Shas­tri Boodan

GML Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

At the south­west­ern­most edge of Trinidad, where the road seems to run out be­fore the pos­si­bil­i­ties do, lies a part of the coun­try that re­mains large­ly un­known to many Trinida­di­ans.

Ica­cos is a place of wet­lands, coast­line, fish­ing vil­lages, mud vol­ca­noes, co­conut es­tates and rem­nants of the coun­try’s past. It is al­so home to peo­ple who be­lieve that, with the right in­vest­ment and pro­tec­tion, the area could be­come one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most dis­tinc­tive eco­tourism des­ti­na­tions.

Among them is 49-year-old Sailash “Neil” Sookram, an Ica­cos res­i­dent, out­door en­thu­si­ast and tour guide who has spent his en­tire life ex­plor­ing the penin­su­la.

For Sookram, the chal­lenge is not find­ing at­trac­tions.

“There’s a lot, there’s a lot to ex­plore,” he said.

What is lack­ing, he be­lieves, is the in­fra­struc­ture, pro­tec­tion and co­or­di­nat­ed de­vel­op­ment need­ed to turn the area’s nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al as­sets in­to a sus­tain­able tourism prod­uct.

At the cen­tre of his vi­sion is the Great Ica­cos La­goon. Sookram wants the la­goon to be des­ig­nat­ed a Ram­sar site, giv­ing greater pro­tec­tion to what he de­scribes as one of the area’s most spec­tac­u­lar wet­lands.

A wet­land from the dri­ver’s seat

The la­goon lies along­side the road­way, mak­ing it un­usu­al­ly ac­ces­si­ble to vis­i­tors - but al­so leav­ing it vul­ner­a­ble to pol­lu­tion.

“It is one of the spec­tac­u­lar sites on Great Ica­cos,” Sookram said.

“There’s a lot of wet­land birds nest­ing there. And it tru­ly is a place to be. It def­i­nite­ly has the po­ten­tial for eco­tourism in a con­trolled man­ner, with­out in­ter­fer­ing too much with the species that ex­ist with­in that area.”

What makes the la­goon par­tic­u­lar­ly un­usu­al is its ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty. Un­like many wet­lands that re­quire vis­i­tors to take a boat or hike in­to re­mote ar­eas, the road ac­tu­al­ly pass­es through the wet­land.

Sookram de­scribes it as some­thing of a dri­ve-through wet­land, where vis­i­tors can re­main in their ve­hi­cles while ob­serv­ing wildlife.

He said the area pro­vides op­por­tu­ni­ties to see the na­tion­al bird, the scar­let ibis, while Amer­i­can flamin­gos have al­so been spot­ted there.

“We have seen maybe a cou­ple of dozens of them right here at the wet­land, which is a spec­tac­u­lar site,” he said.

But the same road that pro­vides ac­cess to the la­goon has al­so be­come one of its great­est threats.

Sookram said garbage, par­tic­u­lar­ly plas­tic waste, is be­ing dumped along the road­side and even­tu­al­ly makes its way in­to the wet­land.

He fears that con­tin­ued pol­lu­tion could dam­age the habi­tat and threat­en the species that de­pend on it.

He and oth­ers have erect­ed signs in an ef­fort to en­cour­age greater pub­lic aware­ness, while his so­cial me­dia page, Love of the En­vi­ron­ment, is used to pro­mote en­vi­ron­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

For Sookram, for­mal pro­tec­tion would pro­vide a stronger foun­da­tion for con­ser­va­tion and care­ful­ly man­aged tourism.

More than birds and beach­es

The Great Ica­cos La­goon is on­ly one part of the sto­ry. Fur­ther along the penin­su­la are coastal land­scapes, mud vol­ca­noes, fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties and his­toric sites—in­clud­ing a World War II bunker.

Sookram be­lieves the bunker could be de­vel­oped in­to a her­itage at­trac­tion, po­ten­tial­ly in­cor­po­rat­ing repli­cas or relics of the orig­i­nal guns and in­ter­pre­tive dis­plays ex­plain­ing its wartime sig­nif­i­cance.

He al­so be­lieves the roads lead­ing in­to some of these at­trac­tions need ur­gent at­ten­tion.

“The roads could def­i­nite­ly do some work,” he said.

Bet­ter roads, he ar­gues, would make it eas­i­er for vis­i­tors to reach the area’s at­trac­tions while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal res­i­dents to earn in­come from tourism. He sug­gests that trained and cer­ti­fied lo­cal tour guides could be part of such a de­vel­op­ment.

A tour guide born from the land­scape

Sookram is al­ready do­ing his part. Through his South­west Ad­ven­tures YouTube chan­nel, he show­cas­es the land­scape, wildlife, his­to­ry and cul­ture of the south­west­ern penin­su­la.

His tours in­clude coastal hikes, bird­watch­ing, fish­ing ex­cur­sions and vis­its to his­toric and ge­o­log­i­cal sites.

At dif­fer­ent times, he has tak­en vis­i­tors along routes from Chatham to Ica­cos and from Granville to Bonasse Vil­lage. Oth­ers have been tak­en to the area’s mud vol­ca­noes.

Dur­ing school va­ca­tions, he al­so takes chil­dren on ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­cur­sions, in­tro­duc­ing them to tra­di­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties such as co­conut-oil pro­duc­tion and the his­to­ry of the co­conut es­tates around Colum­bus Bay.

The ex­pe­ri­ence is not lim­it­ed to na­ture.

Vis­i­tors can sam­ple lo­cal food and re­fresh­ments, in­clud­ing fish pie, co­conut wa­ter, sug­ar cake and co­conut fudge.

Sookram said the com­bi­na­tion of na­ture, food, his­to­ry and lo­cal knowl­edge is pre­cise­ly what could make the area at­trac­tive to do­mes­tic tourists.

“Def­i­nite­ly the area has the po­ten­tial for eco­tourism,” he said.

A dif­fer­ent side of Trinidad

Sookram be­lieves the south­west­ern penin­su­la has an ad­van­tage that should not be over­looked.

Its ge­o­graph­i­cal prox­im­i­ty to Venezuela has helped cre­ate a land­scape and ecosys­tem that dif­fer from those found in oth­er parts of Trinidad.

“This is the south­west­ern penin­su­la,” he said. “And it’s unique in terms of the flo­ra and fau­na.”

For some­one who has lived there all his life, the changes to the en­vi­ron­ment over the past two decades have been im­pos­si­ble to ig­nore.

He has wit­nessed coastal ero­sion and changes along the shore­line, in­clud­ing the up­lift of sec­tions of the beach.

His con­cern is that de­vel­op­ment must not come at the ex­pense of the very en­vi­ron­ment that at­tracts vis­i­tors.

That is why he favours con­trolled eco­tourism rather than mass tourism.

The miss­ing piece: some­where to stay

There is an­oth­er ob­sta­cle. While there are guest hous­es in near­by Bonasse Vil­lage, Sookram said Ica­cos it­self has very lim­it­ed overnight ac­com­mo­da­tion. That could be­come in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant if the area is to at­tract vis­i­tors from out­side the south­west.

For some trav­ellers, the dis­tance from cen­tral and north­ern Trinidad makes a day trip im­prac­ti­cal.

Sookram be­lieves small-scale ac­com­mo­da­tion, in­clud­ing bed-and-break­fast es­tab­lish­ments, could pro­vide an­oth­er source of in­come for res­i­dents.

The de­vel­op­ment of lo­cal tourism, he ar­gues, could cre­ate jobs with­out de­stroy­ing the char­ac­ter of the com­mu­ni­ty.

A com­mu­ni­ty look­ing for its op­por­tu­ni­ty

But Sookram be­lieves Ica­cos and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties should not have to wait in­def­i­nite­ly for de­vel­op­ment.

Oil has been ex­tract­ed from the wider area, and he be­lieves com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing there could do more to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ties in which they work.

He sug­gest­ed projects such as a play park for chil­dren and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties.

His ar­gu­ment is sim­ple: if the area is ex­pect­ed to sup­port eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, some of that in­vest­ment should re­turn to the peo­ple who live there.

At the same time, the com­mu­ni­ty it­self has been chang­ing.

Sookram said Ica­cos has ex­pe­ri­enced an in­flux of Venezue­lan mi­grants over the past decade, al­though he ac­knowl­edged that many have since re­turned to Venezuela.

Yet amid these changes, the char­ac­ter of the com­mu­ni­ty re­mains root­ed in its nat­ur­al sur­round­ings. Fish­ing re­mains im­por­tant, res­i­dents know one an­oth­er, and the rel­a­tive tran­quil­li­ty of the coun­try­side con­tin­ues to at­tract peo­ple seek­ing an al­ter­na­tive to the con­ges­tion, pol­lu­tion and crime as­so­ci­at­ed with ur­ban life.

Tourism with­out los­ing Ica­cos

That may ul­ti­mate­ly be Ica­cos’ great­est at­trac­tion.

It is not a place that needs to be trans­formed in­to an­oth­er tourist re­sort. Its strength lies in what it al­ready has.

He be­lieves the Great Ica­cos La­goon could be­come the start­ing point for a broad­er tourism strat­e­gy - one that pro­tects the en­vi­ron­ment while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for the peo­ple who call the penin­su­la home.

But the win­dow of op­por­tu­ni­ty, he warns, should not be tak­en for grant­ed.