The ecological criminals

THE EDITOR: The lawlessness in this the land of the Trinity continues unabated. In many ways we have become numb to the fact that we are becoming a nation of another kind of criminal, engaging in our own self-destruction as we destroy the environment.

While our gaze is often fixed on the latest gruesome murder and the escalating numbers, we fail to recognise that criminality has spread and taken on many disguises.

We mindlessly maim, rape, strip and slaughter the plant and animal life without a care, not recognising the criminal mind at work. As a people are we losing our conscience and with it our very soul?

The beaches, rivers and water courses in our once beautiful nation have become polluted and are gradually being stripped of their natural beauty.

Families go to enjoy the outdoors, happily frolicking, laughing, enjoying and leaving behind the weapons of slaughter and destruction strewn carelessly across the landscape.

Everywhere you go, from beaches to the nation’s major cities and hubs, there are signs of rank disdain for the environment and for the Creator who continues to share His creation with us.

People are land-grabbing, building near or over watercourses, ripping up and destroying the hillsides and every man is a law unto himself.

The powers that be do not seem to have the will or the desire to put a stop to it. We are on the brink of disaster in many ways and the signs are everywhere if we but have eyes to see.

Many of us traverse the Lady Young Road, for example, heading into and out of Port of Spain daily. Yet we are blind to the tears of Lady Young as her hills collapse.

Tears stream down her face from the hillside and fall below. Every day we drive near and over those “tears,” not recognising the cry of the earth and our environment as we burn, rape and pillage her natural beauty. Those tears form the huge mounds of dirt and rubble, helped along by litter and garbage strewn along the way.

The accumulation has eliminated or blocked off the sidewalks and safe areas where families and children used to walk with at least a marginal degree of safety to and from school.

No one cares. It is only when people are hurt or injured in some way that there will be a 24-hour uproar, since we are a 24-hour nation steeped in numbness and not much matters for very long anyway.

The Lady Young is one example of a major artery that leads to the heart of the city, an artery that is becoming clogged and on the verge of destruction by ecological criminals.

Huge maxis fill the lookout at times with foreign visitors. What must they be thinking as they consider their own pristine rivers and savannahs back home or in countries they have visited right here in the Caribbean?

The Government and by extension the nation’s electric company participate in this destruction, actively or passively, either by doing nothing to improve “The Lady” or by giving everybody a “hook-up” without any documentary evidence or proof of land ownership.

That major, life-giving artery is being destroyed daily, just like our waterways, beaches, rivers, savannahs and parks.

The ecological cry is now a bawling in our nation. It may be inaudible to those who do not have ears to hear but it is highly visible for all to see. There are signs everywhere of our personal and national clogged arteries of the heart that diminish our soul.

As we look to celebrate World Environment Day on June 5, we must each ask ourselves a grave question. Am I an ecological criminal and what do I need to do to begin my own conversion?

JACQUI-THERESA LEIBA

Morvant