Aripo Savannas Strict Nature Reserve - Environmental Management ...

2.3 Overview of the History of the System of Protecting Areas in Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago has had a long history of reserving lands for their environmental and biodiversity goods
and services to people. However, present day management and legislation has not kept abreast of recent
knowledge and developments in biodiversity conservation and management.
After Independence in 1962, the Forestry Division was charged with the responsibility of protecting the
country’s the flora and fauna. However, ever-increasing levels of exploitation and degradation proved to be too
much for existing legislation and policy 11 .
In 1977 the Government of Trinidad and Tobago requested the Organisation of American States (OAS) to assist
the country in establishing a plan for a system of Scientific Reserves and Protected Areas and create a policy
from which legislation could be developed 12 .
The approach was based on the conservation and preservation of vegetative communities and the protection of
endemic and native species of wildlife 13 . Thelen and Faizool (1980a) identified 61 sites that required protection.
Of these, the following were proposed in six categories of Protected Areas:
13 National Parks;
8 Scientific Reserves;
8 Natural Landmarks;
13 Nature Conservation Reserves;
6 Scenic Landscapes, and;
13 Recreational Parks.
The Systems Plan of 1980 identified Aripo Savannas as one of the proposed Scientific Reserves selected for
protection due especially to the nature of the floral composition of the area. This study also indicated that such a
Reserve would require special management objectives that would ensure that the uniqueness of the Reserve be
maintained.
At present, there are four main legal categories of protected areas in Trinidad and Tobago. These are:
1. Wildlife or Game Sanctuaries;
2. Prohibited Areas;
3. Protected Marine Areas;
4. Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA’s).
The first reserve of the country and indeed one of the first of the western hemisphere was the Main Ridge of
Tobago, declared in 1776 for protection of the watershed that fed agricultural lands and therefore the economy
of the island. The importance of maintaining forests to attract rain had long since been recognised, and the
downstream effects on the whole economy of the island of Tobago. The history of the reservation of state lands
for conservation and production for Trinidad and Tobago includes the following landmarks:
11 Leach, M., and J. Fairhead. 2001a. Science, policy and Scientific Reserves in Trinidad and Tobago. Working Paper from the Project ‘Forest Science
and Forest Policy: Knowledge, Institutions and Policy Processes’. The Institute of Development Studies, United Kingdom. Available at the Internet
URL: http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/env/PDFs/TrinidadNationalParks.pdf
12 Fairhead, J., and Leach, M. 2001. Sustainable Forestry in Trinidad? Natural Forest Management in the South-East. Working Paper from the Project
‘Forest Science and Forest Policy: Knowledge, Institutions and Policy Processes’. The Institute of Development Studies, United Kingdom. Available
at the Internet URL: http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/env/PDFs/TrinidadSustainableForestry.pdf
13 Leach, M., and J. Fairhead. 2001a.
EMA: The Administrative Record for the Designation of Aripo Savannas as an Environmentally Sensitive Area