Rivers of Tobago
, 2022-09-29 01:04:07,
Features
Newsday
Pat Ganase considers our well-watered island.
Water is life. It surrounds us. It refreshes and sustains us.
Having benefited from over two centuries of conservation – preserving the Main Ridge forest reserve – for the purpose of safeguarding rainfall, all citizens of Tobago must maintain and enhance the terrestrial features that secure and harvest water.
By protecting our rivers from degradation, pollution and deforestation, we ensure our constant and available water supply.
We all live in a watershed: uphill from the coast or downhill from the mountains: it’s time we learned our place in the watershed, between the sky and the sea.
The protected Main Ridge reserve extends about half the length of Tobago from the north east and occupies over 4,000 hectares; or 40 square kilometres in Tobago’s total terrestrial area of 300 square kilometres.
Mainly volcanic, the central spine of Tobago runs from Pigeon Peak rising 550 metres above Speyside in the north, to Mt Dillon above Castara at 433 metres. Further along the spine, Mason Hall is at 169 metres. The south west of the island is a coralline platform undulating under 100 metres.
The prominent features of the Main Ridge are the forests which – except for the effects of Hurricane Flora on September 30, 1963 – have remained intact. In 1963, the impact of Flora was to change the economy from agriculture –…
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