SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege of San­gre Grande has cap­tured first place in the north zon­al fi­nals of the de­bat­ing cat­e­go­ry of the 2012 bpTT Pri­ma­ry and Sec­ondary Schools En­vi­ron­men­tal Aware­ness Com­pe­ti­tion. Spurred by a com­pelling pre­sen­ta­tion by lead speak­er Moni­fa Arm­strong, the SWA­HA team won the nod of the judges ahead of three oth­er fi­nal­ists. SWA­HA scored 231 points, win­ning from run­ner-up North East­ern Col­lege (226 points), third-placed Coryal Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary (191 points), and Bates Memo­r­i­al Col­lege (183 points). The north zone fi­nals were held at North East­ern Col­lege on June 18. Urged on by the pres­ence of sev­er­al of their col­leagues, SWA­HA Col­lege suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend­ed the propo­si­tion: Be it re­solved that in a time where the world faces ris­ing costs of fu­el and en­er­gy, as well as an in­crease in pover­ty, gov­ern­ments should en­cour­age the cut­ting down of trees to fos­ter the sus­tain­able liveli­hoods of the rur­al poor and in­di­gent.

Lead­ing off the de­bate against North East­ern Col­lege, SWA­HA's Arm­strong ar­gued that the high costs of fos­sil fu­els ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed the rur­al poor and in­di­gent who could not af­ford the ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties of life. "Se­lec­tive and dis­crim­i­nate cut­ting of trees, not de­for­esta­tion, will gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties through agri­cul­ture, log­ging, and oth­er in­dus­tries and busi­ness­es," she de­clared. The planned cut­ting down of trees, she said, would help cre­ate sus­tain­able liveli­hoods for the rur­al poor and in­di­gent. Re­but­ting the ar­gu­ment, lead speak­er Am­ri­ka Sam­lal said many habi­tats around the world would not sur­vive de­for­esta­tion or the cut­ting down of trees. She said preser­va­tion of trees, through less cut­ting down, gen­er­ates ex­cel­lent eco-tourism de­vel­op­ment. "Vi­able al­ter­na­tives do ex­ist. Gov­ern­ments must come up with long-term plans for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment to help the rur­al poor," Sam­lal ar­gued.

Ear­li­er, Bates Memo­r­i­al led off the propo­si­tion through lead speak­er Jereel Quashie, with Patrice De Suze re­spond­ing for Coryal. Judge Andy Paul, act­ing prin­ci­pal of Ma­yaro Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, said there was a marked im­prove­ment in the de­liv­ery of the pre­sen­ta­tions from the pre­lim­i­nary round. He gave the teams sev­er­al tips on de­bat­ing tech­niques, such as the ef­fec­tive use of "punch lines." The oth­er judges were pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pal Theophilus Nedd and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Dane Phillip. The south zone grand fi­nals will be held to­day. The de­bates rep­re­sent one of three cat­e­gories of the an­nu­al bpTT Pri­ma­ry and Sec­ondary Schools En­vi­ron­men­tal Aware­ness Com­pe­ti­tion. Es­say writ­ing and art/poster form the oth­er el­e­ments.