Wild Tobago

People and partners are key to our new cocoa industry. Ashley Parasram talks with Pat Ganase about networking to revitalize TT’s cocoa industry and the dream to make our islands synonymous with fine flavour chocolate.   “Cocoa is a process that requires the commitment and co-operation of many people, communities and institutions but the process has started,” Ashley Parasram breathes a quiet sigh as he considers the last decade since he fell into the most absorbing work of his life.   He has been in Tobago working with agriculture trainees on the Charlotteville Estate, as well as at the Tobago Tourism and Hospitality Institute at Mt St George. He is also involved in the historical aspect of cocoa, helping restore the rolling roof of an old cocoa house.   Ashley Parasram, director of Trinidad and Tobago Fine Cocoa Company. Photo by Pat Ganase He started thinking about cocoa around 2012, and the goal has become increasingly clear even as he rea...

Dr Anjani Ganase remembers Asa Wright Nature Centre as the timeless tropical place central to her explorations of Trinidad’s Northern Range rainforest    The natural pool. Photo by Anjani Ganase As an undergraduate student to gain fieldwork experience, I volunteered for an internship with what was known as the Guppy Project, led by Dr David Reznik then of University of Pennsylvania. It was an exploration of our tiny river fish in the Arima – Blanchisseuse Valley and it was the opportunity to learn about my country one river at a time. I remember the daily drives to Verdant Vale using my mom’s then new Subaru, I tested its grit on muddy and steep roads and lesser-known trails in order to access upstream areas for experimental work. It was an adventure, with time spent trekking through rivers of Lalaja, Brasso Seco, Marianne, chopping bush to adjust the light over the streams, and avoiding mapepires. I was not in my element, my glasses were fogged up or were...

  Before there was oil from the ground, there was this bird. Rarely seen in the day, this mystical creature forages at night. Faraaz Abdool tells us about the bird that once was a source of energy for the early inhabitants of our island.   The continental island of Trinidad shares virtually all of its ecology with South America, and this includes one of the strangest and most remarkable birds in the world. Like the superhero masquerading as an ordinary citizen, this is a bird that can easily be overlooked. It lacks many of the avian attributes that enrapture us: no iridescence of the hummingbird nor powerful talons of the hawk-eagle, for example. The constant lesson in nature, however, is to look deeper. Nowhere is this truer than with the Oilbird.   This Oilbird was found roosting one morning at St. Benedict's College in La Romaine, south Trinidad. Nowhere near any known colonies, observers carefully kept their distance throughout the day and the bird flew off that...

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...