Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat wants game war­dens to help their law en­force­ment col­leagues more by track­ing down the mar­i­jua­na plan­ta­tions and mak­ing busts across the coun­try.

He made the com­ment at the in­duc­tion cer­e­mo­ny for 139 hon­orary game war­dens at the Ca­roni Swamp Vis­i­tors' Cen­tre yes­ter­day.

Ad­dress­ing the game war­dens, Ramb­harat said: "What you're do­ing out there is that you're per­form­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty func­tions which are no dif­fer­ent from a mem­ber of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, an SRP, pre­cept­ed of­fi­cer, an of­fi­cer of the De­fence Force, Coast Guard or Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion.

"Our main con­cern rests with en­force­ment."

He said the Forestry Di­vi­sion re­port­ed that be­tween Au­gust-Oc­to­ber 2016 they had dealt with over 230 of­fences, a 50 per cent in­crease over the same pe­ri­od in pre­vi­ous years.

He said min­istry per­forms a se­ries of law en­force­ment func­tions in­volv­ing game war­dens, for­est of­fi­cers and hon­orary game war­dens and there were at least eight ar­eas where these func­tions were per­formed.

Ramb­harat said many peo­ple didn't re­alise that when Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad (PLS) of­fi­cers went in­to the field it was not just for ripe fig, sheep and goats, adding that on an an­nu­al ba­sis the of­fi­cers dealt with over 1,200 mat­ters un­re­lat­ed to agri­cul­ture.

He said the of­fi­cers were ex­posed to all the risks of law en­force­ment in a coun­try that was be­set by crim­i­nal be­hav­iour and law­less­ness.

He said no one could turn a blind eye to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of mar­i­jua­na with­in the for­est re­serves and on state lands across the coun­try in the North­ern Range, Bal­a­ta East, Moru­ga and Biche.

Ramb­harat said it was not just the trap guns, but the pres­ence of well-armed peo­ple in the forests who were pre­pared to pro­tect their turf.

He said it was for this rea­son he has asked for the Of­fice of Law En­force­ment Pol­i­cy (OLEP) in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to be­come in­volved in the game war­dens' train­ing.