Celebrating the International Day of Forests 2018

March 21st marks the global annual observance of the International Day of Forests.  This year, the theme of the observance is: Forests and Sustainable Cities.

Locally, attention has been paid to the value of forest
cover for the role it plays in maintaining our watersheds, reducing erosion, filtering the air, producing oxygen, creating habitats for our wildlife and in general... sustaining life!

Forest management and propagation come into focus in these two blog articles, prepared by Ms Khadija Bourne of the Forestry Division.  Enjoy reading Championship Trees and Tree Hazard Ratings and remember to keep loving our forests and our TT trees!

#iloveTTtrees 

Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Survey underway in Tobago

What does the average person know about forests and protected areas?  What value if any is attached to them?  Do people play a part in protecting and managing these natural resources?  In an effort to investigate the answers to these and other questions that are relevant to the six pilot protected areas, a “Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices” survey was initiated in Tobago at the end of July 2016. 

This activity was kicked off by a training session held with staff and interns of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) and the Fisheries Division. 

The survey will capture views of people living in the general area of the two pilot protected areas in Tobago and will advise a communication strategy for the project. 

Click here for a full report on the training activity and the first day of field work.

Improving Forests and Protected Area Management in T&T Project

In October 2014, the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources  officially signed on to a project that would be jointly funded with the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the European Union (EU) to revise the management of Protected Areas (PAs) in line with the newly adopted National Policies on Forests, Protected Areas and Wildlife. 

The Project has a four year timeline and is earmarked for six test sites, two of which are located in Tobago.  The complete list of project sites are:

• North East Tobago Marine Protected Area 
• Main Ridge Forest Reserve 
• Nariva Swamp 
• Trinity Hills/Victoria-Mayaro 
• Caroni Swamp 
• Matura

While the project is aimed at actualising the concepts of the National Policies for Wildlife and Protected Areas (PAs), it would seek to do so through four technical components:

1. Improvements to the legal and institutional arrangements for PA management
2. Improvements to infrastructure for biodiversity conservation and forest restoration 
3. Development and testing of sustainable financing system
4. Monitoring and evaluation and information dissemination.

It is anticipated that these strategies of the Project would yield outcomes with tangible benefits such as a Protected Area system that accounts for approximately 214000ha, almost 100000ha of which would be designated as new Protected Areas. 

Additionally, the project would pilot methodologies for a sustainable financing system which would include a revenue generating mechanism for the sites, an organisational structure which promotes and formalises co-management of PAs with stakeholders from the private sector and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and development of personnel capacity and infrastructure for effective management of PAs.

IUCN/TNC Scientific Forum on the BIOPAMA Programme

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Nature Conservancy (TNC) are the two largest global NGOs which have the conservation and protection of biological resources as their core role. Together they have collaborated on the Biodiversity and Protected Area Management Programme (BIOPAMA) for African, Pacific and  Caribbean (ACP) states, the main aim of which is to establish a database on Protected Areas (PAs).  

This Scientific Forum, which was held between February 19 – 21^st, 2014 in St. Lucia, was intended to familiarise the Caribbean sub-region on the objectives of the BIOPAMA programme and to inform on its utility by providing  information on available tools for the management of protected areas. 

Two representatives from the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources attended the Scientific Forum. They included Mr. Julius Smith, Environmental Biologist in the Environmental Policy and Planning Division, along with Rhona Jitta, Assistant Conservator of Forests (Ag.), Forestry Division.

The Forum provided an opportunity for the IUCN/TNC to assess the capabilities of the Caribbean States in terms of  Protected Area management, monitoring and enforcement as well as their availability to participate in the BIOPAMA initiative.  The second part of the Forum focused on working group sessions that sought to get the participants to formulate projects that would assist BIOPAMA in carrying out its mandate.   

These sessions sought to solicit information from Caribbean states regarding how data is currently being used, existing data gaps, impediments to the acquisition of data, the accessibility of available data and the administrative bottlenecks to data management as well as decision making based on the use of geospatial data.