Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Ac­tivists against the ir­re­spon­si­ble use of fire­works say the noise lev­els this Di­vali were the worst they have ex­pe­ri­enced in years and are now ques­tion­ing whether they placed their trust in the new ad­min­is­tra­tion too soon.

Founder of the An­i­mals 360 Foun­da­tion and the Fire­works Ac­tion Coali­tion of T&T, Roger Mar­shall, in a phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, said mem­bers were in­un­dat­ed with mes­sages and calls from con­cerned cit­i­zens about the wide­spread use of fire­works dur­ing the Di­vali hol­i­day. He said they re­ceived re­ports from Diego Mar­tin, Ari­ma, South Oropouche, and El So­cor­ro, de­scrib­ing these ar­eas as a “war zone”. Fire­works were al­so heard in Mount Hope, Freeport, and Fe­lic­i­ty.

“It was shock­ing. We re­al­ly didn’t ex­pect that. We were re­al­ly alarmed. The an­i­mal shel­ters them­selves, you know, had a hor­ri­ble time,” he shared.

The ac­tivist said that when he start­ed re­ceiv­ing re­ports from wor­ried cit­i­zens, he and his team mes­saged sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, who told him that there were oth­er un­der­ly­ing rea­sons for this. But Mar­shall said the re­sponse was not good enough. He said some­thing was foul with this whole set­up.

“For a Gov­ern­ment that will be vot­ed in­to pow­er for its hope, for its com­pas­sion to the peo­ple, it’s not what we’re see­ing. It’s not what we’re ex­pe­ri­enc­ing. And we’re ques­tion­ing our­selves to­day; have we made a mis­take?” he asked.

Mar­shall and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Ri­car­do Meade were part of the first Na­tion­al Dog Plan Stake­hold­er Meet­ing, which in­clud­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Gov­ern­ment, vet­eri­nary pro­fes­sion­als, an­i­mal wel­fare groups, and res­cuers back in Au­gust.

How­ev­er, fol­low­ing the wide­spread use of fire­works just months af­ter the meet­ing and the sub­se­quent ban on state-spon­sored and noisy fire­works for In­de­pen­dence Day, Mar­shall and Meade said they have now lost all hope.

Meade said the Gov­ern­ment needs to re­move the use and pur­chase of fire­works from the hands of the pub­lic.

“We can­not,” he said.

Adding his voice to the dis­ap­point­ment, wildlife pho­tog­ra­ph­er and con­ser­va­tion ad­vo­cate Roger Neck­les called for a to­tal ban on the pub­lic sale and use of fire­works, with ex­cep­tions on­ly for In­de­pen­dence Day and New Year’s Eve cel­e­bra­tions at au­tho­rised, gov­ern­ment-su­per­vised venues.

“Fire­works cause im­mense suf­fer­ing to pets, wildlife, and vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple, in­clud­ing the el­der­ly, the sick, and chil­dren on the autism spec­trum. The loud det­o­na­tions dis­ori­ent nest­ing birds, bats, and for­est an­i­mals, of­ten lead­ing to death or aban­don­ment of their young,” he said.

He added that each year, count­less cit­i­zens, pets, and wildlife suf­fer from the un­con­trolled and sense­less use of fire­works across the coun­try.

“What should be mo­ments of joy and cel­e­bra­tion have be­come nights of trau­ma, anx­i­ety, and en­vi­ron­men­tal dis­tur­bance. It is time to end this mad­ness,” he said.

Op­po­si­tion MP for Arou­ca/Lopinot Mar­vin Gon­za­les said he was not sur­prised by what he de­scribed as dou­ble stan­dards re­gard­ing the use of fire­works for the Di­vali hol­i­day, warn­ing the pop­u­la­tion to ex­pect more. Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said the Gov­ern­ment was hid­ing be­hind leg­is­la­tion.

“I’m a sharp­shoot­er, and I don’t like to play with words. The Gov­ern­ment, I’m re­al­ly sor­ry, the Gov­ern­ment and their key spokesper­son said that the In­de­pen­dence pa­rade was a PNM ral­ly. So, the hypocrisy you’re re­fer­ring to is to be ex­pect­ed. End of text,” he said.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein said he al­so heard fire­works be­ing dis­charged dur­ing Di­vali but not­ed that such ac­tiv­i­ties fall un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, who must grant per­mis­sion un­der the law.

Speak­ing with the me­dia on his way to the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Par­lia­ment, Ho­sein ac­knowl­edged that the fire­works is­sue is one the Gov­ern­ment has to ad­dress, giv­en the num­ber of sen­si­tive and af­fect­ed groups in the coun­try.

He stressed there was no dou­ble stan­dard re­gard­ing the can­cel­la­tion of the In­de­pen­dence Day fire­works.

“It would have cost tax­pay­ers over half a mil­lion dol­lars. We were not pre­pared to spend that mon­ey this year. We have to save what we have and en­sure we can use those funds to ben­e­fit the cit­i­zens of T&T,” Ho­sein said.

Ques­tions were sent to Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin, ask­ing whether any com­plaints, ar­rests, or re­ports of dam­age were record­ed, but he did not re­spond as of late yes­ter­day evening.