Environment Tobago Newsletter March 2010

Environment TO BAGO new slett er

World Wetlands Day 2010 and ET Environment TOBAGO

E nvironment TO-BAGO (ET) is a non-

government, non-profit, vol-unteer organisation , not subsidized by any one group, corporation or government body.

Founded in 1995, ET is a proactive, advocacy group that campaigns against nega-tive environmental activities throughout Tobago. We achieve this through a variety of community an environ-mental outreach programmes.

Environment TOBAGO is funded mainly through grants and membership fees. These funds go back into implement-ing our projects. We are grateful to all our sponsors over the years and thank them for their continued support

W hat’s inside

World Wetlands Day 2010 1 ET & BPTT Celebrate Young Artists of Tobago

2

Keep A Clean School Com-petition 2010

5

LEAD Program—Europe 2009

6

CERMES Training Course 8 What is Fitness? 8

Land Trust for T&T 9

Beggar thy Neighbour 9

The Lionfish and the Carib-bean

11

Book Review 14

What’s Happening @ ET 16

Notes to contributors 18

Biodiversity in Wetlands 13

March 2010 Volume 5 Issue 1

The second of February each year is World Wetlands Day. It marks the date of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on the 2nd February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Each year, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community across the world, have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at rais-

ing public awareness of wetland values and benefits. World Wetlands Day 2010 was commemorated by Environment Tobago (ET) with the launch of Postcards with the theme for this year in mind- “Caring For Wetlands- The Answer To Climate Change”, which highlighted some of the talents shown by lo-cal up and coming artists from schools right here in Tobago. Environment TOBAGO, with the kind spon-sorship of Ace Printery Fed-Traders Ltd., launched “Caring for Wetlands Postcards” featuring ten of the best artwork sub-

mitted by students. This is in line with this year’s theme “Caring For Wetlands- an Answer To Climate Change”. All the stunning artwork was done by local students primarily from Roxborough Secondary, Goodwood Highschool and Speyside Anglican Primary School winners and exceptional work from last year's Wetlands and Poster Competition. It is hoped that this will provide two fold benefits-raising awareness of wetlands in Tobago and the profiles of young artists of Tobago who are very conscious of their natu-ral heritage and its management and conservation. We also salute all the parents, teachers and principals who continue to nurture and mould the minds of these young students. ET would also like to sincerely thank Mr. Ramdhan and the rest of the dedicated Team at Ace Printery Fed-Traders Ltd. for their continuous support of our education initiatives. Mrs. Patricia, Turpin, ET's President, kicked off the launch with a reminder of how what is World Wetlands Day and it's history. She also

Mr. Betrand Bhikkary, ET director, and Zoe Mason, ET's volunteer is speaking with an inter-ested visitor to the booth.

Ms. Hema Singh (ET’s Edu-cation Coordinator), speak-ing with Fabrizio Ceppi a local tour-guide.

March 2010 Editor: Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Assistant Editor: Christopher K. Starr Design & Layout: Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Technical Support: Nolan Craigwell, Jerome Ramsoondar Nigel Austin Enid Nobbee Contributors: Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal Christopher K. Starr Bertrand Bhikkary Sebrenia Roberts Environment TOBAGO Photographs: Environment TOBAGO

Board of Directors 2008-2009

President:: Patricia Turpin Vice-President: Kamau Akili Secretary: Kay Seetal Treasurer: Shirley Mc Kenna Committee members: Wendy Austin William Trim Fitzherbert Phillips Geoffrey Lewis Bertrand Bhikkary Heather Pepe Ryan Allard David Antoine Andy Roberts Darren Henry

Environment TOBAGO newsletter

spoke of the Ramsar Convention and Trinidad and Tobago's international obligations for protecting and managing wetlands. Attending the launch were representatives of the Unit Trust Corporation,

Mrs. Desiree Hackette-Murray, Administra-tive Officer II from the Health and Social Ser-vices, Mrs. Lenora Wallace and Mr. Clifton Campbell. Both Mrs. Wallace and Mr. Camp-bell have been partners with Environment Tobago in promoting education on wetlands. The President of the Belle Garden Wetlands Association, Mr. Bryan Bain and the team of eco tour guides were also present. The As-sociation has been involved in carrying out guided eco tours for all schools in Tobago. Several teachers and students also stopped by the office to view the artwork.

Many expressed their joy of seeing the creativity and ingenuity of local artists and con-gratulated ET on this initiative. In the short-term, the postcards can be purchased at ET. The exhibition of these works was displayed at Gulf City Mall on Friday Feb-ruary 5th 2010 from 11:00 a.m.-5:00 pm.

ET & BPTT Celebrate Young Artists of Tobago Environment TOBAGO

In October last year Environment Tobago (ET) partnered with BP Trinidad

and Tobago LLC to launch the My Heritage; My Future Art Competition. Since then, twenty-one schools submitted over sixty entries. The competition was one element in the Rainforest Education and Awareness Programme. The entire project outlines an

The photo on the left shows that much of the garbage collected comprised of plastic bottles, and the photo on the right shows members of the clean up crew hard at work

Look at how much we collected!!

MISSION STATEMENT

E nvironment

TOBAGO

conserves Tobago’s

natural and living

resources and advances

the knowledge and

understanding of such

resources, their wise

and sustainable use and

their essential

relationship to human

health and the quality of

life

Volume 5 Issue 1

education and awareness campaign, which included a book on the Main Ridge Forest Reserve, an Art Competition and the production of Reusable bags. The project com-bined two fundamental concepts of environmental management and sustainability: Natural Resource Conservation and Waste Reduction.

Mr. Kamau Akili, ET’s Vice President, was the chairperson for the ceremony and congratulated BPTT for their sustained interest in the environment, particularly Tobago’s environment, where they do not have an operational presence.

Mr. Akili went on to tell the story of how the project came into being all the way back in 2001 when Graham Wellfare and his partner traveled to Tobago from the UK. They went on to devote over two years to volunteering at Environment Tobago during which time Wellfare wrote the book on the Main Ridge Rainforest Reserve, recognizing its importance not only as a special ecological treasure but also the oldest legally protected rainforest in the western hemisphere.

Mrs. Patricia Turpin, ET’s President, in her address, welcomed the group and congratulated the artists, their parents and teachers. She also spoke of the importance of our rainforests and the role of education in its proper management.

Mrs. Karen Ragoonanan-Jalim Environmental & Regulatory Manager at BPTT, brought greetings on behalf of her company. Mrs. Jalim commended ET on its continuous work in the environmental management and conservation over the years and stated that ET and BPTT shared this common agenda. She thanked the Tobago House of Assem-bly, Division of Education, Youth Affairs & Sport and the teachers for embracing this project. Mrs. Eleanor King, The Chief Education Coordinator, of the Division of Education, Youth Affairs & Sport brought greetings from her Divi-sion. She reiterated the Division’s full support of this project and many others, with whom ET and

the Division have partnered. Mrs. King commended both Environment Tobago and BPTT, who also support many of the Division’s activities. She ended by saying that through trust and collaboration many things can be achieved.

The competition brought to the fore many talented young artists who were encouraged to continue exploring their talent and their connection with nature.

Place Name School Student School Prize

1st Place Joseph Lewis Pentecostal Light & Life Primary

$3,000 $2,500

2nd Place Sanjay Persaud Buccoo Govern-ment Primary School

$2,500 $500

3rd Place Tyrell Lewis Roxborough An-glican Primary

$2,000 $500

4th Place Dayna Borrett Michael K. Hall $1,500 $500

5th Place Lesharo Pirth-seesingh

Step Up Interna-tional Academy

$1,000 $500

Mrs. Karen Ragoonanan-Jalim, Envi-ronmental & Regulatory Manager at BPTT brings remarks on behalf of the competition's sole sponsors

“ To many people these tall peaks make for a challenging but scenic hike. But they are not just another tall mountain to clim b. ”

Special Prizes • Infants class of Speyside Anglican Primary School • Students of School for the Deaf


Name School Edwin Campbell Step Up International Academy

Alexia Roberts Roxborough Secondary School Ryell Lewis Roxborough AC School Ojani Walker Mason Hall Government Primary School Kadisha Baird Pentecostal Light & Life High School Justin Quamina Pentecostal Light & Life Primary School Cherrando Parisienne Pentecostal Light & Life Primary School Lehrell Brooks Roxborough Secondary School Gerel Granderson Pentecostal Light & Life High School Tricia Diaz Signal Hill Secondary School Ronelle Scotland Signal Hill Secondary School Celeste Scotland Bishops High School

Artwork of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners (from left to right). Joseph Lewis, Sanjay Persaud and Tyrell Lewis.

Mrs. Patricia Turpin and Mrs. Jalim with the 5 top winners of the Art competition

Mrs. Patricia Turpin presents Mrs. Jalim of BPTT with a token of appreciation

“ the presence of FP m ay be an indic ation, an "early warning syst em", that our seas are polluted and that environmental c hanges are affecting the ability of wild animals to res ist infectious diseases”

Volume 5 Issue 1

Keep A Clean School Competition 2010 Environment TOBAGO

In recognition of the mounting concerns of solid waste generation and pollu-

tion, particularly in small island developing states such as Tobago, Environment To-bago with the kind sponsorship of BHP Billiton, Petrotrin and the National Lotteries Control Board have partnered this year to host the “Keep A Clean School Competi-tion”. This is the 10th Anniversary of the competition.

Principals and teachers of more than 25 schools along with representatives from the competition’s sponsors, Mrs. Neerupa Latchman and Mrs. Eileen Blackman and Mr. Rawle Frederick from the Solid Waste Management Company Limited were present at the launch held on Friday 22nd January at the Botanics Conference Facility.

The “Keep A Clean School Competition” is a programme for waste reduction and pollution prevention in Tobago’s schools and has received the full sanction by the Division of Education, Youth Affairs and Sport, Tobago House of Assembly. Historically, the competition has been very successful throughout schools in Tobago arming teachers and students with knowledge and hands-on learning about waste re-duction through the 3 R’s principle – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and more recently, the inclusion of Rethinking waste.

Students are required to identify, design, plan and implement solid waste re-duction and management programmes within their school with a teacher acting as a facilitator. The project should involve positive actions by students that would contrib-ute to a reduction in waste generation which would mean less waste heading to the Studley Park Landfill. The specific objectives of the competition include:

1. To increase awareness among students of the need to reduce solid waste pollution in Tobago.

2. To improve student knowledge of ways to reduce solid waste generation and properly dispose of solid waste.

3. To facilitate development of positive student attitudes for a pollution-free Tobago.

4. To encourage students to take actions to reduce the generation of solid waste and to practice appropriate waste disposal habits. To take pride in their schools and communities.

This year the competition has a special focus on community action. This is to fur-

ther develop a more holistic approach to solving environmental challenges and also to cultivate environmental stewards who are willing to share knowledge and embrace their community and are willing to act for change.

We commend all our schools which won last year, the projects were all testi-mony to the innovative and creative ways which can be used to address environ-mental problems. Our students and teachers clearly demonstrated the usefulness of this competition as a tool for learning. We hope that this year many more schools will participate and benefit from the competition.

We take this opportunity to sincerely thank BHP Billiton, Petrotrin and the Na-tional Lotteries Control Board for their unwavering support and making this our 10th Anniversary competition a possibility!

“waste reduction through the 3 R’s principle – Re-duce, Reuse and Recycle and more recently, the inclusion of Rethinking waste.“



Some photos from our school visits

To support the schools which are participating in this year’s Keep A Clean School Competition, we have been making school visits to assist the teachers with the imple-mentation of the three R’s- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Students were encouraged to share their knowledge and learn more about solid waste and its harmful effects on humans and the natural environment.

Leadership for Environment & Development- LEAD Europe 2009 Environment TOBAGO

LEAD International is a global network of individuals and non-governmental or-ganisations committed to sustainable development. LEAD is an independent not-for-profit organisation established in 1991 by The Rockefeller Foundation. Since inception LEAD has recruited and trained over 2000 people from over 90 countries across the world. LEAD’s main mission is to inspire leadership and change for a sustainable world and also:

• To explore leadership and sustainability challenges and opportunities in Europe and the wider world

• To create a network of leaders for sustainability in Europe who can act to-gether to address urgent global sustainability challenges

• To foster understanding and collaboration across all sectors including govern-


Volume 5 Issue 1

ment, business, the media and not-for-profit organisations.

In 2009, Hema Singh, ET’s Education Coordinator, was accepted to participate in the Training in Europe and China. The training was intense involved a creative combination of inspirational speakers, case studies, site visits, panel discussions, peer to peer learning and films. The programme’s duration is six months and involved three onsite modules. • Module 1 was held in London and the

theme was: Towards a Low Carbon Society-

• Module 2 was held in Brussels, Belgium and carried the theme: The EU and Leadership Towards s Sustainable Future

• Module 3, the International Session was held in Beijing, China and the theme was: Impacts, Innovation and Interdependence

The LEAD learning journey used leadership and climate change as a lens to explore sustainable development issues among government, business and communi-ties. In addition to the onsite modules, each participant had to produce a LEAD As-sociate Project working in collaboration with other participants. Hema worked with people from India, France and Greece and estab-lished a website for young leaders called Green Dreams & Realities (www.gdrealities.com). The website features interviews and stories of people around the world who are considered inspirations to

young people. LEAD also encourages its participants to use social media such as Face-book, Email and Skype in order to traverse geographical boundaries. The international session in China also brought together several hundred LEAD Fel-lows and Associates. At this session, the 2009 Associates around the world graduated and became Fellows. This allowed them to be brought into the fold of the international network and find support for projects, get expertise and make contacts and maintain relationships. Environment Tobago would like to thank the JB Fernandes Memorial Trust for their support in building capacity within our organisation.

LEAD Associates

LEAD Associates in London- a role play activity

LEAD Associates- visiting "an urban green space" - Hackney Clapton Park Estate Community Site

What is the meaning of Fitness? Jo-Anne Nina Sewlal

Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies

When it comes to ecology, the word “fitness” does not refer to organisms that are good athletes. The concept of “fitness” was introduced by Charles Darwin where in the theory of natural selection. However, his definition of this term at-tracted criticism as “fit” in this sense means that an individual is fit just by surviving to a ripe old age, by escaping predation and resisting disease. But this is corrected for in the modern definition of this concept, “the individual’s relative contribution of progeny to the population”. Simply put fitness is exhibited by those individuals whose offspring survive and produce offspring.

Simply put, an organism is deemed “fit” its offspring avoids early death and survives to the age of reproduction and produces offspring of its own. Therefore it can then be said that the parent is fit. For its offspring to be considered fit, its off-spring or the third generation has to survive and produce offspring.



ECOLOGY NOTES

CERMES Training Course on Caribbean Flooding Environment TOBAGO

During the week of October 26th and 30th 22 Caribbean professionals and post graduate students attended a weeklong training on Flood modeling and Flood Risk Management and adaptation to Climate Change. The purpose of the training aimed to bring Caribbean people in this field closer together to network and to encourage col-laboration. The 22 participants came from Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, St Vin-cent and the Grenadines, St Lucia, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba. The course combined theoretical concepts underpinning flood modeling, flood hazard iden-tification and mapping together with more hands on exercises involving advanced com-puter software applications and case studies within and outside the region. Of particular relevance to the Caribbean situation, the course provided the par-ticipants with practice on rainfall-runoff modeling, sewer flow modeling, real-time appli-cations, urban drainage and flood risk attribution. Participants were also invited to attend the premier of the film The Burning Agenda – The Climate Change Crisis in the Caribbean. This was followed by a vibrant panel discussion on the Caribbean situation and position at the Copenhagen Summit in December 2009. The course was presented by two experts in the field of modeling; Professor Slobodan Djordjevic of the Centre for Water Systems at the University of Exeter, UK and Dr Ole Mark, the Head of Research and Development at Danish Hydraulic Insti-tute in Copenhagen. They were strongly supported by Drs Adrian Cashman and Leo-nard Nurse from CERMES.


Volume 5 Issue 1

A Land Trust for T&T Bertrand Bhikarry

Environment TOBAGO Director Here's the plan. What if our NGO were to buy plots of land which are in key locations for wildlife habitat, for watershed protection? Land generally important to the environment in some way. The money? From everyone on the face of the earth who would donate to an Environment Tobago account set aside to purchase suitable plots. The legal implications for plots which belong to an NGO held in trust for many

owners would make it a veritable land for-tress - A time capsule with which no one can interfere. We could identify pieces of land like Englishmans Bay, some wetlands areas like Granby, Carapuse, even Charlot-teville Estate if there are parcels go-ing. Plots in Trinidad too. Does anyone doubt in the power of media to fuel inter-est a project like this? The motivations for a land trust are impeccable : Take care of the ecological balance on our planet in the face of land use ravages, and leave a little bit of nature for those who have yet to come. The cost of research projects to create convoluted arguments TO CON-

VINCE policy makers TO THINK about saving the area is far greater than the price of a simple purchase. After the purchase the NGO could attain sustainability by simply asking for user fees, pass through fees, and even continue with a unique drive to buy lands by soliciting the citizens of the world. A MAD SCHEME? Well, Yes. However the solutions out there are not working toward the ideals of sustainability, and time is cer-tainly not on our side.

ARTICLES

Beggar thy Neighbour Bertrand Bhikarry

Environment TOBAGO Director

Before we departed the classrooms of childhood to enter other forums for learning, we were made aware of how its natural phenomena and geographical assets impacted on a country's global profile. Who hadn't heard of the Northern Lights, the Amazon, the Rivers Ganges and Nile, before blowing ten candles off a cake?

That the school curriculum then only focussed on the larger than life examples may have something to do with the island mentality that what we have just isn't worth much. At least not if something bigger is there to look at. However bigger isn't always better is it?

Imagine you are in California USA, with great plans to build another golf course



around the creek on your latest purchase of land. If someone several states away is mak-ing a decision to build a dam, say in Arizona, Nevada or even far away as Utah, there is the real possibility of your watercourse drying, as would your investment. So someone somewhere in that larger picture makes a decision affecting either you or a dam builder upstate. Thus is 'Freedom' curtailed. In the continental US there are many owners, many locations and many rules governing usage of the natural environment.

In this little two by four state Trinidad and Tobago, how fortunate are we to have our own rivers, our own forests, even our own wildlife? In the big countries as we saw, it's very a different feeling. Over there, management, movement and politics all play a part to dampen the joy of the 'ownership' we in Trinidad and Tobago enjoy un-conditionally. So we speak of the privilege of ownership.

Its all subjective though, this privilege. We are a small population in a tiny place and we do not employ the right to manage our assets responsibly. Examples abound of environmental irresponsibility. Where to start fixing the damage? That's the dilemma.

We cannot really look to the Law, its essentially not performing as a guardian of natural assets and resources. Certainly not for generations of those who are yet to be born. The legal system we currently employ protect the rights of the landowner as per-sonal property. That this law was in effect written by a ruling class at a time where aris-tocracy and serfdom were the order of the day seems a trifle not worth consideration.

Look to the politicians and expect only token acknowledgement unless the topic on the table can lose them votes - or win public support for them. The latter is a rare case as environmental advocacy rarely creates friends. In a bizarre evolution of the need to represent the good of the Trinidad and Tobago public, representatives merely seek the good of their supporting public.

In trying to save the natural environment for future generations there's no use looking to the state agencies, they are essentially puppets if anyone cares to admit it. Big business can only go so far as their PR departments can impact, or as a champion on the Board may wish to indulge. 'Dead in the water!', that’s what a pragmatic environmental-ist may offer to fellow tree huggers crying the watersheds full as they moan the crime of the ages.

Disdain for the rights of others is apparently the order of the day in our twin island state, and no more so than right here in Tobago today. This little slice of paradise is just 116 square miles, populated by what amounts to a single family of displaced souls from across the Atlantic, yet from its shoddy appearance they manage to hold little pride in their inadvertently acquired asset.

The problems Tobago faces (there just isn't space to list all which its bigger sis-ter suffers) in land development can be squarely dumped at the door of the landowners. Each parcel which comes under the blade of an earth mover, each rock which is dis-placed without due regard for its aesthetic or ecological value is revealing disdain to all else, shown by the present titleholder, tenant, or lessee.

That they would arbitrarily make decisions only on the shortest term economic outlook cannot augur well for the next generation. That they care not for the common good of all the islands residents, which includes plant, animal and human life is Disdain.

That anyone in a position to take care of this small piece of land would expect others to educate and enhance, mayhap even enforce, is truly not holding in mind the saying that "the land we hold now is not a gift from our ancestors; it’s a loan from our descendants". Land holding is a privilege which denotes an element of freedom. Disdain for privilege of any type leads to erosion of freedoms- sooner rather than later. That a section of soci-ety looks on in disbelief that another part would place the quality of island

“We cannot really look to the Law, its essen-tially not per-forming as a guardian of natu-ral assets and re-sources. “


The Lionfish. Is it a visual treat or a veritable threat? Bertrand Bhikarry

Environment TOBAGO Director Pterois volitans may have come to us

in the Atlantic basin via a washed out aquar-ium as some suggest, but its introduction to our coastal waters may not be the important thing to worry about at this stage. It's also a fact that the lionfish is established 'successfully' maybe as even as far back as 2007, but again the concern over the details may only be of passing historical signifi-cance if western civilization were to survive the next quarter century.

At the recent South Eastern Carib-bean Conference on Marine Protected Area Management, a five day event hosted by the Buccoo Reef Trust, one Rhode Island University based scientist was severely roasted by the managers of the various parks for his gentle suggestion that maybe the lionfish should be left alone - maybe to survive, maybe to perish in the strange waters in which it haplessly finds itself immersed.

The good scholars argument vouchsafed that the other problems faced by the stewards of the marine coastal zones may not benefit from a rapid and emotionally driven chase to eradicate an 'outsider', albeit a voracious predator indeed. Maybe that's the key to the lionfish's scare factor. It's not a timid retiring bland off colour spe-cies which feeds on un-named plant material. No! The lionfish eats any and everything, and seems to be able to propagate without risk to its daily existence.

The scientist was right, in my opinion, but in fairness, each person present who took a position to actively pursue (and destroy) the erstwhile alien also has a point, even if it's based on their own, or their organizations interests. For example, the vari-ous Fisheries personnel at the Crown Point based conference worry about the threat to their fish stocks - Lionfish can and will eat anything from crustaceans to Cavalli, in fact if they can corner it the lionfish will swallow it. It's a bad scenario because the reefs are home to the juveniles for a lot of sea-going species with economic value for hu-mans. Those coming from the Marine Recreational sector also took a loud and abusive position against the Rhode Island academic, arguing their own case that the species which bring sightseeing hordes to underwater venues are also in the direct path of the lion fish's appetites. And it's a huge hunger the pesky critter develops - Lionfish experi-ments at Oregon State University's Zoology Department proved they can trap and eat fish almost two thirds of their size. That's not all. It never is with bad news. Lionfish can successfully trap and eat the species which control underwater weeds from over-running coral, that beautiful but slow and fairly immobile creature.

The problematic piscine’s ability to feed at night allows them to prey on un-suspecting day time species coming home to the reef, and on those nocturnal animals who begin moving at dusk. There seems to be no preferred position in their hunt, like with the shark which has an optimal run-up stance. Lionfish can hang vertically looking up, or down, for that matter, they can float upside down, and still strike from any of these situations. This means they can hunt inside caverns, holes or channels.

Seemingly clumsy, maybe because of their exquisite fin deployment, lionfish do

Pterois volitans - also known as the Lionfish

move quickly. Quickly enough to swallow an unsuspecting prey even if it’s among a shoal of its family members. The reasons given for its success in this approach lies in its uniqueness to the region.

From the potential preys visual perspective the large spread and towering dor-sal fins hide powerful caudal fins, and its cavernous maw expedites the 'hiding' process. Indeed a lionfish can lay in wait, and then literally block a targeted group of reef dwell-ers against escape. It can then select and swallow its prey without the others realizing something's amiss. A few among us in the diver community offer a theory that the hap-less reef dwellers think its just a piece of reef near to them.

Granted they are beautiful to look at. The park manager at Bonaire's National MPA confessed she spends a measurable amount of time visually taking in the impact of the creature, almost always in reverence of its striking coloration and finnage, yet she never hesitates to net it, considering it to be the quintessential threat to her park. She's already destroyed over one hundred and twenty since the initial sighting in Octo-ber last year. However it is not a viable consideration to hunt it to Count Zero, nor to aim for its successful removal it from any suitable habitat in the Atlantic it calls home now. Incidentally that's an area which has been documented from Maine's coast in the north to Bonaire's Marine Park in the South, and as far east as the Bahamas. Instead the lion-fish could prove to be a blessing to certain concerns faced by those same two groups who hate it so much.

How so? The short answer is healthy populations of shark and large grouper can control the lionfish rampage in the Atlantic Basin. However both those popular species are used for human food. To pursue the trend of thought, if the lion fish is successfully identified as the most direct threat to our survival in that it can eat our food supply before it can become a food supply itself. It virtually forces us to protect these two key ecological species. The idea may be skewed logic, but in the recognition that logic itself fails to impress, this recursive argument may do the job and make the coastal zone managers’ job easier.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION on methods to control the lionfish invasion you can contact the Dept. of Marine Resources and Fisheries T.L.H Building, Milford Road Scarborough, Tobago Tel 868 639 1382

“Fisheries per-sonnel at the C r o w n Point based con-ference worry about the threat to their fish stocks “

Pterois volitans - The Lionfish


Biodiversity in the Wetlands Sebrenia Roberts

Simply put Biodiversity or Biological Diversity is the variety of all organisms on

earth. Scientists often study biodiversity at different levels these are ecosystem biodi-versity e.g. forest, wetlands, deserts etc.; Species biodiversity that is the multiplicity of different plants and animals and genetic biodiversity or the vast selection of genes within the same species.

As defined by Ramsar wetlands are areas of marsh fen peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing fresh, brack-ish, or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six (6) meters.

This definition is very broad and covers habitats such as coral reefs, marshes, mud flats, mangroves swamps, lakes etc. In lakes lagoons and ponds there are plants such as water lilies that spread over the surface of the water.

The jacana, which is specially adapted to feed in this area, has long toes for walking on these floating leaves while it forages for food in the water, which usually are snails, shrimps and small fishes.

Birds such as ospreys dive in the water to catch fish and turned upside down in the water are jellyfishes waiting to get the scrapes. On the bottom, sea grasses, algae, mud, sand or rocks harbour fishes, crabs, starfishes, frogs, sea urchins, sea horses and many types of worms.

In marshes one can find sedges, bullrushes and reeds as well as a few herbs and ferns. Moorhens and coots use the leaves to build and hide their nests. Many species including the West Indian Whistling Ducks and the caiman shelter in the marshes dur-ing the day and feed at night.

Mud flats produce a wonderfully suitable growing surface for algae. Many animals e.g. crabs, molluscs and worms make their homes in burrows in the mud, venturing out to feed on algae and detri-tus. Sandpipers, egrets and herons prey on animals in the mud. Swallows and martins swoop in to catch flying insects.

The trees that dominate wetlands are called mangroves. There are mainly four types mangroves red, white, black and button mangrove. These dynamic trees are diverse in their functions as well as providing a home for countless different plants and animals.

Mangroves often seen as wastelands and breeding grounds for mosquitoes per-form many different functions and these are water purification, retention of nutrients, pollutants and sediments, supports biological productivity, groundwater recharge, shoreline stabilization and they act as wind breakers.

Bacteria and fungi rapidly decompose the leaf litter of mangroves, increasing the protein content of the mud, and providing a rich and smelly food source for ani-mals. On the roots of the mangrove there are brightly coloured sponges, fan worms, sea squirts, sea anemones, algae, barnacles and oysters.

Juvenile fishes such as, barracudas, snappers and mosquito fishes all shelter from predators and feed in the roots of the mangroves. Perches on the roots to feed

Caiman stalking prey

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

Review of: F. Fraser Darling 1939. A Naturalist on Rona. Oxford: Clarendon 137 pp.

[Nineteenth in a series on "naturalist-in" books.]

Christopher K. Starr Dept of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies

[email protected]

and rest are herons, egrets, swimming crabs and mangrove crabs. Insects bore into the orange and green lichen-streaked trunks. Woodpeckers feed on these insects and they along with parrots nest in holes in the trunks of these trees.

Insects, caterpillars, crab all feed on the leaves and attract yellow warblers, and birds such as pelicans, vultures, seabirds, herons and even the Scarlet Ibises nest in the branches of the mangrove trees. These trees even house the silky anteater or “poor-me-one” and it is mammals such as these which attract snakes to the mangroves.

However our wetlands are threatened and being diminished daily, some of these threats are unregulated development, which leads to pointless cutting of the wet-lands. Siltation due to poor agricultural practices, quarrying or development, tend to make the water unclear and reduces photosynthesis. It also reduces the carrying capacity of the waterbed resulting in flood-ing. Domestic waste and pesticides may contain high levels of nitrogen, which causes a growth spur in algae or eutrophi-cation.

Eutrophication causes less light to go into the water, which reduce photosyn-thesis and the oxygen content and eventually killing all life in the water. Illegal dumping and littering leaves our aquatic life in danger because often it gets stuck in the garbage and dies. Over fishing and illegal hunting tend lead to extinction of species and diminish the biodiversity of the wetland. So do your part be informed, be aware and pass on the knowledge!

Working hard to clean the mangrove

Frank Fraser Darling (1903-1979) did field work in the scottish highlands and islands over many years, with emphasis on the biology of gregarious vertebrates (Darling 1947). His study of the red deer, Cervus elaphus (Darling 1937), is a key work in the british animal-ecology tradition. The island of North Rona is both tiny and remote. Its area is only about one square kilometer, and at 59°07'N 05°51'W it lies about 62 km above the north coast of Scotland, beyond the Outer Hebrides. This book, subtitled Essays of a Biologist in Isolation, opens with the remark that "The web of experience is largely of your own weaving when you live on a small and remote island where there are no other human inhabitants." Depending on the person, it can become a prison or a satisfying world in itself. Darling spent an extended period on the island in 1938-39, together with his wife and son, although these appear only

Volume 5 Issue 1

in the occasional use of "we" and two photos with an unexplained woman in them. Rona has had small human communities off and on since antiquity, but the last of these had died out a century before Darling's arrival. Even so, the landscape was en-riched by many artefacts of buildings and fields, from which he drew inferences on how the long-gone people had lived. And he spent many happy hours restoring the cell of St Rónán (early 8th century), which had fallen into ruins. Much of the natural history of any very small island is unavoidably at and around the shore. Accordingly, the main focus of Darling's book is the littoral zone, with some at-tention to the "interior". This flat island is raised above the sea on all sides, so that there is no beach. As you may have noticed, people in any coastal area almost unavoidably spend a great deal of time looking toward the sea, and Rona provides a wealth of vantage points. Darling found one particular cliff especially suitable "for watching the pageant of the sea's edge." This pageant often included sharks and marine mammals close to shore. Three shore-nesting birds -- turnstones, puffins and great black-backed gulls (for whom the puffins are the main diet) -- come in for special attention. Among the special delights of this hard-core little book is a thoughtful disquisition on the form and function-ing of their courtship displays. Another treats the proximate causes of aggregation in birds and mammals; the ulti-mate causes (why aggregation is favoured by natural selection) are not hard to grasp, but how do they go about initiating and maintaining the group? This is mainly posed around a comparison of the red deer with the atlantic grey seal, and Darling concludes that their rather similar social groupings arise out of very different circumstances. A period of chosen isolation such as Darling undertook requires considerable sym-pathy with one's surroundings and fellow creatures. One passage will serve to illustrate how this runs throughout A Naturalist on Rona: "Puffins excite our sympathy because of their mingled solemnity and ridiculousness. Their calm, dark eyes indicate a serene phi-losophy -- thought we are not entitled to make that interpretation -- and it is easy to fancy about them a patient resignation to the destiny of being a food supply." The book is illustrated with many fine black-and-white photos of landscapes and ani-mals. References Darling, F.F. 1937. A Herd of Red Deer. London: Oxford Univ. Press 215 pp. Darling, F.F. 1947. Natural History in the Highlands and Islands. London: Collins 303 pp.

“Much of the natural history of any very small island is unavoid-ably at and around the shore. “

"The UTC Tobago CSC is in your neighborhood Call us now to share with your group a Seminar on Financial Plan-ning"

Manager: Florence Forbes Contact : 635 2115 Ext. 6201 Business Development Officer : Desiree Hackett Murray

Community Announcements

Volunteers needed! Persons who are interested in helping with cataloguing and filing of ET’s educational, research and operational material

and archiving.

Environment TOBAGO Environmental

and Services Map of Tobago

They are excellent and will be published every two years. Published in January 2008. Requests for these maps can be

made to ET office.

ET is now on Facebook and Twitter

We invite everyone on Facebook to join. Here we will post upcoming events, links, photos and videos on ET matters and other environmental issues. ET group link: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=53362888661&ref=ts And keep up to date on what we are up to by following us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/environ_tobago

New Members

With a membership of 397 worldwide, ET welcomes the following members: Arnika London

WHAT’S HAPPENING @ ET

Tote bags-TT$120 Burlap bags -TT$120

Drawstring bags-TT$130

Products featuring artwork from Rainforest Education & Awareness Programme

TT$15 per card

or

TT$100 for a pack of ten

Postcards

Volume 5 Issue 1

Type: Lady’s tees Size: Small & Medium Price: TT$100.00 Colours: Lime green, red and black Description: ET logo printed on front and sponsor logo at the back centre

Type: Regular tees Size: Small, Medium & Large Price: TT$100.00 Colours: Kelly green, red, black, navy blue, ash, purple, royal blue and black forest Description: ET logo printed on

Type: Polos Size: Small, Medium & Large Price: TT$150.00 Colours: Kelly green, royal blue, red, gold and ash grey Description: ET logo embroidered on left breast, sponsor’s logo printed on the back.

Orders can be made through the office.

Price: TT$120.00

Environment TOBAGO t-shirts and caps now available

Price: TT120.

Literature Available

GUIDELINES TO CONTRIBUTORS Articles on the natural history and environment are welcome especially those on

Trinidad and Tobago. Articles should not exceed approximately 1200 words (2 pages) and the editors reserve the right to edit the length. Images should be submitted as separate files. Submit material to any of the following: 1) [email protected] 2) [email protected] Deadline for submission of material for the 2nd Quarter 2010 issue of the Bulletin is June 10th, 2010.

EMAIL ________________________________________________

READERS’ FORUM

Dear ET Newsletter Readers, We want to hear from YOU! Comments may be edited for length and clarity. Send your comments to: [email protected] or [email protected]

Office: 11 Cuyler Street Scarborough, Tobago, W.I.

Mailing address: P.O. Box 503,

Scarborough, Tobago, W.I.

Phone: 1-868-660-7462 Fax: 1-868-660-7467

E-mail: [email protected]


We are on the web http://www.Environmenttobago.net

Environment Tobago Newsletter March 2010

Education

Transcript of Environment Tobago Newsletter March 2010