On this UN­ESCO-de­clared World Press Free­dom Day 2024, we join with our col­leagues around the world to con­front the en­vi­ron­men­tal cri­sis on the plan­et. We pledge to do so through in­ves­tiga­tive re­portage and sol­id and per­sua­sive opin­ions based on the work of en­vi­ron­men­tal sci­en­tists and what we see around us.

In do­ing so, we as Guardian Me­dia pledge to be in­sight­ful and vig­or­ous to slow, even op­ti­misti­cal­ly, to end the es­ca­la­tion of world tem­per­a­tures, which, if we fail to achieve, will re­sult in the cat­a­stroph­ic loss of our liv­ing space.

To ful­fil that ob­jec­tive, Guardian Me­dia will be in touch with re­search on the plan­e­tary en­vi­ron­ment, which con­tin­ues to be threat­ened by the un­re­lent­ing im­pacts of in­dis­crim­i­nate min­ing and oth­er forms of in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ties that re­lease in­creas­ing quan­ti­ties of nox­ious gas­es in­to the at­mos­phere.

As small as T&T is, there are sev­er­al en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues here which need to be con­stant­ly re­searched and high­light­ed. Among them, the con­tin­u­ing il­le­gal quar­ry­ing tak­ing place in sev­er­al parts of the coun­try with lit­tle or no of­fi­cial re­me­di­al ac­tion and the need for Gov­ern­ment to man­age well our pe­tro­le­um re­sources while mak­ing the shift to the green forms of en­er­gy that en­cir­cle the is­lands.

Our 20th-cen­tu­ry dump­sites are an­oth­er set of en­vi­ron­men­tal haz­ards that we have al­lowed to de­te­ri­o­rate in­to pol­lut­ing dis­as­ters. The con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and degra­da­tion of our beach­es and the wa­ters, which rush on­to our shores and in some in­stances, do ir­repara­ble dam­age, need se­ri­ous at­ten­tion. Re­cent­ly, we ex­pe­ri­enced the cat­a­stroph­ic spillage of crude oil on the beach in To­ba­go—in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing which we still have to iso­late to be able to take de­fin­i­tive ac­tion against the of­fend­ers. 

The crit­i­cal point here is that while we may not be among the ma­jor in­dus­tri­al pol­luters of the plan­et, our rel­a­tive­ly small con­tri­bu­tions, which may be out of sync with our size and in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ty, con­tribute to plan­e­tary de­spo­li­a­tion.

Our col­lec­tive thrust as me­dia and jour­nal­ists is to con­tin­ue to high­light and call out both de­lib­er­ate of­fend­ers and the pas­siv­i­ty and in­ca­pac­i­ty of agen­cies that do far less than what is re­quired.

In the lat­ter re­spect, our me­dia in T&T and their re­port­ing and analysing func­tions should be vig­or­ous and fear­less in the in­ter­est of our coun­try and our re­gion, in­clu­sive of the Caribbean Sea and in­ter­nal wa­ter­ways.

Meet­ing such needs is the sec­ond re­spon­si­bil­i­ty out­lined for me­dia and jour­nal­ists in the 2024 World Press Free­dom Day ob­jec­tive—to be fear­less and fair in con­tin­u­ing to point out the short­com­ings of in­di­vid­u­als, or­gan­i­sa­tions and cor­po­ra­tions, small and large, and the Gov­ern­ment.

In tack­ling the chal­lenges, we as in­di­vid­u­als and in­sti­tu­tions must al­ways hold fast to our his­tor­i­cal role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as the Fourth Es­tate, sep­a­rate and in­de­pen­dent of the Par­lia­ment, the Ex­ec­u­tive and the Ju­di­cia­ry. We must nev­er for­get and re­lin­quish that man­date and do so with en­er­gy and in­sight on be­half of the peo­ple and the coun­try.  

We an­swer not to a Prime Min­is­ter, his/her Cab­i­net, or the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic in car­ry­ing out our du­ties as the Fourth Es­tate.