An­na-Lisa Paul

An Ital­ian na­tion­al liv­ing in Alyce Glen, Diego Mar­tin, who is al­leged to have in­tro­duced the Gi­ant African Snail in­to T&T years ago, yes­ter­day de­nied these claims.

In­stead, the man claimed he was a vic­tim of the in­va­sion just like every­one else in the West Trinidad but was an un­for­tu­nate vic­tim of his neigh­bours' "mal­ice and spite."

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian on Wednes­day, di­rec­tor in the Re­search Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Deo Nand­lal, said it was sus­pect­ed the snails had been brought in­to the coun­try eight years ago by a for­eign­er. It was first de­tect­ed in Alyce Glen be­fore spread­ing to Care­nage and West­moor­ings.

On con­di­tion his name not be used, how­ev­er, the busi­ness­man yes­ter­day con­firmed he was vis­it­ed by of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture in 2008, who ques­tioned him and al­so col­lect­ed sam­ples of the snails which had been found in his gar­den at the time.

But he de­nied he was re­spon­si­ble for the snail's pres­ence in T&T, say­ing he had been mar­ried and res­i­dent in the coun­try since 1970. He said he ob­served the snails in his gar­den but was un­aware they were no­ti­fi­able pests at the time.

How­ev­er, he said his neigh­bours, who he ad­mit­ted he had some trou­bles with, may have giv­en the min­istry of­fi­cials a dif­fer­ent sto­ry and they vis­it­ed his home.

Af­ter re­al­is­ing that he too had an in­fes­ta­tion, he said the min­istry of­fi­cials told him the snails could have en­tered the coun­try via fruits and veg­eta­bles be­ing im­port­ed from the re­gion, treat­ed the prob­lem and left. That was the last time he had seen of­fi­cials from the min­istry, he said. He stressed that he has al­ways com­plied with reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing lo­cal trade.

Mean­while, the task force set up by min­istry to deal with the prob­lem, is sched­uled to meet to­day to dis­cuss new strate­gies to com­bat the cur­rent in­va­sion of snails sweep­ing through agri­cul­tur­al lands in Or­ange Grove and Ma­coya.