Trinidad and To­ba­go’s topog­ra­phy is an ex­treme­ly bio­di­verse ex­panse of flo­ra and fau­na that are world renowned for their unique char­ac­ter­is­tics. We live in what a met­ro­pol­i­tan city dweller might con­sid­er a ‘par­adise’, how­ev­er it is un­der threat. As the world con­vened for COP26 of the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC) to dis­cuss the ef­fects of cli­mate change and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly un­sus­tain­able prac­tices on the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty, one can on­ly take a look around our own coun­try to un­der­stand the ef­fects that pol­lu­tion and emis­sions have on our en­vi­ron­ment. What ini­tia­tives have we, as a coun­try, signed on to in or­der to pro­tect our wildlife and en­vi­ron­ment and what risk does pol­lu­tion pose to our nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment?

The Basel Con­ven­tion is one of many mul­ti­lat­er­al en­vi­ron­men­tal agree­ments to which T&T is sig­na­to­ry and we rat­i­fied this agree­ment in 1994. It reg­u­lates but most­ly pro­hibits the trans­bound­ary move­ment of haz­ardous waste and calls for the re­duc­tion in the pro­duc­tion of waste and its prop­er dis­pos­al as close to the source of pro­duc­tion as pos­si­ble. This coun­try hosts one of 14 Basel Con­ven­tion Re­gion­al Cen­tres for Train­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer ‘The Caribbean Sub­re­gion’. Our oblig­a­tions are to man­age re­spon­si­ble dis­pos­al, en­sure prop­er pack­ag­ing and la­belling of haz­ardous ma­te­ri­als and hav­ing stan­dard trans­port con­di­tions. When trans­port is al­lowed, writ­ten con­sent must be giv­en and the health and en­vi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences must be as­sessed and shared.

T&T has agreed to:

- ban the im­por­ta­tion of haz­ardous waste

- min­imise pro­duc­tion and en­sure wastes are treat­ed and dis­posed of in an en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sound man­ner.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Rot­ter­dam Con­ven­tion deals with banned and heav­i­ly re­strict­ed pes­ti­cides and in­dus­tri­al chem­i­cals. T&T ac­ced­ed to the con­ven­tion on No­vem­ber 16th, 2009. This Con­ven­tion works with the prin­ci­ple that, the 52 iden­ti­fied chem­i­cals as of 2019, should not be ex­port­ed and im­por­ta­tion should on­ly hap­pen with pri­or writ­ten ap­proval.

There is a class of high­ly tox­ic, long last­ing chem­i­cals that af­fect tis­sues in hu­mans and an­i­mals, ‘Per­sis­tent Or­gan­ic Pol­lu­tants’ or ‘POPs’. These are be­ing ad­dressed by the Stock­holm Con­ven­tion which was adopt­ed in 2001. It cov­ers 30 chem­i­cals as of 2019 most of which are banned. Sig­na­to­ries agree to de­vel­op, im­ple­ment and up­date a na­tion­al im­ple­men­ta­tion plan to treat per­sis­tent or­gan­ic pol­lu­tants and ed­u­cate pol­i­cy mak­ers and the gen­er­al pub­lic.

Keima Gar­diner, Waste Man­age­ment Spe­cial­ist at the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, spoke on the Con­ven­tions to which we are sig­na­to­ry and their im­por­tance to lo­cals: “The MEA’s that deal with chem­i­cal and waste man­age­ment, name­ly the Basel, Rot­ter­dam and Stock­holm Con­ven­tions should be of con­cern to lo­cals as the chem­i­cals and wastes list­ed un­der these con­ven­tions are of in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern. Name­ly they cause var­i­ous pub­lic health im­pacts such as can­cers, re­pro­duc­tive dis­or­ders, dam­age to the im­mune and ner­vous sys­tem as well as de­vel­op­men­tal de­lays.”

We are al­so sig­na­to­ry to the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col. Maris­sa Gowrie, Deputy En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­ag­er and Na­tion­al Ozone Of­fi­cer ex­plained its sig­nif­i­cance - “In the ear­ly 1980’s, sci­en­tists would have dis­cov­ered that there was what we call the hole in the ozone lay­er” she said. “When they did re­search they found out that cer­tain chem­i­cals pro­duced by man were go­ing up in­to the Stratos­phere, which is the part of the at­mos­phere where you find the ozone lay­er, and com­ing in­to con­tact with the ozone, caus­ing this hole to be formed. So the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty came to­geth­er and signed on to an agree­ment called the ‘Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col’. What the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col does es­sen­tial­ly is to chart out cer­tain phase out sched­ules to get rid of these sub­stances that are caus­ing dam­age to the ozone lay­er.” T&T has phased out chlo­ro­flu­o­ro­car­bons and halons since 2008 and is in the process of phas­ing out all ozone de­plet­ing sub­stances. We con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor im­ports and ex­ports of ozone de­plet­ing sub­stances and have a ro­bust le­gal frame­work for mon­i­tor­ing and strong pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion aware­ness on the is­sues, al­though progress is ad­mit­ted­ly ex­treme­ly slow. Be­ing sig­na­to­ry to these pro­to­cols, ac­cord­ing to Dr. Gowrie, “al­lows us to ac­cess fund­ing to help peo­ple in the air con­di­tion­ing and re­frig­er­a­tion sec­tors, of which ozone de­plet­ing gas­es are usu­al­ly used, to have ac­cess to up­dat­ed equip­ment, to train­ing, to up­dat­ed knowl­edge, etcetera, to re­al­ly help tech­ni­cians, ser­vice peo­ple, im­porters and all those who ex­ist in this sec­tor to re­al­ly do prac­tices that can help us move away from these dam­ag­ing gas­es.”

T&T is al­so sig­na­to­ry to sev­er­al agree­ments aimed at pro­tect­ing our bio­di­ver­si­ty to vary­ing ex­tents. The Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on Bi­o­log­i­cal Di­ver­si­ty and its Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col on Biosafe­ty seek to pre­vent the ex­tinc­tion of species and the degra­da­tion of ecosys­tems. T&T rat­i­fied to this con­ven­tion in 1996 with our ar­eas of fo­cus be­ing agri­cul­tur­al, in­land wa­ters, forests, ma­rine and coastal ar­eas and is­land bio­di­ver­si­ty. The Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col deals with reg­u­la­tions for ge­net­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food crops; un­der it we are ob­lig­at­ed to de­vel­op a na­tion­al biosafe­ty frame­work.

The Con­ven­tion on In­ter­na­tion­al Trade in En­dan­gered Species of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra is called CITES. It seeks to pre­vent ex­ploita­tion of an­i­mal and plant species for trade and fore­stall de­ple­tion and ex­tinc­tion. T&T ac­ced­ed to CITES in Jan­u­ary 1984 and has sev­er­al species list­ed for reg­u­la­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al trade, with our oblig­a­tions be­ing to have a man­age­ment au­thor­i­ty and a li­cens­ing sys­tem to pro­mote sus­tain­able trade and safe­guard wildlife species.

The Ram­sar Con­ven­tion’s ob­jec­tive is to pro­tect wet­lands of in­ter­na­tion­al im­por­tance. T&T be­came a par­ty on De­cem­ber 21st, 1975 and has three Ram­sar sites to­talling 15,919 hectares - The Nar­i­va swamp, Buc­coo Reef/Bon Ac­cord La­goon Com­plex and the Ca­roni Swamp.

The promis­es of these con­ven­tions, how­ev­er, are not enough. We al­so need con­crete ac­tion, to pre­serve our own bio­di­ver­si­ty and to pre­serve our­selves and T&T is work­ing tire­less­ly to do this.