Kalain Ho­sein

Af­ter decades of op­er­a­tion, ac­tiv­i­ties at the Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre & Lodge have been brought to a halt.

Due to the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the Na­ture Cen­tre has been closed to vis­i­tors for sev­er­al months and the eco-lodge has ceased op­er­a­tions.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue, the cen­tre’s chair Dr Ju­dith Gob­in told Guardian Me­dia that while the not-for-prof­it trust will re­main in ex­is­tence, con­tin­u­ing to man­age the wildlife sanc­tu­ary, the eco-lodge busi­ness has been per­ma­nent­ly closed with the at­tached staff laid off.

The af­fect­ed lodge com­prised 25 guest rooms but Gob­in re­frained from com­ment­ing on the to­tal num­ber of ter­mi­nat­ed em­ploy­ees.

Gob­in added, “The chair and board mem­bers are sad­dened that it has come to this.”

Lo­cat­ed at 1,200 feet in the moun­tains of the North­ern Range, sev­en miles north of Ari­ma, the cen­tre is a world-class nat­ur­al his­to­ry des­ti­na­tion for trop­i­cal ecol­o­gy stu­dents. It is of par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est to bird­watch­ers with over 256 species of birds spot­ted on the es­tate.

The cen­tre’s prop­er­ties will be re­tained un­der for­est cov­er in per­pe­tu­ity to pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty wa­ter­shed and pro­vide im­por­tant wildlife habi­tat.

In a state­ment from the Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre, the staff al­so en­deav­oured to sus­tain the on­go­ing re­search and con­ser­va­tion projects and pro­vide need­ed main­te­nance for the trails and grounds of the cen­tre. Giv­en that the cen­tre has no rev­enue to sup­port on­go­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, the cen­tre has now re­newed calls for do­na­tions through the cen­tre’s web­site.

The de­ci­sion has left en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists and na­ture seek­ers dis­traught, with many tak­ing to so­cial me­dia to ex­press their dis­plea­sure.

One of them was Ed­ward Rooks, who, not­ing he had got­ten word of the im­pend­ing clo­sure, wrote, “This is un­be­liev­able that such an in­ter­na­tion­al trea­sure and a bea­con for con­ser­va­tion in the Caribbean will be lost. This pan­dem­ic has claimed a ter­ri­ble loss for Trinidad and To­ba­go. What will hap­pen to the pro­tect­ed prop­er­ty? Trinidad needs more na­ture pre­serves and parks, not less.”

About the cen­tre

The Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre (AWNC) is a “not-for-prof­it” trust es­tab­lished in 1967 by a group of nat­u­ral­ists and bird­watch­ers. The in­tend­ed pur­pose is to “pro­tect part of the Ari­ma Val­ley in a nat­ur­al state and cre­ate a con­ser­va­tion and study area to pro­tect wildlife and the en­joy­ment of all.” It was one of the first na­ture cen­tres to be es­tab­lished in the Caribbean.

The cen­tre was es­tab­lished by a non-prof­it trust ad­min­is­tered by the Bank of No­va Sco­tia Trust and an in­ter­na­tion­al board of man­age­ment com­posed of 11 Trinida­di­ans and 10 for­eign mem­bers.

The cen­tre’s main fa­cil­i­ties are lo­cat­ed on a for­mer co­coa-cof­fee-cit­rus plan­ta­tion, pre­vi­ous­ly known as the Spring Hill Es­tate. This es­tate has now been part­ly re­claimed by sec­ondary for­est, sur­round­ed by im­pres­sive rain­for­est, where some orig­i­nal cli­max for­est on the steep­er slopes has a canopy of 100-150 feet.