The Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go says a pro­posed de­vel­op­ment ap­pli­ca­tion to con­duct quar­ry­ing at a site in the Mara­cas Val­ley St. Joseph can cause dam­age to this coun­try’s rarest in­dige­nous arte­fact, the Cau­ri­ta Pet­ro­glyphs.

In a press re­lease is­sued to­day, the Na­tion­al trust stat­ed that “as a legal­ly pro­tect­ed arte­fact, any al­ter­ation is ex­press­ly for­bid­den. Blast­ing and oth­er quar­ry op­er­a­tions can pro­duce im­pacts that can dra­mat­i­cal­ly al­ter the land­scape by way of scar­ring, in­creased wa­ter run-off and ero­sion.” The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go:

The Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go has been ap­proached, in view of its statu­to­ry man­date, to com­ment on a pro­posed de­vel­op­ment ap­pli­ca­tion to con­duct quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions at a site lo­cat­ed in the Mara­cas Val­ley St. Joseph.

It is im­por­tant to note that one of the coun­try’s rarest in­dige­nous arte­facts, the Cau­ri­ta Pet­ro­glyphs, is lo­cat­ed in close prox­im­i­ty to this pro­posed de­vel­op­ment and al­so close to an ex­ist­ing op­er­at­ing quar­ry.

As a list­ed her­itage as­set pro­tect­ed un­der the Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go Act Chap­ter 40:53, the ‘Cau­ri­ta Stone’, as the Cau­ri­ta Pet­ro­glyphs are more com­mon­ly known, con­sists of a large quartzite out­crop six feet (6’or 2m) in height and eight feet (8’or 3m) in width.

It bears elab­o­rate carv­ings made by Trinidad’s First Peo­ple cen­turies ago, de­pict­ing an­thro­po­mor­phic fer­til­i­ty im­ages and to date is con­sid­ered the on­ly doc­u­ment­ed rock art in Trinidad. Sit­u­at­ed in the La Cau­ri­ta Wa­ter­shed of Mara­cas Val­ley on a 55-acre par­cel of pri­vate land, it is an icon­ic her­itage cre­ation that still holds very sig­nif­i­cant spir­i­tu­al im­por­tance to our in­dige­nous peo­ple.

As a legal­ly pro­tect­ed arte­fact, any al­ter­ation is ex­press­ly for­bid­den. Blast­ing and oth­er quar­ry op­er­a­tions can pro­duce im­pacts that can dra­mat­i­cal­ly al­ter the land­scape by way of scar­ring, in­creased wa­ter run-off and ero­sion. For this rea­son, the Trust stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ple Com­mu­ni­ty and the Warao Na­tion in our com­mit­ment to safe­guard­ing these sa­cred lands as a unique and price­less as­pect of our na­tion­al pat­ri­mo­ny.

The Cau­ri­ta Stone the on­ly known pet­ro­glyph in Trinidad is an ir­re­place­able arte­fact of na­tion­al and re­gion­al sig­nif­i­cance giv­en the ex­is­tence of sim­i­lar carv­ings dis­cov­ered in oth­er Caribbean is­lands.