The Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­place tra­di­tion­al fire­works with a full drone show and silent fire­works dis­play for this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions is be­ing wel­comed by an­i­mal wel­fare ad­vo­cates and Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion (CANPTT), who say the move could sig­nal a shift in how T&T cel­e­brates ma­jor na­tion­al and re­li­gious oc­ca­sions.

CANPTT vice pres­i­dent for pub­lic re­la­tions Tama­ra Chatar said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was “ex­treme­ly pleased” with the de­ci­sion, de­scrib­ing it as a step to­wards bal­anc­ing cel­e­bra­tion with con­sid­er­a­tion for peo­ple and an­i­mals af­fect­ed by ex­ces­sive noise.

“We wel­come this step for­ward, but it al­so high­lights that wider prob­lem we still have with noise in this coun­try,” Chatar said.

She said the de­ci­sion demon­strat­ed that re­duc­ing ex­ces­sive noise did not mean sac­ri­fic­ing cul­ture or en­joy­ment.

“Cul­ture and con­sid­er­a­tion can co­ex­ist. Cel­e­bra­tion and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty can co­ex­ist,” she said, adding that cel­e­bra­tions should op­er­ate with­in “rea­son­able pa­ra­me­ters.”

Chatar said fire­works and oth­er sources of ex­ces­sive noise could have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on vul­ner­a­ble groups, in­clud­ing el­der­ly peo­ple, ba­bies, autis­tic per­sons and peo­ple liv­ing with in­vis­i­ble ill­ness­es. She al­so point­ed to the ef­fect on an­i­mals, say­ing res­i­dents in Cas­cade an­i­mals.

She said CANPTT hoped the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion would even­tu­al­ly lead to stronger leg­is­la­tion and pro­to­cols gov­ern­ing fire­works, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Di­vali and New Year’s cel­e­bra­tions ap­proach­ing.

She said the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­mained op­ti­mistic that leg­isla­tive changes could fol­low the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion.

Fire­works Users Suf­fer­ers pres­i­dent Nali­ni Di­al al­so wel­comed the an­nounce­ment, say­ing she had been con­cerned that fire­works would re­turn to this year’s In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions.

She said the move was wel­come news not on­ly for peo­ple af­fect­ed by fire­works but al­so for stray an­i­mals, dogs and oth­er an­i­mals.

“If that is what they are do­ing, just the drone, we are very pleased,” she said.

She de­scribed drone tech­nol­o­gy as ca­pa­ble of pro­vid­ing a spec­tac­u­lar al­ter­na­tive while re­duc­ing the noise, headaches and en­vi­ron­men­tal dam­age as­so­ci­at­ed with fire­works.

Di­al said she hoped the In­de­pen­dence Day de­ci­sion would en­cour­age a broad­er change in the coun­try’s ap­proach to cel­e­bra­tions.

“We hope that all the oth­er fes­tiv­i­ties will al­so now adopt the drone and less noise,” she said.

She sug­gest­ed that Di­vali and New Year’s cel­e­bra­tions could al­so move to­wards qui­eter al­ter­na­tives.

Both Chatar and Di­al said they hoped Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion would mark more than a one-off change for In­de­pen­dence Day.