Ari­ma—his­tor­i­cal­ly the third-largest town in T&T, fol­low­ing af­ter Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do—has been bumped in­to fourth place by Ch­agua­nas which emerged as one of the fastest grow­ing bor­oughs in the coun­try in re­cent times.

The Ari­ma Bor­ough is con­sid­ered the gate­way to the north-east­ern sec­tion of Trinidad with a pop­u­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 41,000.

Ari­ma still re­mains a town of great his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance. Its fa­mous Bor­ough Day is held in Au­gust and usu­al­ly co­in­cides with the San­ta Rosa Carib Com­mu­ni­ty fes­ti­val and holds its own Ari­ma Car­ni­val.

The bor­ough is al­so host­ing the Caribbean Fes­ti­val of Arts (Car­ifes­ta) XIV in the East.

Ari­ma is the of­fi­cial home of the First Peo­ples. Many peo­ple do not know that cer­tain foods and items now iden­ti­fied as Trinidad sta­ples came from the first peo­ples.

The word 'bar­be­cue' comes from food roast­ed on a bou­can, cas­sa­va bread and farine, warap, bar­be­cued wild game, corn pastelles, cof­fee, co­coa, and chadon beni.

For the ad­ven­tur­ous food­ie, geera horse can be had in Ari­ma around Christ­mas time, along with oth­er meats and at na­tion­al stick fight­ing semi­fi­nals around Car­ni­val at the Ari­ma Velo­drome. 

Parang mu­sic has its roots in Span­ish and First Peo­ples' mu­si­cal styles.

The Ari­ma Di­al is one of the most well-known, im­por­tant and his­tor­i­cal land­marks in Ari­ma.

Some of its tourist at­trac­tions are Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre, lo­cat­ed in Ari­ma Val­ley, San­ta Rosa Carib Cen­tre, lo­cat­ed on Paul Mitchell Road, off De Gannes Street in Ari­ma, and Cleaver Woods.

Waller­field In­ter­na­tion­al Race­way, Peo­ple of Praise Com­mu­ni­ty, and Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre and Lodge are al­so places in the bor­ough vist­ed by hun­dreds of peo­ple.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day from Pho­to House stu­dio at Wood­ford Street, Ari­ma, busi­ness­man and Chair of Part­ners of First Peo­ples Roger Be­lix said con­trary to pop­u­lar be­lief 'Ari­ma' was not the na­tive word for wa­ter.

Be­lix said wa­ter was 'puna', 'tum puna' was way to wa­ter and 'tu­na puna' means cross­ing many wa­ters from which those towns de­rive their names.

He said Ari­ma was the name of a plant and its roots were crushed and used to catch fish by the First Peo­ples.

He said af­ter the bat­tle of Mara­ca or St Joseph on Oc­to­ber 14, 1637, the na­tive peo­ples gave the name Her­rermari­ma to the fa­mous chief to show how sig­nif­i­cant the plant was to the na­tive peo­ples.

Be­lix said it was the colo­nials who called him 'Hyari­ma'.

'Ex­pan­sion must be tem­pered with en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns'

The re­tail and whole­sale trade is con­cen­trat­ed in the heart of the bor­ough, with light man­u­fac­tur­ing and ware­hous­ing oc­cur­ing in the O’Meara In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and su­per­mar­kets, malls and shop­ping cen­tres mush­room­ing on the out­skirts.

Be­lix said, "Busi­ness­es are look­ing to ex­pand in the area. There is a ware­house shop­ping fa­cil­i­ty, a tex­tile mill will soon be­come a mall, a hard­ware chain is look­ing to build a mall in 'the Or­ange'—be­tween Gua­napo Main Road and Pin­to Road, a busi­ness­man wants to turn the pad­dock in­to a mall.

"There's al­so a shop­ping cen­tre, a plaza, five con­glom­er­ate su­per­mar­ket branch­es.

"Can Ari­ma sup­port such ex­pan­sion? This must be tem­pered with con­sid­er­a­tion for the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact of not pre­serv­ing our green spaces, take a look at Green­vale, the Gua­napo hous­ing de­vel­op­ment, and Cara­po.

"The Gua­napo dump's fumes some­times reach­es the town and af­fects chil­dren and peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es."

He said in 1757 Ca­puchin monks came to Ari­ma from Spain to con­vert the na­tive peo­ples to Catholi­cism, Trinidad was un­der British con­trol in 1797, and by the 1850s, Ari­ma had grown large enough to be a strate­gic vil­lage.

Be­lix said in the 1870s Ari­ma be­came even more pros­per­ous as the co­coa in­dus­try be­gan its ex­pan­sion. He said The Trinidad Gov­ern­ment Rail­way (TGR) was orig­i­nal­ly built in 1876, to con­nect Port-of-Spain to Ari­ma so planters could bet­ter trans­port their prod­uct.

He said dur­ing this boom pe­ri­od when the first train came to Ari­ma, the Chi­nese were the en­gi­neers who put down the train lines.

Be­lix said af­ter that they set up shops and gro­ceries and went in­to trade.

He said the Mar­lay Group of Com­pa­nies from San­gre Grande opened a branch in Ari­ma and trad­ed in co­coa, cof­fee ton­ka beans, gro­cery, and hab­er­dash­ery com­bined.

Be­lix said the Britsh came af­ter, some be­came may­ors in the bor­ough, they were fol­lowed by the French Cre­oles who de­vel­oped hous­ing and agri­cul­ture.

He said sug­ar cane cul­ti­va­tion start­ed in the Old Ari­ma Road and Mal­abar, cit­rus was es­tab­lished by 'the Or­ange', not too far from Ques­nel Street.

Be­lix said Hin­dus set­tled in Gua­napo Road, Mus­lims in Mal­abar, Sher­wood Park or 'the Con­go' had Bap­tists or peo­ple of African her­itage and Cal­vary was sup­posed to be the Carib com­mu­ni­ty's home.