering the church compound saying it was private property.
She said she had instructions from senior officials not to allow the Guardian inside their premises.
Other Venezuelans who stopped to talk with the Guardian outside the church gates were advised not to comment if they wanted help.
However, when contacted, an official from the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency said it works closely with the Living Waters Community to ensure that Venezuelans who fleeing the horrific conditions in their homeland are treated well.
A senior official at Living Waters Community said it conducts registration twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.
UNHCR Registration staff conduct registration interviews, enroll persons in UNHCR’s Biometric Identity Management System (BIMS), and issues and renews UNHCR documentation.
Under the UNHCR, asylum seekers have the right to live in an environment free from discrimination, regardless of ethnicity, colour, sex, language, religion, political opinion, nationality, economic position, birthplace or any other personal attribute.
According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, any person whose life is in danger in their own country has the right to seek protection and asylum in another country.
The Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago guarantees rights without discrimination on the basis of race, origin, colour, religion or sex.
On May 31, Venezuelans who do not have a criminal record will be registered in T&T.
Once they are cleared, they will be given the opportunity to live and work in T&T for a year.
- by Radhica De Silva. Photo by Kristian De Silva. Source: CNC3 May 2019

Rook­min Mathu­ra is 104 years old but she still walks with a pep in her step.
To prove her en­er­gy lev­els and re­mark­able abil­i­ties, Mathu­ra, dressed in her gold­en dress and orhni, gave a brisk and dig­ni­fied walk for the Guardian Me­dia crew dur­ing her birth­day par­ty cel­e­bra­tions last Sat­ur­day.
Four gen­er­a­tions in­clud­ing her sev­en daugh­ters, sev­en sons and a mul­ti­tude of grands who at­tend­ed the cel­e­bra­tion, ap­plaud­ed loud­ly.
Her youngest daugh­ter Cin­ty Nar­ine who vis­it­ed from New York said it was her wish to re­turn home and hug her moth­er.
Hav­ing been abroad for 19 years, Nar­ine said it was amaz­ing that her moth­er still had such abil­i­ties and ab­solute­ly no health com­pli­ca­tions.
“She has nev­er been in the hos­pi­tal for any ail­ment. Up to when she was 86, she was still mind­ing cows and mak­ing a gar­den.
“She was al­ways a hard work­er. Then we de­cid­ed that was too much for her and we got rid of the cows,” she said.
She added that Mathu­ra no longer cooks but still does every­thing else for her­self.
“She has no di­a­betes, heart prob­lems, stroke, noth­ing. If she walks in the sun she gets a bit dizzy but that is it,” she added.
Nar­ine said Mathu­ra’s moth­er came to Trinidad as an in­den­tured labour­er. Mathu­ra was born in 1915.
Dur­ing an in­ter­view, Mathu­ra said she had for­got­ten how old she was. She said she spent most of her life work­ing on the es­tate.
“I had sev­en daugh­ters and sev­en sons and all are alive,” she said. How­ev­er, her hus­band died 57 years ago, leav­ing her to care for her chil­dren sin­gle-hand­ed­ly. She nev­er mar­ried but raised an­i­mals, plant­ed a gar­den and en­sured that all of the chil­dren had a firm spir­i­tu­al up­bring­ing.
One of her great-grand­sons, Chris­t­ian Rud­der, said he was thank­ful that his great grand­moth­er was still around. He said de­spite her age, she was al­ways ac­tive.
“She so old but she does still be cut­ting grass. She has a cut­lass which she us­es every day. She loves to walk the vil­lage and check peo­ple. This is how she stays hap­py,” Rud­der said.
He added that she was full of wis­dom.
So what was her best ad­vice?
“She said girls are too hard­en and don’t study them. She tells me that do some­thing bet­ter than that like my school work be­cause girls are trou­ble,” Rud­der laughed.
He added that Mathu­ra al­so ad­vis­es them to stay away from cig­a­rettes and al­co­hol.
“She says she used to drink and smoke and it did not do her good. Now she eats lots of veg­eta­bles and she re­mains ac­tive,” Rud­der said.
Mathu­ra’s favourite food is dhal, rice and bha­gi.
“She doesn’t know how to sit qui­et­ly. She likes to move around. She talks a lot. She loves to tell us what hap­pened in her ear­ly days. I want to thank God that she is here and I could still see her, hug her and love her,” Rud­der said.
Mathu­ra and all of her fam­i­ly went to the beach on Sun­day to cel­e­brate her life.
Source: Sheldon Awai, FB, April 25, 2019

Laventille teen gets into US Ivy League university
Every year Princeton University in New Jersey, USA, receives around 35,000 applications for entry. Fewer than 2,000 applicants are admitted, making the private Ivy League institution one of the most difficult schools to get into.
But not only was 19-year-old Laventille resident Jafar Howe accepted into Princeton, but he also got accepted into Dartmouth College, another Ivy League school in the USA.
He grew up in Quarry Street, Laventille.
Howe told the Express when he sent out the applications he was not optimistic.
He had narrowly missed out on a Government scholarship despite performing well in the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency (CAPE) exams.

To­ba­go’s Main Ridge For­est Re­serve has been named the Caribbean Na­ture Park of the Year in the Caribbean Jour­nal’s Caribbean Awards 2019.
Caribbean Jour­nal (CJ) is the world’s largest web­site cov­er­ing the Caribbean, has orig­i­nal con­tent and video fo­cus­ing on trav­el and tourism across the en­tire Caribbean and is the glob­al leader in cov­er­ing Caribbean trav­el and trade news.
Ac­cord­ing to the Jour­nal, the Green Awards are meant to “cel­e­brate those who are al­ready work­ing to pro­tect and strength­en this beau­ti­ful cor­ner of the world.”
In the ar­ti­cle post­ed on their web­site, Caribbean Jour­nal em­pha­sised that be­ing “green” en­com­pass­es re­new­able en­er­gy, lo­cal and sus­tain­able tourism, and con­sid­er­a­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment.
To­ba­go’s Main Ridge For­est Re­serve, which was recog­nised by Caribbean Jour­nal as the Caribbean Na­ture Park of the Year, was de­clared a Crown Re­serve in 1776 mak­ing it the old­est legal­ly pro­tect­ed for­est re­serve in the West­ern Hemi­sphere es­tab­lished for a con­ser­va­tion pur­pose.
It was al­so nom­i­nat­ed as a UN­ESCO World Her­itage Site in Au­gust 2011, and was vot­ed the “World’s Lead­ing Eco-Tourism des­ti­na­tion” by the World Trav­el Awards in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
The Caribbean Jour­nal de­scribed the Re­serve as “a liv­ing ex­am­ple of the pow­er of con­ser­va­tion and one whose con­tin­ued stew­ard­ship sends a dai­ly mes­sage to the rest of the re­gion. It’s al­so one of the most re­mark­able places to vis­it in the re­gion, a haven of bio­di­ver­si­ty and a por­tal in­to the nat­ur­al splen­dor of this gem of the South­ern Caribbean.”
The Main Ridge For­est Re­serve is one of the is­land’s at­trac­tions that form part of its thriv­ing eco-tourism prod­uct—one of the four pil­lars for growth of the tourism in­dus­try iden­ti­fied by the To­ba­go Tourism Agency.
Vis­i­tors to the re­serve can en­joy its lush trop­i­cal beau­ty through guid­ed tours, na­ture walks, bird watch­ing and moun­tain bik­ing.
Source:  CNC3

Over 90 Venezuelan passengers trying to get into TT through the Cedros port were turned back by T&T Coast Guard as patrols on the border heightened on Thursday.
With intensified street protests and violent clashes on the streets of Venezuela, hundreds of desperate Venezuelans have found the fresh resolve to flee their homeland.
A source who requested anonymity said two ferries Orinoco Delta and Angel were scheduled to arrive at the Cedros port on Thursday. The Orinoco Delta was transporting 60 passengers, including one Trinidadian man with his passport.
The Angel had 35 passengers which included two Venezuelan women who are married to Trinidadian men and an elderly Venezuelan woman. She had a Trinidadian passport and was accompanied by a child believed to be her grandson.
The source said upon reaching about two miles off the Cedros coast, the TT Coast Guard interceptor stopped the Angel. They detained the passengers at sea for more than an hour, perusing documents. All of the Venezuelans were sent back except the grandmother and the two women with Trinidadian husbands.
The grandmother was distraught that the grandson was separated from her, the source added.
The Angel had been registered to dock at the Cedros port, the source added.
The Orinoco Delta which normally comes to Cedros port at least three times per week was also stopped by the Coast Guard. For more than an hour, the vessel stayed out at sea. The lone Trinidadian was taken back to the port via the Coast Guard vessel but after an hour of detention, the ferry with almost 60 passengers was also sent back by the TTCG.
"No instructions were given to Customs and officers were later briefed. It is not usual for the ferries to be sent back because Venezuelans come here to shop for basic groceries and medicine to take back to their families, " the source added.
At the Cedros coast, dozens of people waited for the ferries to dock up to 430 pm. It was through WhatsApp that some of them learned the TTCG had detained the ferries.
One man who took videos of the Coast Guard was warned by CG officers who threatened to arrest him if he failed to delete the video.
Contacted for comment, councilor for Cedros Shankar Teelucksingh said he was puzzled by the developments.
He said the TTCG should have informed the ferry owners that they were not allowed to enter the Cedros port prior to their departure in Venezuela.
Teelucksingh said the TTCG should focus on cracking down on the illegal entry of Venezuelans.
"This kind of thing will cause Venezuelans to choose the illegal way to enter rather than the legal way" he added.
Teelucksingh also said better lockdown of the borders were needed for those boats bringing in illegal migrants.
Contacted for comment yesterday Public Affairs Lieutenant of the TT Coast Guard Officer Hillaire said a statement will be issued pending investigations.
Since tensions escalated in Venezuelan in January, hundreds of Venezuelans have been entering TT through several points in the southern coast.
These include Galfa Point, Carlise Trace, Coromandel, Chatham, Green Hill, Icacos, Columbus Bay and Fullarton Beach.
The foreigners are dropped off on the beach. They hide out in the forests at nights and by 5 am they are picked up in maxi taxis by Trinidadian men.
Venezuelans normally spend between $1,500 to $2,000 to get to Trinidad.
The fees are paid in US and are non-refundable.
It is estimated that there are between 40,000 to 50,000 Venezuelans living illegally in TT. An estimated 700 Venezuelans come through the Cedros port weekly.
Source:  CNC3

Va­grants have moved in­to Li­on House, the child­hood home of late No­bel Lau­re­ate VS Naipaul, which is in an ad­vanced state of di­lap­i­da­tion and could col­lapse at any time.
The once ma­jes­tic white struc­ture made fa­mous in Naipaul’s book, A House for Mr Biswas, in which he trans­forms the rep­re­sen­ta­tions of li­ons carved on the front of the build­ing in­to the Hin­du mon­key-god Hanu­man.
How­ev­er, al­though it has un­der­gone ex­ten­sive restora­tion works in the past, Li­on House was left aban­doned fol­low­ing the death of at­tor­ney Suren­dranath Capildeo, grand­son of Pun­dit Capildeo, the in­den­tured labour­er who built the house.
Re­gard­ed as one of the ar­chi­tec­tur­al trea­sures, the build­ing is list­ed by the Na­tion­al Trust and is con­sid­ered to be of ma­jor his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance in cen­tral Trinidad.
Ch­agua­nas May­or Gopaul Bood­han and Tabaquite MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan, who vis­it­ed the build­ing yes­ter­day, came up­on Su­ruj Samuel, a home­less man who sleeps in front of the di­lap­i­dat­ed doors of the struc­ture. Samuel is one of sev­er­al va­grants now oc­cu­py­ing the struc­ture. He stores his few pos­ses­sions in card­board box­es and sleeps un­der a rot­ted wood­en beam that could col­lapse at any time.
Ram­bachan, a res­i­dent of Ch­agua­nas, said he was very dis­heart­ened at the state of Li­on House. He es­ti­mates that it will col­lapse with­in two years un­less ur­gent re­pairs are done.
He peered through a groove in the wood­en front doors held to­geth­er by a rusty pad­lock at the in­te­ri­or of the build­ing where the floors have caved in and there are signs of ma­jor wa­ter dam­age.
“I am very, very dis­turbed, dis­heart­ened and de­pressed at what I am see­ing hap­pen­ing to Li­on House here in Ch­agua­nas,” he said.
“This is one of the most trag­ic things I am see­ing in my coun­try at this point in time. The de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of this build­ing says some­thing about our val­ue for our his­to­ry and our an­ces­try.”
Ram­bachan said he hopes the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties will see it fit to con­duct im­me­di­ate re­pairs.
“If you can­not ap­pre­ci­ate where you came from, you would nev­er be able to build the kind of fu­ture that would be one our chil­dren can be proud of,” he said.
He rec­om­mend­ed that the build­ing be ac­quired by Gov­ern­ment and “re­stored with the same en­thu­si­asm that was placed in the restora­tion of Stollmey­ers Cas­tle.”
Bood­han said since the prop­er­ty is pri­vate­ly owned there is very lit­tle the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion apart from get­ting the va­grants to re­lo­cate.
Li­on House was last re­stored in the ear­ly 1990s by Suren­dranath Capildeo who re­tained ar­chi­tect Col­in Laird to ad­vise on and su­per­vise the project, award­ed to EWAC & Co. Ltd with Glen Es­pinet in charge.
Work was halt­ed for a view years dur­ing which the build­ing was van­dalised, so the project had to start all over again. The restora­tion was even­tu­al­ly com­plet­ed in 2001 with all the costs borne by Capildeo.
In 2013, then tourism min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz an­nounced that a mas­ter plan was be­ing de­vel­oped to trans­form Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va, in­to an East In­di­an her­itage site. That plan in­clud­ed restora­tion of the Li­on House. He said a bud­get had al­ready been for­mu­lat­ed for the restora­tion work and dis­cus­sions would be held with Capildeo.
How­ev­er, since Capildeo’s death in 2016, Li­on House has been left aban­doned.
The Li­on House has been many things to many peo­ple in its ear­ly his­to­ry. It was the meet­ing place for many trav­ellers from all over Trinidad who were pass­ing through Ch­agua­nas.
It was al­so an ear­ly com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre for the res­i­dents of Ch­agua­nas and sur­round­ing ar­eas. It was the nat­ur­al home for Hin­du Pil­grims wher­ev­er they may have resided in Trinidad. At some point in their lives, they gath­ered for com­fort un­der the awnings of the Li­on House on the Main Road, Ch­agua­nas. Gan­ja was sold at the Li­on House and it was con­sumed there, by the pub­lic with­out any dis­com­fort to any­one.
Source:  The Guardian, March 2019

Deep in the Trin­i­ty forests about 13 miles from the coast lies one of T&T's best-kept se­crets—a warm salt wa­ter vol­cano or salt spring, pos­si­bly the on­ly one of its kind in the world.
Salt Spring—the Rio Claro Salt Wa­ter Vol­cano—was record­ed in a pub­li­ca­tion in 1959 by Swiss ge­ol­o­gist Dr Hans Ku­gler, but it was on­ly two years ago a team of 37 ge­ol­o­gists went back to the site, defin­ing it and mak­ing it known pub­licly.
De­spite this, the vol­cano re­mains un­der-ex­plored to many cit­i­zens. The rocks around the vol­cano are spongy be­neath your feet. A coral-like for­ma­tion known as "tu­fa" ex­ists on the flanks of the vol­cano, which plunges around 250 feet down­hill to meet the salt wa­ter riv­er in the area, which is de­void of veg­e­ta­tion.
Re­searchers have been try­ing to as­cer­tain why the wa­ter which flows from the vol­cano is salty, see­ing that the near­est coast is 25 kilo­me­tres away.
Around 100 feet from the salt wa­ter vol­cano is a ma­jor oil seep, which al­so flows down to­ward the salt wa­ter riv­er.
Se­nior geo­sci­en­tist at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Xavier Moo­nan, who has been in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mys­te­ri­ous nat­ur­al won­der, be­lieves the out­flow is ac­tu­al­ly trapped sea wa­ter com­ing from a Cre­ta­ceous reser­voir dat­ing 65 mil­lion years ago.
In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Moo­nan said the warm salt wa­ter emerges from the ground as a nat­ur­al seep sim­i­lar to mud vol­ca­noes in oth­er parts of the coun­try.
"Ac­com­pa­nied by some oil, the salty wa­ter con­stant­ly flows and cas­cades ra­di­al­ly down the hill­side where the small streams merge to form Salt Riv­er. Salt Riv­er flows gen­er­al­ly north­ward where it even­tu­al­ly merges with the larg­er Or­toire Riv­er that emp­ties in­to the At­lantic on the east coast near Ma­yaro," Moo­nan said.
It was hunters who first came up­on the vol­cano, which when viewed from drones ap­pears as a whitish ex­pan­sive pud­dle com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by dense trop­i­cal for­est.
Moo­nan said the small hill­side of very ac­tive oil and salt wa­ter seeps drew ge­ol­o­gists by the droves.
"The Amer­i­can As­so­ci­a­tion of Pe­tro­le­um Ge­ol­o­gists Young Pro­fes­sion­als Trinidad and To­ba­go Chap­ter (AAP­GYPTT) vis­it­ed the site on a num­ber of oc­ca­sions, sam­pling the rocks, wa­ter, and oil em­a­nat­ing from the ground," Moo­nan said.
Not­ing that this site is quite unique, and quite pos­si­bly the on­ly of its kind in the world, Moo­nan said it was much more than just an­oth­er oil and salt wa­ter seep.
"Our very own La Brea Pitch Lake, for in­stance, is one of the largest nat­ur­al oil seeps in the world. This Salt Wa­ter vol­cano is unique. We be­lieve the salt wa­ter flow comes from trapped sea­wa­ter flow­ing from an an­cient Cre­ta­ceous reser­voir," Moo­nan said.
He said proof of this comes from the re­sults of an ex­plo­ration well drilled by Exxon in the 1990s which showed a num­ber of lime­stone-rich zones in the area which dates to the Cre­ta­ceous age. The rocks were found at depths of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,500 feet, Moo­nan ex­plained. Clos­er ex­am­i­na­tion of the "crunchy" rocks iden­ti­fied then as a car­bon­ate de­posit called tu­fa.
"It is gen­er­al­ly grey to white and ap­pears spongy in parts. They are very sim­i­lar to the lime­stone de­posits at Tu­rure Wa­ter­steps in the North­ern Range, which make up the walls of each ter­race. At Tu­rure the car­bon­ate is be­ing ac­tive­ly re­pre­cip­i­tat­ed out of the riv­er wa­ter. It is en­riched in car­bon­ate due to lime­stone rocks along the riv­er trib­u­taries fur­ther up the moun­tain," Moo­nan said.
"Based on the ge­o­log­i­cal evo­lu­tion of the Guayagua­yare area, we strong­ly be­lieve that the source of the car­bon­ate for tu­fa pre­cip­i­ta­tion comes from Cre­ta­ceous rocks, and fur­ther­more, the saline wa­ters which feed the Salt Riv­er are very like­ly be­ing ex­pelled from Cre­ta­ceous reser­voirs as well," Moo­nan ex­plained.
Like the Pitch Lake of La Brea and our many oth­er mud vol­ca­noes, Moo­nan be­lieves the Salt Wa­ter vol­cano could gen­er­ate mass for­eign ex­change to the coun­try at a time when the econ­o­my is in sham­bles.
"In oth­er parts of the world, a fea­ture such as this would be sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­vel­oped and mar­ket­ed as a nat­ur­al spa," he said.
"Com­pa­nies such as Range Re­sources and Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration, who are ac­tive­ly ex­plor­ing these ar­eas for hy­dro­car­bons have to date sig­nif­i­cant­ly sup­port­ed the ex­pe­di­tions, test­ing and ge­o­log­i­cal un­der­stand­ing of the fea­ture," he said.
Get­ting to the vol­cano is not easy and on­ly an ex­pe­ri­enced tour guide can get you there.
It takes two hours south­ward from the Trinidad Con­trolled Oil­field (TCO) Duck­ham Road, through very thick for­est, to come up­on the vol­canic site.
Down­stream from the salt wa­ter vol­cano, the Salt Riv­er cross­es the Duck­ham Road, head­ing north­east to join the Poole Riv­er.
"Though its salin­i­ty has dropped from 23,000 ppm at the source to a brack­ish 6,000 ppm some 2.5 kilo­me­tres down­stream, peo­ple can rev­el in this nat­ur­al ge­o­log­ic phe­nom­e­non," Moo­nan said.
"With the right vi­sion a good syn­er­gy of the sci­ence from the com­pa­nies and mar­ket­ing from the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, the Salt Wa­ter vol­cano can be­come a new ge­o­t­ouris­tic site that can re­dound in jobs and de­vel­op­ment for the peo­ple of Rio Claro, Guayagua­yare," he added.
Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Clarence Ramb­harat who ac­com­pa­nied the team of ge­ol­o­gists on the his­toric 2017 ex­pe­di­tion to the vol­cano agreed that the vol­cano had the po­ten­tial for tourism.
Chair­man of the Ma­yaro Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Glen Ram said that in 1959, Dr Hans Ku­gler record­ed this fea­ture as a salt spring in his work Sur­face Ge­ol­o­gy Map of Trinidad. Ram said with prop­er as­sis­tance, the Rio Claro Salt Wa­ter vol­cano could be de­vel­oped in­to an in­ter­na­tion­al tourist site. He said the Cor­po­ra­tion was will­ing to print brochures on the vol­cano to ed­u­cate the pop­u­la­tion about its won­ders once it re­ceives fund­ing from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.
Source:  The Guardian, March 2019

Pineap­ple farm­ers who have chopped down more than 300 acres of for­est re­serve in Table­land are ex­pect­ed to be charged by the po­lice fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat con­firmed yes­ter­day.
Ramb­harat him­self has al­so launched a probe in­to “the com­plete fail­ure of the Forestry Di­vi­sion to com­bat squat­ting in the for­est re­serves.”
In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Ramb­harat said he was ap­palled at the for­est de­struc­tion.
“I am lead­ing the ef­fort to iden­ti­fy rogue farm­ers and re­quest that ac­tion be tak­en, in­clud­ing pros­e­cu­tion,” Ramb­harat added.
Say­ing the Forestry Di­vi­sion, Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands and po­lice were deal­ing with this mat­ter, Ramb­harat said the of­fences in­clude tres­pass­ing and de­struc­tion of trees.
“Apart from pros­e­cut­ing the of­fend­ers, I have re­quest­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Con­ser­va­tor of Forests as to whether these were re­port­ed by For­est Of­fi­cers who are sup­posed to mon­i­tor squat­ting in for­est re­serves,” Ramb­harat said.
Asked why the de­struc­tion of the for­est trees was not re­port­ed by the Forestry of­fi­cials be­fore, Ramb­harat said: “Forestry Di­vi­sion has been deal­ing with these is­sues in Table­land for a long time. But with the move­ment of of­fi­cers, the mon­i­tor­ing clear­ly slacked off.”
On who was re­spon­si­ble for the de­struc­tion, Ramb­harat said: “The Forestry Di­vi­sion has iden­ti­fied a few rogue farm­ers. I can­not re­veal their iden­ti­ties ex­cept to say they are farm­ing in the for­est re­serves in Table­land—Glod Road and War­well.”
Ramb­harat said in the past, forestry of­fi­cers could have or­dered of­fend­ers to pay com­pen­sa­tion to avoid pros­e­cu­tion.
“For­est of­fi­cers, like game war­dens, can com­pound of­fences—which means that they can agree with of­fend­ers to pay com­pen­sa­tion and avoid pros­e­cu­tion. This may be an area of abuse and I have act­ed un­der the Forests Act and banned the set­tle­ment of these of­fences with­out the min­is­ter’s ap­proval,” Ramb­harat said.
He added, “Sec­tion 21 of the Forests Act gives the min­is­ter that au­thor­i­ty.
“A cou­ple of years ago I did the same thing for game war­dens, where they can­not set­tle mat­ters with­out my writ­ten ap­proval. That is why more mat­ters are go­ing to the po­lice and the court.”
Asked whether he planned to pi­o­neer leg­isla­tive changes to deal with the is­sue, he said: “The leg­is­la­tion is not per­fect but it is ad­e­quate enough to give law en­force­ment of­fi­cers the pow­er to charge of­fend­ers. My mes­sage is that I am per­son­al­ly lead­ing the ef­fort to iden­ti­fy rogue farm­ers and re­quest that ac­tion be tak­en, in­clud­ing pros­e­cu­tion.”
Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the is­sue, ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Table­land Pineap­ple Farm­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion Ralph Ram­per­sad said he did not know whether pineap­ple farm­ing was tak­ing place on State or pri­vate lands.
“I know there is a lot of cul­ti­va­tion tak­ing place in Glod Road but I can­not say whether it is State land or pri­vate lands. I am not sur­prised. A lot of peo­ple squat on State land and on­ly when it is re­port­ed the min­istry takes ac­tion.”
Ram­per­sad said he was in sup­port of the min­istry’s crack­down on the rogue farm­ers.
He added: “I am not sub­scrib­ing to any­thing il­le­gal. A lot of peo­ple squat. De­struc­tion of the forests has a lot of im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment and the wa­ter­sheds. It is def­i­nite­ly some­thing that the State Lands Di­vi­sions should in­ves­ti­gate. 
Source:  the Guardian, March 2019.

A 17-year-old boy who migrated from Trinidad at the age of seven has been grabbing headlines in the United States after he was accepted into 17 universities.
Dylan Chidick's story is even more compelling because he was once homeless.
Chidick applied to 20 universities. So far he has been accepted into institutions such as Rowan University into the Psychological Science Programme, New Jersey City University and York College of Pennsylvania, among several others. 
The New Jersey teen, his mum Khadine Phillip and his family migrated to the US when he was seven. According to a story in WPTV, his younger twin brothers are living with serious heart conditions and his family has been in and out of homelessness.
“My family went through a lot, and there has been a lot of people saying, ‘You can’t do that,’ or ‘You’re not going to achieve this,’ and me – getting these acceptances – kind of verifies what I have been saying. I can do it and I will do it,” he said. 
Writing on his Facebook page, Chidick said he is thankful for all the stories but he won't let his struggles define his life. 
"I WAS homeless, and I am not going to let that part of my life define me. it has made me and my family become stronger! <3," he wrote. 
Chidick will be the first in his family to go to college.
Source:  The Loop, Feb 2019

Over the last decade, fish­er­men and guest house own­ers in Man­zanil­la have looked on in awe as the wa­ters of the At­lantic Ocean claimed huge ar­eas of land along the coast­line.
Most of the co­conut trees that once adorned the 15 miles of beach­front on the east coast are gone and those that re­main may very well be gone with­in a decade if we are un­able to stem the ero­sion.
Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have im­ple­ment­ed sev­er­al mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar coastal pro­tec­tion projects over the years in an at­tempt to stop the ero­sion. But the sea would not be stopped.
While fish­er­men con­tend that coastal ero­sion was just Moth­er Na­ture go­ing about her busi­ness, di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) Dr Ah­mad Khan said ris­ing sea lev­els, brought on by glob­al warm­ing, was the cul­prit.
Start­ing this week, Guardian Me­dia will show you how glob­al warm­ing is wreak­ing hov­oc on T&T's ecosys­tem.
Dur­ing a vis­it to Man­zanil­la about two weeks ago, at least ten prop­er­ties ap­peared aban­doned, with weeds grow­ing where vis­i­tors once en­joyed them­selves. Sev­er­al oth­er build­ings had huge “For Sale” signs plas­tered on their gates.
At one of the few prop­er­ties that was oc­cu­pied—the Co­conut Cove Re­sort—38-year-old An­der­son Bartholomew, who has man­aged the re­sort along Ca­lyp­so Road, Man­zanil­la, for the last ten years, said he was born and bred in the area and has seen the sea wreck hav­oc on the beach­front for years.
Bartholomew said the re­sort was once well known for its clump of co­conut trees where guests could re­lax in ham­mocks and watch the waves crash against the shore. But ap­prox­i­mate­ly sev­en years ago, the two lots of land on which the trees were plant­ed be­gan to dis­ap­pear in­to the sea.
“In front of the re­sort, we lost about two lots of land al­ready, we had co­conut trees and ham­mocks for the guests to re­lax and all of that is gone, all of it washed away,” Bartholomew said.
Five years ago, the re­sort’s own­ers tried to stop the wa­ter from tak­ing more of the land by spend­ing some $500,000 to build a sea wall. Dur­ing the vis­it, the dam­age to the wall was clear­ly vis­i­ble as chunks of it have been washed away.
Bartholomew said be­cause the re­sort has a pool, guests can still en­joy them­selves but he is con­stant­ly asked what will hap­pen if the sea claims more of the land.
“The guests are still com­fort­able but peo­ple are al­ways ask­ing if we don’t fear that the sea will come and take the wall and the pool, but we say that’s a part of na­ture, there is noth­ing we can do but let it take its course.”
Fish­er­man An­ton Hayde, who has a healthy re­spect for the sea, said life on the east coast has be­come in­creas­ing­ly hard­er over the years as the wa­ters of the At­lantic con­tin­ue to claim more and more of the beach­front.
In 2014, the bat­ter­ing waves claimed the Man­zanil­la Fish­ing De­pot.
“I watch the riv­er change course and the sea come up and cut away the whole de­pot, every­thing just wash in­to the sea. I feel in a few years, all here where we stand­ing up will go too, but that is how it is, the sea will take what she want, when she want."
He said he can vivid­ly re­mem­ber his glo­ry days as a teenag­er bound­ing through co­conut trees to reach the beach­front.
“You used to feel so good to run through the co­conuts, we used to race each oth­er and you run­ning for a good ten min­utes, on­ly see­ing the sea in the dis­tance…boy, them was the days. Now, you dri­ving and the beach out­side your car win­dow, it could nev­er be the same again. Some days I does say Man­zanil­la is a lost cause…cause is on­ly time be­fore the sea go with every­thing you see here.”
Hayde's words were truer than he an­tic­i­pat­ed as af­ter leav­ing his pair of slip­pers on the shore to cross the riv­er and show the Guardian Me­dia team around, he re­turned to find on­ly one side of it.
“You see, I shoul­da walk down bare­foot yes,” he said. “I have to buy a slip­pers now.”
Along the Man­zanil­la stretch Shquile Ce­les­tine, 25, was busy try­ing to lev­el the yard of his un­cle’s hol­i­day rental.
Ce­les­tine, who said he has been do­ing main­te­nance and up­keep of the prop­er­ty since he was a teen, said just last year he piled huge boul­ders along the shore­line to try to keep the wa­ter out.
Like Bartholomew and the own­ers of Co­conut Cove, Ce­les­tine has learnt that the sea would not be stopped.
“Most of the stones have been washed away, the few pieces that are left will wash away soon, every time I come up here, I fill up the yard and try to lev­el it be­cause you can’t have guests com­ing to see these big gap­ing holes in the yard,” he said.
With waves crash­ing less than 20 feet from the prop­er­ty fence at low tide, Ce­les­tine said the yard is flood­ed every time the tide is high.
He point­ed to a heap of “over­bur­den” dirt that was de­liv­ered that very day.
“I hop­ing this would be able to get a lit­tle chance to set­tle and it wouldn’t wash away with the high tide.”
A stone’s throw away at Waves, a new­ly-con­struct­ed beach re­treat, Tony Ram­lal was busy mix­ing con­crete to be­gin con­struc­tion on a shed.
Ram­lal, whose sis­ter “Ted­dy” Ram­lal owns the prop­er­ty, was un­daunt­ed by the ris­ing sea lev­el. He said his sis­ter has faith that her busi­ness in­vest­ment will pay off and they are not wor­ried about the sea.
How­ev­er, he said plans are un­der­way to cre­ate a small sea wall to mit­i­gate the an­tic­i­pat­ed dam­age.
“We will try to bury some tyres and make a wall to stop it from com­ing in so much,” he said.
$$ spent so far
•On No­vem­ber 16, 2014, a large sec­tion of the Man­zanil­la/Ma­yaro Main Road col­lapsed af­ter flood­wa­ters from the high tide and pro­longed rain­fall cov­ered large parts of Ma­yaro and Man­zanil­la. It was re­built at a COST OF $35 mil­lion and re­opened in Feb­ru­ary 1, 2015.
• In Ju­ly, 2015 the then Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment built the Man­zanil­la Board­walk across 800 feet of beach­front to stop the rapid ero­sion and cre­ate a space for beach­go­ers to en­joy the east coast again.
• The Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) un­der the cur­rent PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion is con­struct­ing a re­tain­ing wall just be­fore the "Co­conuts" in Man­zanil­la, a project that is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by May this year. 
Tack­ling coastal ero­sion: The Bar­ba­dos Mod­el
In a 2013 pa­per ti­tled the “Coastal Zone Man­age­ment The Bar­ba­dos Mod­el” two mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion doc­u­ment­ed Bar­ba­dos’ fight to save its coast­line.
The au­thors, Gre­go­ry Scrug­gs and Thomas Bas­set, not­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s move to form a Coastal Zone Man­age­ment Unit (CZ­MU) in 1996 when it recog­nised there was an im­me­di­ate need to stem coastal ero­sion.
Backed by fund­ing from the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), the CZ­MU man­aged to stop the ero­sion with var­i­ous coastal en­gi­neer­ing projects in­clud­ing con­struct­ing sea­walls, break­wa­ters, and groynes.
•Break­wa­ters are con­crete struc­tures, sunken close to the beach, that force waves to break far­ther from the coast so they don’t di­rect­ly pum­mel the sand.
•Groynes are rock struc­tures that jut out in­to the ocean to dis­rupt the move­ment of sed­i­ment.
•Sea­walls are the CZ­MU’s largest type of in­ter­ven­tion, in­tend­ed to pro­tect more pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas, these con­struc­tion projects in­volve ei­ther a riprap de­sign of large rocks or a flat, con­crete sea­wall that can cre­ate pub­lic space at­trac­tive to both tourists and res­i­dents, such as the Richard Haynes Board­walk, par­tial­ly fund­ed by an IDB loan.
•Nat­ur­al meth­ods were al­so used, in­clud­ing restor­ing sand dunes and man­groves and plant­i­ng veg­e­ta­tion in coastal ar­eas to al­low dunes to form nat­u­ral­ly, hold­ing back in­un­da­tions from storm surges.
The IDB’s web­site states that Bar­ba­dos is con­sid­ered “a best-prac­tice mod­el” for the Caribbean.
“From 2002 to 2009, the coun­try built head­lands, break­wa­ters, re­tain­ing walls, and walk­ways and revet­ments to sta­bilise its shore­line and con­trol beach ero­sion on the south and west coasts. The key for Bar­ba­dos to de­sign and car­ry out cost-ef­fec­tive sus­tain­able beach nour­ish­ment op­er­a­tions has been un­der­stand­ing shore­line dy­nam­ics based on the best avail­able sci­en­tif­ic da­ta and cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy that takes in­to ac­count dis­as­ter risk and the im­pact of cli­mate change,” the IDB said.
Source:  Trinidad Guardian, Feb 28, 2019