About the event

Trinidad and Tobago’s economy has experienced considerable economic growth from 1995 to 2008. However, significant incidences of poverty and inequality still exist. The structure of the economy and government energy revenues have helped to alleviate possible pressures on forest resources, and have helped to maintain forest cover at substantial levels – close to 50 per cent of the land mass is still covered by forests. In contrast to the overall growth in the economy, the forests sector has been in decline, primarily due to the competitiveness and marginal productivity of labour between the different industrial sectors of the economy.

Although forests cover substantial proportions of land, insufficient funds have been spent on forest management. Forest financing is primarily provided from central government revenues,with little linkage to actual forest financing demand and sustainable forest practices. This is due primarily to incorrect price signals and incentives for forest management, including policy ignorance of the total economic values of the forest resources within Trinidad and Tobago. Illegal settlement and indiscriminate use

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