Sascha Wil­son

While most peo­ple were ad­her­ing to the COVID-19 Stay-at-Home re­stric­tions, 25 hectares of the Ec­cesville Wind­belt Re­serve in Rio Claro were bull­dozed by rogue farm­ers des­per­ate for state land to ex­pand their agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries’ Forestry Di­vi­sion but it is un­like­ly the cul­prits will ever be brought to jus­tice.

Forestry work­ers said it was an ex­pen­sive high-lev­el op­er­a­tion with an in­tri­cate net­work sys­tem com­pris­ing large and small farm­ers and even vil­lagers. Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat, how­ev­er, be­lieves the rogue farm­ers have po­lice con­nec­tions and forestry work­ers may be turn­ing a blind eye. He said he has re­port­ed the mat­ter to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, who promised to take ac­tion.

Over the years, il­le­gal farm­ers have been squat­ting on 150 hectares in the for­est re­serve and de­stroyed the habi­tats of sev­er­al species of wildlife. Var­i­ous crops, in­clud­ing chadon beni, plan­tain, dasheen and pi­men­toes have been plant­ed on the land.

Just last De­cem­ber, an­oth­er area not far from where the 25 hectares were de­stroyed, off Mac­Mo­han Road, was bull­dozed and a large pond was dug to sup­ply wa­ter for the crops.

Through the for­est on the way to those sites on Tues­day, the Guardian Me­dia crew ob­served tracks, clear­ings with camps and agri­cul­tur­al crops, as well as man­made ponds. About a mile in­side the for­est, a pick-up van with sev­er­al male oc­cu­pants was spot­ted trans­port­ing bags of chadon beni out the area.

Con­cerned about the in­creased squat­ting in the re­serve, For­rester Three Sun­paul Laloo, who is at­tached to the South-East Con­ser­van­cy, called for for­est of­fi­cers to be giv­en more pow­er. “We need leg­is­la­tion where for­est of­fi­cers are em­pow­ered un­der the State Lands Act and all the gov­ern­ing acts. As it is now, we are gov­erned un­der the For­est Act, the state land of­fi­cers are un­der the State Lands Act. So we have to re­port the squat­ting to state land of­fi­cers and then state land of­fi­cers will is­sue their quit no­tices.”

Laloo, who was among a group of Forestry Di­vi­sion work­ers in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent, said all for­est of­fi­cers should al­so be pre­cept­ed.

Con­cerned that some an­i­mals could be­come ex­tinct in the area if dras­tic mea­sures are not tak­en, For­rester Two Goolab Ram­roop said ac­cess to the for­est re­serves should re­strict­ed to on­ly per­sons with a per­mit.

Ex­plain­ing why it was dif­fi­cult to ap­pre­hend the per­pe­tra­tors, Laloo said, “In­side here is a covert op­er­a­tion, you have a lot of net­work­ing. So you re­alise com­ing in here we came through Le­gendre Road, Ra­j­paul Trace, Noel Trace and then Mac­Mo­han Road, be­cause of the net­work­ing the en­tire vil­lage is con­nect­ed to this squat­ting.”

Sad­dened by the dis­placed an­i­mals, he added, “It is very sad to see all this in­dis­crim­i­nate squat­ting by these farm­ers, who just look at it in terms of dol­lars and cents. It is re­al­ly sad what is go­ing on and it is sad for the an­i­mals who we are em­pow­ered to help, to save and pro­tect, the mon­keys, the par­rots, the birds, the wildlife.”

Ramb­harat said raised the mat­ter with Con­ser­va­tor of Forests Den­ny Dipchans­ingh since last March af­ter he vis­it­ed ar­eas in Ec­clesville, Table­land and oth­er parts of South-East Trinidad where for­est re­serve was be­ing cleared.

While there are sev­er­al va­can­cies in the Forestry Di­vi­sion, he said, “We can do bet­ter with the man­pow­er we have at the Forestry Di­vi­sion. These per­sons should have been found and charged since March 2019.”

How­ev­er, he al­so agreed they should be pre­cept­ed and giv­en law en­force­ment train­ing.