Farmers chop down 300 acres of forest reserve

Ministry officials found this bulldozer abandoned on forest reserve land at Warwell Road, Tableland. It appears whoever was using it got wind of the Ministry's visit and abandoned it.

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.