RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

The his­toric heart-shaped pond at Palmiste Park dug by the La­m­ont fam­i­ly has all but dried up, pos­ing a pos­si­ble threat to the flour­ish­ing eco-sys­tem of the 40-acre park.

This is why the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety (PHS) is call­ing for cor­po­rate T&T and the State to join to­geth­er to im­me­di­ate­ly re­ha­bil­i­tate the pond.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, the so­ci­ety’s vice pres­i­dent Jose De Caires said the pond needs to be dredged at least six feet. He ex­plained that the heart-shaped pond was dug by the park’s orig­i­nal own­er and is vi­tal for the ecosys­tem.

“We have squir­rels, lots of birds, igua­nas, man­i­cous, ro­dents and with the wa­ter in here, it as­sists our flour­ish­ing wildlife in terms of hav­ing a place to have clean wa­ter to drink. Those an­i­mals which lay eggs like igua­nas use the banks. There are al­so caimans here as well as snakes. The pond it­self is a great as­set to wildlife and pro­vides wa­ter dur­ing the dry sea­son,” De Caires said.

He not­ed that the park re­mains one of the at­trac­tions of south Trinidad, used dai­ly for ex­er­cise and recre­ation in­clud­ing, hik­ing, jog­ging, pic­nics, cy­cling and pho­tog­ra­phy.

Main­tained by the Forestry Di­vi­sion and Cepep, De Caires said the So­ci­ety has been beg­ging for years to have the pond re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed.

Now that it has com­plet­ed dried up and all the caimans have dis­ap­peared, De Caires said the So­ci­ety is mak­ing a last at­tempt to have the pond re­stored to its for­mer glo­ry.

“I re­mem­ber swim­ming in this heart-shaped pond as a child. Over the years we have tried to re­ha­bil­i­tate the pond but there seems to be a lack of fund­ing. We have ap­proached the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions to get it done. We asked con­trac­tors and pri­vate cit­i­zens but we are not get­ting the as­sis­tance. Palmiste is the on­ly park in the south with this type of scenery. We are try­ing to bring the park to the sta­tus of the Botan­ic Gar­dens, but we are fac­ing hin­drances and not get­ting sup­port,” De Caires said.

He not­ed that the pond was dug be­cause of a love af­fair of the orig­i­nal own­er.

“It has a wind­mill that was pump­ing wa­ter to the main house. We want to bring back the heart-shaped pond and have fish in there to have it back to its nat­ur­al look. If we can get this done, it will en­cour­age more peo­ple to come,” De Caires said.

How­ev­er, he lament­ed the lack of in­ter­est in pre­serv­ing the pond.

He ex­plained that the So­ci­ety was es­tab­lished in 2009 to pre­serve the her­itage of the for­mer sug­ar­cane es­tates in the Palmiste area owned by the Philip and the La­m­ont fam­i­lies and was reg­is­tered as an NGO on 20th Oc­to­ber 2016.

The so­ci­ety has been en­gaged in the preser­va­tion of his­toric sites in­clud­ing the La­m­ont graves, plant­i­ng of trees and med­i­c­i­nal plants and con­duct­ing an Oral His­to­ry Pro­gram.

Any­one want­i­ng to con­tribute to the So­ci­ety’s projects can send an email to the palmis­te­his­tor­i­cal­so­ci­ety@gmail.com or call 681-4355 or 312-0608.