Residents urged to protect Palmiste Park fruit trees

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Pe­nal-Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj is urg­ing res­i­dents to help pro­tect new­ly plant­ed fruit trees at Palmiste Park, fol­low­ing the theft of pre­vi­ous­ly plant­ed trees by pri­vate groups.

He was speak­ing to the me­dia at the launch of the Pub­lic Fruit and Food Or­chards Ini­tia­tive at Palmiste Park, San Fer­nan­do, on Fri­day.

Asked about se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns fol­low­ing the theft of plants pre­vi­ous­ly plant­ed by pri­vate groups at the park, Ma­haraj said there would be sup­port from the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice.

But he al­so urged res­i­dents to re­main vig­i­lant.

“So, we al­so de­pend on the res­i­dent as­so­ci­a­tions and cit­i­zens to al­so help, be alert and help us with the se­cu­ri­ty of the plants. It is re­al­ly a beau­ti­ful ini­tia­tive, and it is a sad day if we re­al­ly must im­prison our­selves to the point that every plant must have a po­lice­man stand­ing next to it.”

Coun­cil­lor Raven Ram­sawak al­so urged mem­bers of the pub­lic not to pick the fruit to sell.

The Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety and res­i­dents have un­der­tak­en tree-plant­i­ng ex­er­cis­es at the park for years, but their ef­forts have been thwart­ed by theft. Just re­cent­ly, 50 fruit trees were stolen.

In his fea­ture ad­dress, Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram said the ini­tia­tive will even­tu­al­ly ex­tend to recre­ation­al grounds, schools and green spaces in Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion com­mu­ni­ties.

Giv­en the chal­lenges fac­ing the agri­cul­ture sec­tor, in­clud­ing chang­ing cli­mat­ic con­di­tions, sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions and the mi­gra­tion of pests and dis­eases, Rati­ram said cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions were need­ed.

He point­ed to the sig­nif­i­cant de­crease in co­coa cul­ti­va­tion, from 90,000 hectares to 4,000 hectares, but said the Gov­ern­ment is tar­get­ing 200,000 new co­coa plants through its re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gramme.

Through the pub­lic or­chard ini­tia­tive, Rati­ram said the Gov­ern­ment is mak­ing food more ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic.

“So, this ini­tia­tive does ex­act­ly what we are speak­ing about by trans­form­ing un­der­uti­lized pub­lic spaces in­to com­mu­ni­ty food as­sets, but we are al­so tak­ing a de­lib­er­ate step in­to the dig­i­tal age through the min­istry's ge­o­graph­ic in­for­ma­tion sys­tem unit.”

Rati­ram said every or­chard will be mapped and spa­tial­ly doc­u­ment­ed us­ing mo­bile tech­nol­o­gy and soft­ware to im­prove ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy.

He al­so spoke about the lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty in pre­vi­ous tree-plant­i­ng pro­grammes through the Forestry Di­vi­sion.

“You know the forestry pro­gramme that has been run­ning in Trinidad and To­ba­go over the years gone by, de­spite all the dif­fer­ent ghost gangs and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties and cor­rup­tion that would have hap­pened in that forestry pro­gramme, we al­so would have had some gen­uine ac­tiv­i­ties of tree-plant­i­ng ex­er­cis­es.

“That pro­gramme was launched since 2003-2004 and it would have lost its man­date do­ing all sorts of oth­er things, but if it is that we were map­ping these trees, we would have had some lev­el of ac­count­abil­i­ty be­cause to­day, when we look back at the last 20 years, what has the pro­gramme con­tributed? There's a big ques­tion mark.”

“We are en­sur­ing that as we pi­lot the way for­ward, we must have a high lev­el of ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and what­ev­er funds that are be­ing spent, we must have val­ue for mon­ey be­ing spent.”

Rati­ram added that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to ini­tial­ly roll out five or­chards, which are ex­pect­ed to pro­duce about 500 kilo­grammes an­nu­al­ly.

An es­ti­mat­ed 100 fruit trees, in­clud­ing man­go and co­coa, would be plant­ed at Palmiste Park.