Wild Tobago

Joanne Husain visits the Pointe-a-Pierre Wildfowl Trust, and encourages schools and families to enter this classroom in nature on the edge of Trinidad and Tobago’s 100-year-old refinery. Photos provided by Faraaz Abdool     Ducks steadfastly preening at the water’s edge are momentarily interrupted by an aureate feathery flash. Three blue-and-yellow macaws bank, announcing their arrival with cacophonous cries before settling in a mahogany grove. A serpentine figure emerges from the lotus-laden pond, but it possesses a dagger-like beak and not a forked tongue. Poui and immortelle blooms scattered like confetti beckon a celebration of our natural heritage in the most unusual of places – a once roaring but now semi-defunct oil refinery. This is the Pointe-a-Pierre Wildfowl Trust, an organization that has been at the forefront of conservation and environmental education efforts in Trinidad and Tobago for over 50 years.   Frankie is a Blue-and-yellow Macaw rescued from ...