Wild Tobago

Taking care of the land requires patience and care from people who are as patient with the seasons and wildlife as with each other. Pat Ganase discovers a love story at the Adventure Eco-Villas.   You never know when you may stumble on a real adventure story. This one started at the Adventure Eco-Villas, bird and wildlife sanctuary just outside Plymouth in Tobago. Our guide was Agnes Timothy Solomon who welcomed us with a gentle Guyanese accent. Her mother was Warao, her father Aruac and Agnes was born in Mabaruma, near the Guyana-Venezuela border. She was the youngest of nine, five boys and four girls. Her mother died when she was ten and Agnes was adopted and raised by a wealthy family in Georgetown, far from the village where her family lived.   We were sitting in the viewing porch looking at the birds buzzing around the feeders: hummingbirds, bananaquits, a couple barred antshrikes. As she put out ripe plantain, the Motmots came around. If you st...

  Dr Anjani Ganase discusses the latest news in marine science; the High Seas Treaty, the Ocean Census and the impact of large rivers on tropical storms. The High Seas Treaty (known fully as the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, BBNJ) has been ratified by 60 countries with Morocco being the 60 th country to ratify on September 19, 2025. The Treaty will officially enter into force within 120 days. The High Seas Treaty will fill the critical gap in regulation of the ocean beyond countries’ national jurisdictions (BBNJ). This area makes up two-thirds of the ocean that must be managed for marine biodiversity and climate regulation. The treaty has four main focus areas. The first is Area-Based Management Tools, including Marine Protected Areas, which provides a mechanism for establishing and managing MPAs on the high seas. (2) Marine Genetic Resources provides a framework for fa...

Faraaz Abdool considers Trinidad’s connections to South America   As a child, I spent considerable time walking the trail around the pond at the Pointe-a-Pierre Wildfowl Trust. While there, Molly Gaskin, founder and president of the Wildfowl Trust, would impress upon the audience the importance of linkages in the natural world. As the years rolled past, I never forgot her words. In fact, once I began to immerse myself in the wild spaces of our islands and beyond, these linkages only became more apparent. Everything is indeed tied to something else in an elaborate, self-sustaining and incomprehensibly vast web.   Globe-spanning currents of water and air distribute life-giving nutrients. Saharan dust helps to fertilise soil in the Amazon rainforest, which in turn helps to keep ice intact in polar regions. Countless animals migrate using the earth’s magnetic field as guidance, tubers that lie dormant for months know exactly when to send their green shoot...

Dr Anjani Ganase reports on the 2025 TT Bioblitz which was conducted on September 20-21 from base camp at Maracas Bay     The final tally of all species encountered at the Maracas Bioblitz is still being completed but initial numbers surpass 1000 and are a testament to the amazing wildlife that exists along the North Coast of Trinidad.   Bioblitz event organisers, Jernella Chedick and Amy Deacon, officially kick off Maracas Bioblitz 2025. Plant species took the lead with 419 species, the highest number of species in Bioblitz history. This may be no surprise, as the diverse plants species form the backbone of our northern range rainforests. But what naturalists found living among the plants will blow your mind! MOTHS Forests do not exist without bugs. Bugs were the second highest tallied with 337 recorded species. A large portion included butterflies and moths. Rainer Nrshima Deo, Game Warden from the Forestry Division, joined the El Tucuche overn...

Anjani Ganase invites aspiring scientists, biologists, botanists and families interested in the natural world to join or observe this year’s census of species living on Trinidad’s North Coast. Bioblitz 2025 in Trinidad and Tobago takes place September 20 to 21 based at the Maracas Bay Community Centre.   The first time I participated in Trinidad and Tobago Bioblitz was in 2018 at Toco. I had just returned home after living abroad for over six years, and it was the perfect opportunity to get re-acquainted with why I got into marine science in the first place. What I didn’t expect was the enthusiasm and being immersed in a community of passionate naturalists. While some were scientists formally trained in biology and ecology and others self-taught taxonomists, all were experts gathered for the one mission, to identify every living creature - from fungus to fish - within a 5 km radius around the Toco community centre (base camp) over 24 hours – aka Bio-Blitz. I ...

Keep an ear open for the latest science, Dr Anjani Ganase encourages us to pay attention to what’s happening in the world. The entire planet is our responsibility, from the forests to the deepest parts of the ocean. Do what you can to reduce plastic pollution, keep your backyard green and the ocean clean. Plant a tree While planting trees is important to offset climate change, researchers at the University of California have found that trees planted in the tropics have the most effective impact on climate mitigation compared to those planted in temperate regions. In the tropics, there are two main aspects to cooling the planet. First, trees sequester carbon dioxide, pulling the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Second, tropical forests effect physical cooling by releasing cool water vapour which results in higher humidity and cloud formation. Forests also emit organic aerosols, and these aerosols and the clouds reduce heat radiation on the...