The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture said there will be stiffer penal­ties for il­le­gal hunt­ing next year now that Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes has as­sent­ed to the Fi­nance Act 2018, which in­creas­es fines for in­frac­tions un­der the Con­ser­va­tion of Wildlife Act. From Jan­u­ary 1, poach­ers will face fines as much as 50 times high­er than cur­rent­ly ex­ists. The min­is­ter al­so has the pow­er to in­crease the lim­it of pre­scribed fines.

In a state­ment, the min­istry said while there are tougher fines for en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive species (ESS), in­clud­ing the scar­let ibis, there is a need for an in­crease in fines for il­le­gal cap­ture of wildlife which have not been de­clared an ESS. This, it said, is to demon­strate the sever­i­ty of an of­fence, the po­ten­tial im­pact it has on con­ser­va­tion ef­forts and the in­ten­tion of the gov­ern­ment to de­ter il­le­gal hunt­ing. The min­istry al­so ex­pressed con­cern about re­cent re­ports of il­le­gal hunt­ing and con­sump­tion of pro­tect­ed species, in­clud­ing the red howler mon­key and the less­er anteater, as well as an up­surge of smug­gled wildlife from neigh­bour­ing Venezuela and Guyana.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]