23 June 2008

Fishermen and Friends of the Sea, FFOS, is an incorporated body registered in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Our mandate is to promote sustainable development nationally, particularly in the fishery sector.  We have joined with the Claxton Bay Fishing Association, representing artisanal captains and crews for over 40 vessels, to highlight our real fear for our livelihoods and our clean and peaceful living.

Our Government has already granted an approval to the foreign owned billionaire Ruia brothers' Essar Steel Mill to build a massive steel mill facility with Trinidad subsidised land and Port facilities on a 500 acre block of agricultural land behind the mangrove. The site is surrounded on all boundaries by residential communities. There are serious resident livelihood and National food security concerns with this project, and health concerns of the residents that have not been duly considered in the narrow buffer zone, which has already been bulldozed. We did not mobilise in time as we were not prepared, and so did not mount any legal action.

Separately, but connected, the Governments Environment Management Authority, EMA, now have a Certificate of Environmental Clearance, CEC application before it, by one of the Government's own "special purpose private companies" - the National Energy Corporation, NEC, to build a 1000 acre industrial estate and Port on the sea for the inland steel mill. The Environment Impact Assessment, EIA has has been submitted by the proponents presenters, and is available on your request to us. Several detailed EIA deficiency reports were submitted to the EMA by the deadline June 5th.  FFOS acting on behalf of and in conjunction with the Claxton Bay Fishing Association has submitted 4 separate EIA reviews with its three commissioned associates, Anitra Thorhaug, Ph.D. ( Marine Science), Research Professor Yale University and world wide consultant to World Bank, Port of Miami, the Florida Power Corporation, the US Department of Energy,  FAO, USAID, etc; Mark Chernaik, Staff Scientist, Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide; and Ravidya Burrowes, Principal, Environmental Management Consultants (Caribbean) Ltd.

Separate reviews were submitted to the EMA by Dr Peter Vine, Dr Wayne Kublalsingh, The Caribbean Forest Conservation Association, CFCA, the Catholic Commission for Social Justice.

To execute this project the NEC will remove the almost 200 acre mangrove, and an approximate 200 acre sea grass savannah in shallow depths from 4' to 15' in low tide, and hundreds of acres of shallow sandy banks which are the foundation of a very fertile Claxton Bay Fishery.

According to a recent Fisheries Division Report dated March 28th 2008, 400,000 pounds of fish have been landed at this site, with 70% of the landings being the Mullet, described as a specialised fishery. Landings at other nearby landing sites of fish or shrimp caught in the proposed site area are undocumented. The mullet is caught nowhere else in Trinidad and Tobago, and due to its abundance, and ease of capture near shore, it is sold substantially cheaper than other fish. It is the mainstay of the lower income sector, and retails for 60c to 1 USD per pound. It is used in the school feeding programme, as well as for bait, and for salted fish, especially since the cost of Canadian cod salt fish has risen.

Removing this fishery ecosystem will have regional impacts on the entire Gulf of Paria fishermen, estimated at 3000 men, who, with their support and distribution personnel, will all be impacted in known and unknown ways. A few people will become much richer but most will not be fortunate.  In case this insane plan is approved, FFOS and the Claxton Bay Fishing Association are preparing to go to Court to stop it. Fund raising for a daunting 25,000USD has begun among the community. Unfortunately, there has never been a refusal by the EMA for any Government application, regardless of the environmental and social consequences.

The costs of Judicial Review are substantial and the community is hard pressed to find 25,000 USD for this action. FFOS is also currently being taken to Court by the Government to make its Directors personally liable for costs of a previous legal action against the EMA for their granting of an approval to BP to run a cross country pipeline in south Trinidad without considering the risks to the lives of the residents in the area. Any financial aid would be appreciated, and Telegraphic transfers can be arranged by Ryan and Wayne, ryansant2007@gmail.com or wbkubla@yahoo.com

"Trinidad is the 5th largest emitter of carbon, per capita, in the world", but instead of working to clean-up operations, our Government has deliberately postponed and watered down every piece of environmental legislation which we fought for two decades to obtain. Our Prime Minister has been recently been reported as boasting an open invitation to an audience of US industrialists, that "the environmentalists will not do to us what they have done to you... come to Trinidad".

According to the World Resources Institute bio-diversity statistics, Trinidad is one of the most bio-diverse countries in the world, but badly led, we are throwing it all away. By building a polluted and dirty country, our elected leaders are destroying our opportunities for sustainable development, marginalising entire fisher/residential communities, jeopardising our ability to feed ourselves as a nation, destroying the food chain and acting contrary to several United Nations Conventions to which we are signatory. Our Prime Minister said that the objections to the Essar steel mill and port have been "based on emotions", that the Government will not respond to emotion, and must be guided by fact. However, ignoring all the clear facts, the Prime Minister stated that he plans for the entire west coast Gulf of Paria to become industrial estates, from Point to Point.

A good leader ought not to commit far and long reaching environmental crimes, nor side step the precautionary principal, nor degrade those without a voice, nor endanger the Nation's food security and future fishery while subsidising a foreign steel mill.

Gary Aboud
Secretary
Fishermen And Friends Of The Sea
FFOSgary@opus.co.tt

We urge you to sign or add your own words to the below letter, and address it to both the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the EMA:

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Mr Patrick Manning
Office of the P.M.
White Hall
Queens Park West
Port of Spain
Tel: 622-1625
Fax: 622-0055
pmsec@opm.gov.tt

and

Dr John Agard,
Chairman ,
Environmental Management Authority,
johnagard@yahoo.com

and copy to :

Honourable Senator Mr. Arnold Piggott M.P.     
Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources1
St Clair Circle
St. Clair
Tel1: 622-1221/5
Tel2: 622-5481/7
Fax: 622-820
email: minagri@wow.net2

Honourable Senator Mr. Conrad Enill M.P. 
Ministry Energy and Energy Industries
Cabildo Chambers
St Vincent Street
Port of Spain
Tel: 623-6708
Fax: 625-0306
email:librarypos@energy.gov.tt

Dr Dave Mc In Tosh, CEO
Environmental Management Authority,
dmcintosh@ema.co.tt

The Hon. Colm Imbert,
Minister of Works and Transport
minister@mowt.gov.tt

There is no Ministry of the Environment.

Please write separate letters to the press in your own words.

expressbusiness@trinidadexpress.com
sundesk@ttol.co.tt
news@gayelletv.com
newsday@carib-link.net


The Right Honourable Mr Patrick Manning and Dr. John Agard,

Please reconsider the planned removal of the 200 acre Claxton Bay mangrove and the 200 acre seagrass savannah for the National Energy Corporation, NEC 's building of an 800 acre industrial estate and port and a 500 acre Essar steel mill right in the middle of residential communities in Claxton Bay, Trinidad.

All citizens are entitled to be treated with respect and dignity by a democratic Government and we are convinced that the rights of stake-holders and the long-term good of the Nation have not been carefully considered.

There will be many impacts among which is iron ore pollution on the community of 7000 souls , and the collapse of the specialised mullet fishery of up to 143 tons, almost 400,000 pounds of locally caught fish according to the Fisheries Division Report dated March 28th, 2008.

These mangroves extend into a 200 acre ecologically important sea-grass bed which was unaccountably and perhaps ominously omitted from the Environmental Impact Assessment, and the mullet, which is 70% of the catch, are caught nowhere else in Trinidad and Tobago. The deficiencies in the EIA are glaring, unreasonable, show insensitivity and are not acceptable by any standards. The fishermen, their families and their extended network of net menders, boat builders, vendors, engine repairmen, cleaning and processing, and the national consumers will all lose by this project.

The community will be left much poorer if 400,000 pounds of fish are removed from their annual economy, but this has mysteriously not been mentioned whatsoever by the proponents in the EIA which is currently before the EMA.
The food security of each Nation must be a primary concern for all elected leaders in these globally insecure times.
Migratory species feed on the mullet as well, and the removal of their spawning habitat may have significant impact on national and international fisheries stock.

Honourable Prime Minister, please find an alternative site for the industrial estate/port, far from this valuable and irreplaceable sea grass resource, and relocate the approved steel mill to where there are no borderline residential communities; we call on you to reconsider the siting of this industrial estate to an area of less environmental and economic significance.

Your name

For More Information, Contact:  Gary Aboud