SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Sec­re­tary of the Hik­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HATT) Michael Jat­tan is urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to in­sti­tute laws to reg­u­late the hik­ing in­dus­try, stat­ing that many hik­ing groups have been ex­pos­ing hik­ers to great risks.

Jat­tan made the call yes­ter­day, stat­ing that with­in the last few months there has been an emer­gence of hasti­ly-formed hik­ing groups which op­er­ate with­out safe­ty com­pli­ance.

Rat­tan said in March, HATT sent a list of in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards and guide­lines to the Bu­reau of Stan­dards ask­ing them to re­view and con­sid­er their rec­om­men­da­tions.

A copy of the rec­om­men­da­tions was al­so for­ward­ed to the Tourism Min­istry for pe­rusal.

Among the guide­lines set out by HATT was that hik­ing groups must op­er­ate with life jack­ets, two-way- ra­dios, first aid sup­plies and com­pass­es, as well as hike lead­ers must have life-sav­ing skills.

HATT al­so sug­gest­ed there must be suf­fi­cient hike lead­ers to hik­ers.

For those stan­dards to hold weight, Jat­tan said it must have a le­gal frame­work.

He said cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for each group was al­so nec­es­sary.

Jat­tan said its as­so­ci­a­tion has no pow­er to not reg­u­late a hik­ing group and such re­spon­si­bil­i­ty rests on the shoul­ders of the Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, he said any group that reg­is­ters with HATT must ad­here to its strict guide­lines.

De­spite hav­ing 50 groups in op­er­a­tion, Jat­tan said on­ly sev­en have be­come HATT mem­bers.

HATT en­sures that its mem­bers fol­low prop­er guide­lines when on a hike.

Many of these groups, Jat­tan said, op­er­ate un­reg­u­lat­ed and with­out pre­cau­tion, some­times putting the lives and limbs of hik­ers at risk.

“Any­one can get up one morn­ing and form a hik­ing group and there is no law to reg­u­late them. What we want is a col­lab­o­rat­ed ef­fort with all groups…that we work to­wards the same goal to en­sure that hik­ers re­main safe.”

Jat­tan ad­vised that the threats of a hike can range from the pres­ence of ven­omous snakes to the depth of plunge pools lo­cat­ed at wa­ter­falls or along riv­er cours­es.

He spoke about Richard Baird’s body be­ing dis­cov­ered down a precipice in the Aripo for­est last Au­gust, af­ter days of in­tense search­es.

An au­top­sy re­vealed that Baird died as a re­sult of a bro­ken neck.He had par­tic­i­pat­ed in a hike or­gan­ised by a group.

“We were able to take dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against that group. When the or­gan­i­sa­tion chose not to co­op­er­ate with us we moved to sus­pend and then ex­pelled them,” Jat­tan said.

He said HATT raised con­cerns about the man­ner in which the or­gan­i­sa­tion man­aged the hike with Baird.

How­ev­er, Rat­tan said since the ex­pul­sion, the group con­tin­ues to op­er­ate hikes as nor­mal.

“There is noth­ing in the law to stop them from op­er­at­ing and con­duct­ing hikes. What HATT is try­ing to do is push the en­ve­lope to get reg­u­la­tions in law. We are start­ing the ball rolling in the hope that by co­op­er­a­tion with the State the even­tu­al out­come will be a sit­u­a­tion where any or­gan­i­sa­tion that wish­es to con­duct a hike in this coun­try must ad­here to strict guide­lines.”

“HATT is call­ing for laws to be draft­ed to reg­u­late the hik­ing in­dus­try, as was done in the UK and US. While there is a de­gree of re­lax­ation and fun when it comes to hikes there is se­ri­ous­ness to it. There is a high lev­el of risk when you en­ter any forest­ed area in T&T.”

Asked if Ak­il Stafford, who re­cent­ly drowned at Three Pools in Blan­chisseuse was on a hik­ing ex­pe­di­tion, Jat­tan said pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed that he had gone there to lime with friends.