CANPTT urges controlled fireworks; proposes drone displays

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion (CANPTT) is call­ing for a more re­spon­si­ble ap­proach to this year’s In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions, urg­ing au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that any of­fi­cial fire­works dis­play is con­trolled, time-lim­it­ed and con­sid­er­ate of res­i­dents, vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple and an­i­mals.

Last year, there was no In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade or State-spon­sored fire­works dis­play, with the Gov­ern­ment cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns dur­ing the then-on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

While the fire­works dis­play were can­celled, “silent” fire­works were per­mit­ted for pri­vate use as the Gov­ern­ment sought to re­duce noise dis­tur­bances af­fect­ing vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple and pets.

This year, CANPTT said T&T should be able to cel­e­brate In­de­pen­dence while al­so be­ing mind­ful of the im­pact ex­ces­sive noise can have on cit­i­zens and an­i­mals.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, the group said, “CANPTT ful­ly sup­ports the cel­e­bra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s In­de­pen­dence.

“Our po­si­tion has nev­er been that the coun­try should not cel­e­brate. Our po­si­tion is that in 2026, we should be ca­pa­ble of cel­e­brat­ing re­spon­si­bly. A pro­fes­sion­al­ly man­aged na­tion­al dis­play is very dif­fer­ent from hours of un­con­trolled fire­works be­ing dis­charged across res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties.”

The group called for a pub­lished sched­ule of the start and fin­ish times of any dis­play to be is­sued in ad­vance, short­er dis­plays and low­er-noise fire­works used where fea­si­ble.

It is al­so call­ing for mea­sures to dis­cour­age un­con­trolled fire­works be­fore and af­ter the of­fi­cial dis­play.

CANPTT added, “If fire­works form part of the of­fi­cial In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions, then they should be con­trolled, time-lim­it­ed and planned with con­sid­er­a­tion for the peo­ple and an­i­mals who will be af­fect­ed. The re­al­i­ty is that the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo has not moved. Our hos­pi­tals have not moved. Our homes and res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties have not moved.

“The el­der­ly, ba­bies and young chil­dren, per­sons with sen­so­ry sen­si­tiv­i­ties, peo­ple who are ill, shift work­ers, pet own­ers and an­i­mals will still be there when the fire­works be­gin.

“These are re­al­i­ties that must be con­sid­ered when de­ci­sions are made about where, when and how fire­works are used. CANPTT there­fore sup­ports a bal­anced ap­proach. If there is to be an of­fi­cial fire­works dis­play, pub­lish the ex­act start and fin­ish times well in ad­vance, keep the dis­play short, utilise low­er noise fire­works where fea­si­ble, es­tab­lish ap­pro­pri­ate safe­ty zones and take mean­ing­ful steps to dis­cour­age the un­con­trolled use of fire­works be­fore and af­ter the of­fi­cial dis­play.”

The group is al­so sug­gest­ing that drones form part of this year’s cel­e­bra­tions.

“We must al­so recog­nise that we now have al­ter­na­tives. The re­cent drone dis­play at the CPL event this past week­end is a per­fect ex­am­ple of how tech­nol­o­gy can be used to cre­ate a spec­tac­u­lar vi­su­al ex­pe­ri­ence with­out re­ly­ing ex­clu­sive­ly on ex­plo­sive fire­works.

“We have al­so seen drone tech­nol­o­gy in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to oth­er ma­jor events right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. If we can em­brace this tech­nol­o­gy for ma­jor sport­ing and en­ter­tain­ment events, sure­ly we can ex­plore how it can form part of our na­tion­al In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge seek­ing con­fir­ma­tion on whether fire­works will form part of this year’s In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.