2010 zoo follies

By Julian Kenny

Story Created: Jul 20, 2010 at 1:56 AM ECT

Some time ago one newspaper reported that the Zoological Society had served pre-action protocol letters on Mr Manning and his cabinet seeking judicial review of a decision to enact new legislation to replace a trivial two-page Colonial ordinance passed by the Legislative Council almost 60 years ago.

What was involved here was simply Government taking the appropriate steps to put in place legislation that would make the operation of the Emperor Valley Zoo subject to Cabinet oversight.

The Emperor Valley Zoo is a small, insignificant, economically non-viable menagerie managed by a non-governmental organisation called the Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago. It was incorporated almost 60 years ago by an ordinance following representations by the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists Club and established on state lands, excised from the Royal Botanic Gardens. The ordinance is a simple two-page document more or less equivalent to a minor ministerial order of today. After consultation Cabinet took the eminently sensible decision to repeal the pointless 1952 ordinance incorporating the Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago and to replace it with new law consistent with other statutory bodies. In doing this Cabinet was acting in accordance with its responsibilities and powers under Section 75 of the Constitution. Note also that Cabinet had agreed to investing $56 million in an upgrade of the Emperor Valley Zoo, involving a further excision of land from the Botanic Gardens, and grants an annual subsidy of over $6 million for operation and maintenance. My question? Would any responsible government commit such enormous sums of funds to an NGO over which it has minimal statutory control? Now for a little history. The Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago is indeed a strange and curious beast. It became incorporated in the Colony of Trinidad and Tobago through an ordinance entitled "Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago (Incorporation) Ordinance" passed by the Legislative Council on April 5, 1952. The ordinance sought to incorporate certain persons as Trustees of the Society. And who were the original trustees? Edward William Leach, Harry Vincent Mercer Metivier and Ralph Lloyd Gwatkin. These three were all professionals in their fields, Leach a leading agricultural administrator, Metivier a leading veterinary medicine practitioner and Gwatkin the manager of Barclays Bank, DCO. They were respectively president, vice president and treasurer of the society. Nowhere in the Ordinance is ownership of the land vested in the Society. And what were the objects of the Society? According to the Ordinance the society's object was "the founding and operation of a Zoological Park with a representative collection of the fauna, and the introduction into the colony of new and curious objects of the animal kingdom". There you have it — curious objects of the animal kingdom. That was its first objective. The second was the "the advancement of Zoology and Animal Physiology etc"! Really. These are branches of the broader field of Biology and are professional scientific disciplines. A scientific discipline is both a process of creating knowledge as well as the body of knowledge created, not in somebody's head but published in journals, monographs and books. Now, what exactly has the Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago contributed to zoology or animal physiology? Answers, Mr Lutchmedial? What Mr. Lutchmedial has not told the public is that the Zoological Society was represented by his predecessor president of the Society and the then acting curator of the zoo in a broadly constituted Cabinet Committee chaired by Professor Spence, which considered the upgrade of the Emperor Valley Zoo AND the establishment of a nature centre at Chickland on donated lands in Central Trinidad, Both fully supported the findings of the Spence Cabinet committee and actually signed the report! He is reported to have noted the Zoological Society had decided the Chickland site is unsuitable, even after the very society agreed that it was! And the Society is proposing to house the larger animals at the Manatee Trust in Manzanilla? Who owns the lands I might ask and what will it cost the taxpayers. Another $56 million? And the substance of the Spence report to Cabinet? It recommended the expansion of the zoo to Chickland and a modest upgrade of the Emperor Valley Zoo, including the provision of a large walk-in aviary, an aquarium, a butterfly insectary and certain specialised herpetological exhibits. To complement this it was proposed to establish on the Botanic Garden lands specialised ecosystem exhibits, particularly a fern gully, a tropical savanna and a wetland, as well as the restoration of the original Orchid House. The proposal for Chickland was for a more spacious park that would include facilities for larger mammals, specialised exhibits, an animal breeding unit, a modern veterinary diagnostic centre, an animal quarantine facility, an interpretation and conservation facility, a lake or lakes all surrounded by a national arboretum accommodating some significant proportion of the tree flora of the country. One can only hope that the new administration presses on with appropriate legislation to safeguard the public's interests. • Julian Kenny is a biologist and natural history author. He is a former UWI professor of Zoology and Independent Senator Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/commentaries/98806989.html