SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

The howls of wild ca­puchin mon­keys as they feast on man­goes and oth­er fruit may not nor­mal­ly be heard on a pop­u­lar beach in Trinidad but it’s just one of the changes COVID-19 has brought to the world.

Gov­ern­ment’s stay-at-home re­stric­tions in­clud­ed a lock­down of many pop­u­lar and much-loved beach­es or rivers scat­tered across the is­lands.

Over the last week, Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Clifton Hill beach in Point Fortin, Plai­sance Park beach in Ma­yaro, Cau­ra Riv­er, Mara­cas Bay, Ch­aguara­mas beach and Mac­queripe beach to see how na­ture fared with­out mankind’s of­ten too-heavy foot­print.

It was clear that while we missed na­ture, she was do­ing bet­ter with­out us. De­void of any hu­man in­ter­fer­ence, flo­ra and fau­na have thrived.

Sections of Clifton Hill beach at Guapo in Point Fortin.

INNIS FRANCIS

Clifton Hill

At Clifton Hill miles of pris­tine sand can be found with no hu­man garbage to mar the beau­ty.

Em­bold­ened by the lack of hu­man preda­tors, blue man­grove crabs left the safe­ty of their holes and in­stead of scur­ry­ing, walked lazi­ly along the beach. A pair of birds, sens­ing a fresh meal, hov­ered near­by.

But when the crabs sensed our team was get­ting too close, they skit­tered back to their mud­dy homes, dis­ap­pear­ing in sec­onds.

Sev­er­al feet away, the in­spec­tion of a rustling sound re­vealed a small snake slith­er­ing its way in­to the edge of the man­grove. Per­haps mim­ic­k­ing the blue crab, our pho­tog­ra­ph­er chanced one pho­to of the slith­ery snake be­fore scam­per­ing away.

Small­er black man­grove crabs went about their crab busi­ness pay­ing no mind to the two-legged in­vaders.

Mayaro fishing boats tied to a coconut tree.

Rishi Raboonath

Ma­yaro

Just un­der 110 kilo­me­tres away, across the is­land, the shore­line of the Ma­yaro beach seemed like an­oth­er world.

There was no smooth sand to tread on as the shore­line lay buried un­der tonnes of sar­gas­sum sea­weed.

The sar­gas­sum first sul­lied Trinidad’s East Coast and parts of To­ba­go in these amounts in 2011.

In pre­vi­ous years, the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion would launch mas­sive clean-up ex­er­cis­es once the sar­gas­sum be­gan to wash up, work­ing tire­less­ly to clear the piles of sea­weed from the shore­line. The sar­gas­sum has proven to be more than just an eye­sore to Ma­yaro’s fish­ing trade, as fish­er­men have learnt the hard way not to cast nets any­where near it as those nets have to cut loose once they be­come weight­ed with the sea­weed.

A small group of King Cor­beau pa­trolled the beach, stop­ping every few feet to peck in­quis­i­tive­ly at the sand.

Even with­out strict reg­u­la­tions against go­ing to the beach, the Ma­yaro coast­line would be de­void of sea-bathers as the brown wall of sea­weed makes it al­most im­pos­si­ble to en­joy the cool wa­ters.

A pool in Caura River on Tuesday.

EDISON BOODOSINGH

Cau­ra

Nes­tled in the North­ern Range is an­oth­er wild­ly pop­u­lar na­ture site—the Cau­ra Riv­er. Des­ig­nat­ed as a na­tion­al park, Cau­ra has found life­long fans in the Tri­nis who en­joy a clas­sic lo­cal pas­time, the “riv­er lime.”

At the two main ar­eas, Pool 1 and Pool 2, miles of cold, clear wa­ter gur­gle down, shad­ed gen­er­ous­ly by patch­es of bam­boo along the river­bank.

Pre-COVID, on any giv­en day of the week, Cau­ra was a melt­ing pot of crack­ling fire­sides, ex­u­ber­ant divers launch­ing them­selves from rocks in­to the wa­ter and un­for­tu­nate­ly, “sound-clash­es” by over-zeal­ous car-en­thu­si­asts.

But dur­ing our vis­it on Tues­day, the on­ly songs that rang out were bird­song and the screams of the ci­cadas nes­tled in the trees around the riv­er. Paus­ing their in­ces­sant peck­ing, wood­peck­ers perched on tree branch­es at the en­trance to Pool 2 looked war­i­ly down at us as we passed be­low.

The paved paths where cars would usu­al­ly park were cov­ered in fall­en bam­boo leaves.

The wa­ter seemed even cold­er and clear­er than usu­al.

But to test that the­o­ry meant break­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance, so the on­ly con­fir­ma­tion came from walk­ing gin­ger­ly along the shal­low parts of the riverbed. Small fish, sur­prised out of their tran­quil­li­ty, scat­tered be­fore our feet, re­treat­ing to the dark nooks they are too of­ten con­fined to in the riv­er.

One Cau­ra res­i­dent, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said he could not re­mem­ber a time in his 50-plus years when the riv­er banks had been so de­sert­ed. He said it was a wel­come change for the com­mu­ni­ty as riv­er-go­ers too of­ten leave their garbage be­hind af­ter their limes.

Maracas beach on Tuesday.

EDISON BOODOOSINGH

Mara­cas

Just an hour af­ter leav­ing Cau­ra, our team was stand­ing in the sands of Mara­cas Bay.

It was Mara­cas as nev­er seen be­fore, the sand smooth and un­marked by any foot­prints.

The on­ly sounds were the crash­ing waves and the high winds.

Af­ter ten min­utes of tak­ing pho­tos and video along the beach, our team was ap­proached by two po­lice of­fi­cers. They had got­ten a call that a cou­ple were bathing on the beach—an ac­tion that could lead to a $50,000 fine and pos­si­ble jail time—the of­fi­cers said.

Up­on pre­sen­ta­tion of our me­dia badges and an es­sen­tial ser­vice let­ter, the good-hu­moured of­fi­cers al­lowed us to con­tin­ue our work—on­ly warn­ing us not to stay too long on the beach.

Even as we were dust­ing the sand off our feet to leave, the wa­ters of the At­lantic swept the shore­line, eras­ing the on­ly ev­i­dence of our vis­it.

On our way back along the North Coast, we stopped as many do, at the Mara­cas look­out. The var­i­ous stalls where the de­li­cious chow and oth­er lo­cal snacks are usu­al­ly sold looked dusty and dis­used-re­cent relics from a time when we roamed with no COVID-19 wor­ry.

A quiet Macqueripe beach on Wednesday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Ch­aguara­mas

In the west of the is­land, the board­walk at Ch­aguara­mas is an­oth­er well-loved beach.

COVID-19 did more than keep beach-go­ers away it seemed, as the wa­ter looked clear and clean for the first time in years. Al­mond leaves lit­tered the sand, dis­turbed on­ly by sev­er­al large bins still lined with black garbage bags that lay like dead an­i­mals on the shore.

A short dis­tance away at Mac­queripe Beach, au­thor­i­ties had gone all out to en­sure no one breached the bar­ri­er from the car park to the beach.

Pieces of scaf­fold­ing were linked with wire, cre­at­ing an im­pen­e­tra­ble bar­ri­cade.

Danc­ing and feed­ing on the oth­er side were a group of gor­geous tuft­ed ca­puchin mon­keys.

They swung from tree to tree be­fore our amazed eyes, their tiny hands clutch­ing ripe man­goes.

As we looked on, they seemed to make a sport of pick­ing the fruit nes­tled high up in the trees, bit­ing it sev­er­al times be­fore dis­card­ing it, then jump­ing to an­oth­er tree to con­tin­ue their hunt.

One fur­ry guy in par­tic­u­lar lazi­ly picked up those dis­card­ed man­goes, tak­ing his time to eat the flesh com­plete­ly off it while cling­ing to the bam­boo branch­es.

Much like a hu­man, he licked the juices of the man­go that ran down his hands while peer­ing down at us.

How­ev­er, af­ter sev­er­al min­utes of our pres­ence, the mon­keys stopped their chit­ter­ing and re­treat­ed deep in­to the bam­boo, leav­ing us alone with the sound of the crash­ing waves.

Be­neath the trees that brack­et the bay, the ev­i­dence of their feed­ings- half-eat­en man­goes- lay scat­tered along the grass.

Un­like oth­er na­ture sites we vis­it­ed, Mac­queripe seemed clear of any hu­man waste.

A snake among dry leaves on Clifton Hill beach.

INNIS FRANCIS

No noise pol­lu­tion, an­i­mals bold­er 

As a Forester 1 with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture’s Forestry Di­vi­sion, Kis­han Ram­cha­ran works every day in the hills of the North­ern Range. Home to some of this coun­try’s most mag­nif­i­cent wildlife, the range of­fers Ram­cha­ran a front-row seat to Moth­er Na­ture in all her glo­ry.

From opos­sums, agouti, igua­nas to wild ca­puchin mon­keys, Ram­cha­ran sees in per­son what most peo­ple on­ly see in pho­tographs.

Ram­cha­ran be­lieves the vis­i­bil­i­ty of wildlife is di­rect­ly linked to the lack of hu­man pres­ence - the an­i­mals have got­ten braver, he says.

“Usu­al­ly there are rare sight­ings of those an­i­mals once there are oth­er peo­ple around - es­pe­cial­ly in Cau­ra where there is an in­flux of vis­i­tors there reg­u­lar­ly on a dai­ly ba­sis, you tend to hard­ly sight an­i­mals like those. I be­lieve some of the rea­sons you would rarely see those an­i­mals is be­cause of noise pol­lu­tion, that is one of the main fac­tors that would dri­ve these an­i­mals away,” he said.

He said these sight­ings at a time when the State has man­dat­ed cit­i­zens to stay at home, prove just how much the pres­ence of peo­ple af­fects the coun­try’s wildlife.

He is ad­vis­ing the pub­lic to car­ry garbage bags to the rivers and beach­es so they can take their refuse with them when they leave, to stop light­ing fires in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly on the river­banks and to be qui­eter in their ex­cur­sions, so flo­ra and fau­na can con­tin­ue to thrive.

Artifects left in Caura River

EDISON BOODOOSINGH

Ac­tivists: Af­ter COVID, re­mem­ber cli­mate cri­sis 

While en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist and co-founder of IAMove­ment, Jonathan Bar­cant says he is hap­py to know that wildlife is thriv­ing with the ab­sence of peo­ple in their habi­tats, he wants the State to en­sure that the en­vi­ron­ment is a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion in the road to re­cov­ery from COVID-19.

In an in­ter­view on Wednes­day, Bar­cant said IAMove­ment in­tends to sub­mit pro­pos­als to the Gov­ern­ment’s Re­cov­ery com­mit­tee, tasked with chart­ing the way for­ward for the coun­try post-COVID-19.

“I think it def­i­nite­ly is a show of what can be- in terms of what na­ture looks like when hu­mans are more re­spect­ful or less in­tru­sive- it is very nice to know that wildlife thrives in our forests and it’s nice to see them in their nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment but I think we need to look be­yond wildlife and to the care of these spaces,” Bar­cant said.

Di­rec­tor of  Wildlife and En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (WEPTT), Kristo­pher Rat­tans­ingh agreed. He said the most im­por­tant step go­ing for­ward is en­sur­ing the pub­lic cre­ates a “new nor­mal” for in­ter­act­ing with na­ture.

“We are see­ing these ef­fects that are hap­pen­ing and we need to take away from that, that our ac­tions go­ing for­ward can still af­fect what is hap­pen­ing, if we go back to things as nor­mal, things will re­main the same and we will con­tin­ue to have the same prob­lems.”

Rat­tans­ingh wants the Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly im­ple­ment the Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill so re­cy­cling can be­come a part of the every­day lives of cit­i­zens.