Rare papyrus plant among items stolen from Palmiste Park

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

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Palmiste Park vol­un­teers are call­ing for se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras and warn­ing signs to be in­stalled af­ter sev­er­al plants, in­clud­ing a rare pa­pyrus plant once used by the an­cient Egyp­tians to make pa­per, were stolen from the park’s re­cent­ly re­stored pond area.

The thefts have frus­trat­ed res­i­dents and vol­un­teers who have spent the last two years rais­ing funds, so­lic­it­ing do­na­tions and car­ry­ing out beau­ti­fi­ca­tion work around the park’s heart-shaped pond.

Vol­un­teer and en­vi­ron­men­tal co­or­di­na­tor Zeno­bia Mo­hammed said sev­er­al es­tab­lished plants have dis­ap­peared, in­clud­ing pa­pyrus plants and MacArthur palms that had been grow­ing for about two years.

“We had the pa­pyrus and so forth, and then some­body came and start­ed steal­ing our plants,” Mo­hammed said. “The pa­pyrus is gone, our MacArthur palms are gone. Those were two years old.”

Mo­hammed ex­plained that the pa­pyrus was par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant be­cause of its his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tion to an­cient Egypt, where the plant was used in the pro­duc­tion of pa­per.

“That one in par­tic­u­lar was giv­en by some­one who had prop­a­gat­ed it, and to know it was a huge, es­tab­lished, spe­cial plant, and it’s now gone,” she said.

The beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project has at­tract­ed sup­port from schools, com­mu­ni­ty groups and vol­un­teers from across south Trinidad. Re­cent­ly, about 50 stu­dents from Bar­rack­pore AS­JA Sec­ondary School par­tic­i­pat­ed in a clean-up and re­plant­i­ng ex­er­cise around the pond.

De­spite those ef­forts, Mo­hammed said the con­tin­ued theft of plants is dis­cour­ag­ing.

“It is very frus­trat­ing to have peo­ple com­ing in­to our park and steal­ing our plants,” she said.

Ap­peal­ing di­rect­ly to the pub­lic, she urged cit­i­zens to take pride in pre­serv­ing pub­lic spaces.

“Please don’t come here and steal. This is our coun­try. Let’s have some na­tion­al pride. Let’s have a green space for us to come and en­joy, pic­nic, breathe some fresh air and learn about what trees do,” Mo­hammed said.

Pres­i­dent of the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety and Palmiste Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion, Ter­rence Hon­oré, said vol­un­teers have al­ready be­gun in­stalling signs as a de­ter­rent and are now hop­ing to in­tro­duce sur­veil­lance cam­eras pow­ered by so­lar en­er­gy.

“Sig­nage, for one, in the first in­stance,” Hon­oré said. “But the cam­era, yes, we need those with so­lar pan­els so that we could at least mon­i­tor.”

Hon­oré re­vealed that vol­un­teers re­cent­ly re­ceived video footage al­leged­ly show­ing a man and woman re­mov­ing plants from the park.

“It is heart­break­ing to press for­ward in seek­ing to cre­ate an in­ter­na­tion­al-stan­dard park and watch peo­ple vi­o­late our ef­forts by steal­ing and re­mov­ing plants,” he added.

Be­yond the thefts, Hon­oré said the park re­mains in need of sig­nif­i­cant in­fra­struc­ture up­grades, in­clud­ing re­pairs to the walk­ing track and the re­moval of haz­ardous tree branch­es.

He said the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety and Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion will con­tin­ue ad­vo­cat­ing for im­prove­ments while work­ing to pro­tect the park’s grow­ing col­lec­tion of plants and green spaces.