The Buc­coo Reef Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter a tour boat sank near No Man’s Land, To­ba­go, over the week­end. The com­mit­tee has al­so con­firmed that the boat op­er­a­tor’s li­cence has been sus­pend­ed and that new pol­i­cy changes are be­ing re­viewed.

Chair­man of the Buc­coo Reef Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee Al­lan Stew­art said an emer­gency meet­ing was called fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

“An emer­gency meet­ing was called to dis­cuss our find­ings based on the in­ci­dent, and as a re­sult of that, there are cer­tain ac­tions to be tak­en,” Stew­art said. “One will do a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion to see ex­act­ly the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to look in­to the in­ci­dent and see whether there were any vi­o­la­tions.”

Videos, which be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on­line on Sun­day evening, showed pas­sen­gers climb­ing off the sink­ing ves­sel as it went down near the reef. The in­ci­dent oc­curred on Sat­ur­day around 10 pm, which is out­side the park’s op­er­at­ing hours. Ac­tiv­i­ties at the park are sup­posed to come to an end at 6 pm.

Stew­art con­firmed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are look­ing in­to whether any rules were bro­ken.

“It has been said to be an area that re­quires ac­cess and per­mis­sion to ac­cess, and we know that the ma­rine park func­tions from a cer­tain time,” he said. “So the in­ci­dent, the oc­cur­rence of it af­ter hours, mean­ing there­fore in the night, is an in­di­ca­tion that some­thing went amiss, wrong, and there­fore the in­ves­ti­ga­tors will def­i­nite­ly look at those is­sues ... and ad­vise us as to the di­rec­tion go­ing for­ward.”

He said the com­mit­tee is al­so mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to im­prove man­age­ment of the ma­rine park.

“There are al­so rec­om­men­da­tions to be made in re­gard to how we will im­prove things go­ing for­ward, and those rec­om­men­da­tions will be made to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly,” Stew­art said. “It is based on a strate­gic plan that is con­struct­ed to look at the im­me­di­ate steps to be tak­en and what are the medi­um-term steps and, of course, things that we con­sid­er to be long-term.”

Stew­art con­firmed that the li­cence of the ves­sel in­volved has been sus­pend­ed un­til a full in­spec­tion is com­plet­ed.

“I can con­firm that the li­cence will be sus­pend­ed based on the po­si­tion of the ves­sel un­til it is in­spect­ed thor­ough­ly and un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­vides some mean­ing­ful way in or­der for them to con­tin­ue their trade,” he said.

He added that a ma­rine sur­vey­or will as­sess the struc­tur­al dam­age be­fore any fur­ther de­ci­sion is made.

The com­mit­tee is al­so re­view­ing ex­ist­ing ma­rine laws and poli­cies, which date back to the 1970s.

“The com­mit­tee over the past month or two has been work­ing on a strate­gic plan which looks clin­i­cal­ly at ar­eas that need to be prop­er­ly reg­u­lat­ed and the en­force­ment of ex­ist­ing laws,” Stew­art said. “Where there are laws, like in terms of the ma­rine bill, those poli­cies of the THA are now be­ing looked at clin­i­cal­ly to see if there are gaps, and where there are gaps, rec­om­men­da­tions will be made through the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly so that the ex­ec­u­tive can take cer­tain de­ci­sions.”

Stew­art said the com­mit­tee was step­ping up sur­veil­lance and en­force­ment as To­ba­go heads in­to its Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val sea­son.

“Ag­gres­sive­ly, that has been some­thing that has been hap­pen­ing in terms of the mon­i­tor­ing; as I in­di­cat­ed, the sur­veil­lance con­tin­ues to take place,” he said. “There is an op­er­a­tion Reshield, which is a 90-day ex­er­cise that is still on­go­ing, and ever so of­ten, vis­its are made to the reef by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.”

He said pub­lic health of­fi­cials al­so vis­it­ed No Man’s Land to ad­dress food safe­ty con­cerns among ven­dors.

Stew­art said the com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue work­ing to bal­ance en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion with busi­ness op­er­a­tions in the ma­rine space.