RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to launch a ma­jor re­for­esta­tion pro­gramme aimed at plant­i­ng thou­sands of trees na­tion­wide, Rio Claro res­i­dents staged a sec­ond protest yes­ter­day, this time in San Fer­nan­do, de­mand­ing that lands cleared for the Cas­cadu­ra en­er­gy project be re­plant­ed and that af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties re­ceive jobs from the ini­tia­tive.

Led by Louis Castil­lo, pres­i­dent of the Rio Claro Un­em­ploy­ment As­so­ci­a­tion (RCUA), 16 res­i­dents marched along Cir­cu­lar Road car­ry­ing plac­ards read­ing: “We Need Work,” “Stop In­equal­i­ty” and “Re­plant Our Forests.”

The pro­test­ers said res­i­dents re­main un­cer­tain about when the re­for­esta­tion pro­gramme will be­gin and how peo­ple from sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties will be se­lect­ed to par­tic­i­pate.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Castil­lo said the as­so­ci­a­tion had writ­ten to sev­er­al of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram, the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the pro­gramme’s roll­out and re­cruit­ment process.

He said res­i­dents were pre­vi­ous­ly told, fol­low­ing a protest in Cou­va, that a re­for­esta­tion ini­tia­tive had been ap­proved, but no clear time­line or en­gage­ment process has since been com­mu­ni­cat­ed.

“Up to now, they haven’t plant­ed back,” Castil­lo said, re­fer­ring to forest­ed ar­eas cleared for the en­er­gy project. He added that the rainy sea­son was an im­por­tant pe­ri­od for land prepa­ra­tion and tree plant­i­ng.

Castil­lo said res­i­dents are will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in the re­plant­i­ng ex­er­cise but need for­mal en­gage­ment, train­ing and trans­paren­cy on how con­trac­tors and com­mu­ni­ty groups will be se­lect­ed.

“We are will­ing to work,” he said. “We want to plant back the for­est.”

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions yes­ter­day, Rati­ram said Cab­i­net had ap­proved a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ini­tia­tive un­der the Re­leaf TT pro­gramme, which in­cludes re­for­est­ing 102 hectares of land and plant­i­ng more than 236,000 trees. He said the ini­tia­tive is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate ap­prox­i­mate­ly 158 jobs through the Forestry Di­vi­sion.

Rati­ram al­so said he had not re­ceived any let­ter from the group re­quest­ing a meet­ing.

Castil­lo, who pre­vi­ous­ly con­test­ed a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion on a PNM tick­et, re­ject­ed claims that the protest was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. He said the RCUA is a reg­is­tered non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion fo­cused on em­ploy­ment and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

“Every­body has the right to choose a po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty,” he said, adding that the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ac­tions were un­re­lat­ed to par­ty pol­i­tics.