By Johnny Coomansingh
“We went searching for a lighthouse in the southern village of Cedros, south Trinidad and found it 15 feet under the sea.” Forty-two years ago I heard this bizarre piece of information. I was sitting in class at the Eastern Caribbean Institute of Agriculture and Forestry (ECIAF), Centeno, Trinidad when this news broke. A professor from Guelph University, Canada came searching for the lighthouse and that was the fact he revealed to the students in his lecture.
A few years later I saw in one of our newspapers the sale of 20,000 acres of land in Cedros. I wondered why such a large parcel of land was being sold. Could it be that the sea was coming up the road in Cedros? Could it be that sea level rise was causing all the changes in the landscape? No one at that time made mention of the term Climate Change.
On the west coast, not far from the Borough of San Fernando, commuters will come across the strip of roadway known to most people as Mosquito Creek. One of my bosses during the 1980s had to hightail it out of his office in Saint Joseph by 2:00 pm in order to get pass the “Creek” before it flooded. The engineering concerned with the building of the sea wall did not take into consideration the crashing waves from the Gulf of Paria at high tide. Not only that, the wall was constructed preventing intercourse between the mangrove and the sea. The horror I witnessed one day on the Creek remains indelibly etched in my mind.
Hundreds of crabs fighting to cross over from the mangrove to get to sea seemingly to wash their eggs were unmercifully crushed by vehicular traffic. Drivers snapped some of them up for a meal of curried crab. It is as though no one cared about the crabs.
A few lines of my poem Have Mercy, vividly illustrates the debacle:
“The Berlin Wall was present
Preventing them from entering the sea
And as they cried for mercy
Many commuters
Left their cars idling
Resulting in a traffic jam
A feeding frenzy ensued
To snatch quite a few
For a curried dinner stew
Many a crab on that fateful day
I stood and watched
As they cried and died
With their unborn children.
“Have mercy.”
Today, climate change and global warming are now household phrases. I wonder if the majority of Trinidadians understand what these terms mean. A close look at what is happening to the melting ice in Greenland could mean that the resultant sea level rise in Trinidad could inundate acres and acres of arable land. Note carefully that land is finite; there is only so much land. It is clear that carbon emissions is contributing to glacial loss and thawing of ice sheets. For whatever reason(s), Trinidad has more vehicles on the road than the whole Caribbean put together. The Trinidad Guardian newspaper informed:
“According to the World Bank’s Global Carbon Project 2019, the latest figures for carbon dioxide emissions put Trinidad in second place worldwide. Data released from the project on January 30 gives statistics for 2018 and shows that for Trinidad’s 1.4 million population, each person contributes 31.28 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions annually. The World Bank project measures only CO2 emissions and does not include any emissions from land use or other greenhouse gases. Although those numbers are alarming, Trinidad has consistently placed within the top ten contributors of CO2 over the last decade. The top contributor for 2018 was Qatar- producing 37.97 tonnes per person. CO2 emissions are responsible for global warming and climate change.”
It’s abundantly clear that something is definitely occurring in the environment in Trinidad because of climate change. The area of the Manzanilla Beach on the east coast has shrunk. Hotels, guest houses and beach houses in Manzanilla are constantly under threat from the erosive nature of the Atlantic Ocean. Many owners are fighting to keep their properties safe from the onslaught of the ocean.
Eight years ago, in an effort to prevent the sea from damaging the Manzanilla Beach Facility, the Ministry of Works and Transport (MOWT) installed 252 linear metres of vinyl sheet pile seawall and 252 linear metres of concrete capping. The main objective of the project was to provide stability along the length of the coastline of the Manzanilla Beach Facility. This important facility for tourists and beachgoers was destabilized by the effects of coastal erosion and wave overtopping of the original seawall; just a stopgap measure. The once beautiful landscape of swaying coconut palms that lined the shores are now falling prey to the ravaging waves. At one time after heavy rains, the adjacent swamp flowed over the road to interact with the sea. Some farmers in North Manzanilla have lost acres of land because of the impact of the rising sea.
Coming to terms with what’s happening in Trinidad is something difficult. Change will not come too soon. People want to continue living the same way they lived a few years ago. We still see trucks dumping loads of used tires everywhere. We still see garbage being thrown into waterways. We still see piles of disgusting refuse and waste materials accumulating along the pothole-ridden backroads in the central area of Trinidad. When the flood comes, the garbage eventually block the watercourses. How long will South Quay, Port of Spain succumb to flooding?
With all this pressure on the environment, some people are squatting in the Aripo Savannah, a government forest reserve. Soon enough we will lose this part of the country to squatters. On a once pristine beach in Toco, squatters have taken over. The beautiful almond trees on the beach are now dead or dying because of senseless beachgoers or campers. To cook their food, fires were lit at the roots.
The sand on the seashore is now blackened with charcoal remains. In the wake of climate change we should not be killing trees. But wait! Take a drive through the Valencia Old Road to see the revulsion of quarrying and the horrible destruction of the forest. Concerning my observations in Valencia, the Delaware Bards Poetry Review (2019) published my poem Departure. Here’s a section from the poem:
“And in Trinidad, the Land of Steelpan and Calypso, I must cry out! I must declare,
That I did sit and stare at the rape of the forest in Valencia; it was O so clear,
Virgin forest, so verdant, so pristine, so lush, lost! Receded a mile from the road,
Soil, sand, rock, gravel, mud; removed load, after load, after load,
To build another black topped road somewhere down below you see,
Kill the mangrove! Chase the birds! Block the crabs from crossing to the sea!
Move the mountain! Fill up the swamp! We don’t need that in the South…
Create nasty lakes in Valencia; close your eyes and shut your mouth!”
I believe that I have said enough. Is anyone listening? We have arrived at a very serious part of our development. It sounds more like the development of underdevelopment. Climate change and global warming are here to stay.
The Economist recently said that we must reduce carbon emissions, find a way to remove carbon from the atmosphere and learn to live with climate change. The words of the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau come to mind: “Reverse the usual process and we may almost always do right.” The caravan is moving, and the dog is still barking.
