Despite the very high rate of development in this country no new environmental legislation was passed since 2001.
And much of the existing environmental legislation is outdated; even with the more current laws and policies there has been limited and ineffective implementation.
This was stated in the 2012 Environmental Management Authority’s 2012 annual report which was laid in the Senate yesterday.
The report said T&T’s biodiversity has been, and continues to be, under increasing threat from human activities.
“There is urgent need to establish instruments and mechanisms that would allow for more effective management of biodiversity,” the report urged.
Regarding the tourism industry, it said this has played a significant role in driving changes in land use and land cover with great emphasis in Tobago on creating infrastructure for tourism.
But, the report said, the level of increased arrivals has led to the need for the expansion of the hotel industry, resulting in a high probability of greater pressure on coastal ecosystems to carry the recreational load.
It also summarised major causes of the degradation of T&T’s biodiversity:
• Rapid economic growth of the oil and gas industry has driven societal changes and changes in land use and land cover especially, though not exclusively, in western Trinidad and in south western Tobago. These have been exacerbated by lack of effective governance and implementation of laws and policies as well as by other factors such as overharvesting and climate change
• On account of these changes there have been significant modifications, especially in the country’s forests and coastal systems
• There has been pollution of inland freshwater systems and coastal regions on account of land use activities, principally housing, urbanisation, agriculture, industrialisation and quarrying.
The report said loss of ecosystems has had some very direct and severe consequences, of which the most pressing include the following:
• Greater severity of flooding in recent years in areas most modified by human activities. These coincide with areas of highest urban and residential development
• Lower qualities of good-quality water from inland water sources for human consumption
• Loss of suitable habitats for wildlife and fragmentation of habitats, resulting in reductions in the abundance and distribution of species on both islands, as well as a higher vulnerability of certain species on both islands to endangerment and extirpation
• Economic loss in tourism and fisheries in Tobago associated with extensive coral reef degradation
• Higher fish price due in part to depleted marine stocks.