The re­cent deaths of Qadir Shah and Max Phillip and an­oth­er in­ci­dent in which two hik­ers went miss­ing dur­ing an out­ing, again brings the is­sue of the safe­ty of in­di­vid­u­als dur­ing such ex­er­cis­es and the lack of reg­u­la­tion of such ac­tiv­i­ty by any gov­ern­ment agency.

Al­though the Hik­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­ists as a body for hik­ing groups, it is not armed with reg­u­la­to­ry pow­ers backed by law to tru­ly act on in­dis­cre­tion from er­rant mem­bers. More im­por­tant­ly, it is al­so in no po­si­tion to mon­i­tor the scores of ca­su­al groups con­duct­ing such ac­tiv­i­ty.

In the re­cent case of Shah, he was among a group of 14 hik­ers who were trekking in an area in Blan­chisseuse when they got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty af­ter ven­tur­ing in­to wa­ters at Tur­tle Rock. Fish­er­men of­ten note that wa­ters at Tur­tle Rock, which is near Paria Bay, are dif­fi­cult due to rough wa­ters and rocks which are cov­ered dur­ing high tide. That 14 mem­bers of Shah’s par­ty got in­to the wa­ter, there­fore, sug­gests they did not have crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion, which hik­ing lead­ers should have, to de­ter­mine whether they could nav­i­gate the wa­ters there. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Shah paid for this with his life.

In the case of Mo­hammed, he too was hik­ing when he went in­to a pool cre­at­ed by quar­ry­ing at Wind­sor Park, Cou­va, got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty and drowned. From all re­ports, he was part of a size­able group, none of whom seemed to know the dan­ger the pool on the long-aban­doned prop­er­ty rep­re­sent­ed.

Hav­ing said that, this me­dia house is un­aware of any in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the Hik­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T to de­ter­mine what oc­curred dur­ing the hike Shah was on, nor of any ad­vi­so­ry from it since then high­light­ing safe­ty mea­sures that should be tak­en for hik­ing ven­tures. This no doubt is one of the fail­ings of the body which, in 2017, dis­missed one of its mem­bers fol­low­ing an­oth­er in­ci­dent in which a hik­er died dur­ing an ac­tiv­i­ty.

The re­stric­tions im­ple­ment­ed on oth­er leisure­ly ac­tiv­i­ty has no doubt had the re­sul­tant ef­fect of an in­crease in hik­ing ac­tiv­i­ty, as cit­i­zens seek oth­er leisure and health out­let op­tions. But even be­fore this pan­dem­ic, hik­ing was pop­u­lar be­cause it was con­sid­ered one of the best means of get­ting ex­er­cise in a nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment.

Over the next few days, the Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day hol­i­day and the long East­er week­end and va­ca­tion for stu­dents will be op­por­tu­ni­ties for cit­i­zens to en­gage in a range of leisure ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing hik­ing. En­sur­ing that these ac­tiv­i­ties can be en­joyed safe­ly should be the pri­or­i­ty at times like this

Need­less to say, mea­sures must be put in place to en­sure all groups con­duct­ing such ac­tiv­i­ty are prop­er­ly reg­is­tered and mon­i­tored and that this in­for­ma­tion is made pub­lic so that cit­i­zens can pur­sue safe op­tions when mak­ing de­ci­sions on hik­ing ex­pe­di­tions. Cit­i­zens out­side hik­ing groups must al­so be ed­u­cat­ed on safe­ty pro­to­cols. These lat­est in­ci­dents clear­ly re­quire that ei­ther Min­istry of the Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries or Min­istry of Tourism, un­der whose su­per­vi­sion such ac­tiv­i­ty could fall, step in to form a reg­u­la­to­ry body or that the HATT is giv­en more teeth to reg­u­late the ac­tiv­i­ty.

We have al­ready lost two mem­bers of so­ci­ety to what may be lax safe­ty pro­to­cols. Their lives must not have been lost in vain.