NARIVA SWAMP

In practice, only the visits accompanied by a guide allow to go a little safely, by boat or by kayak in the swamp of Nariva. The best time to go there is the wet season. In 1996, the government of Trinidad ratified the international Ramsar Convention, which commits it to the protection of the Nariva Marshes. It is true that there was danger in the house. These marshes of 15 km² constitute one of the most perfect specimens of aquatic system in stagnant water of Trinidad and shelter a fauna of a unique wealth, today threatened. In addition to various and innumerable mosquitoes, the marshes of Nariva are home to caimans, anteaters, opossums, howler and capuchin monkeys, plus a host of snakes, including the famous anaconda, which can reach 6 to 9 meters in length. Among the rare species is the manatee, a mammal that lives in fresh water but is related to the dolphin family and is called "manatee" in Trinidad. It has become very difficult to observe a manatee in the marsh. Firstly because the species is very shy and keeps away from any intrusion in its habitat and because it lives in biotopes very sensitive to the ecology, ultra-reactive to thermal and chemical changes in the environment. Today, all over the world, the manatee species is becoming scarce. And this progressive extinction does not spare the Nariva marsh. It is estimated that only a handful of manatees could still exist there. They were counted by hundreds only thirty years ago. Over time, the marsh has suffered from human proximity. In addition to illegal hunting, small-scale rice farmers continue to encroach on the marsh at its edge and contribute to its crumbling. During the construction of the bridges over which the coastal road passes at the edge of the marsh, the public engineering works dug the river beds to better channel them, allowing the regular intrusion of brackish water into the water system of the marsh. Add to this the regular practice of farmers setting fire to the bush on the outskirts of Nariva during the dry season, and it is clear that these poor manatees still have a lot to worry about.

In the center of the swamp is a curiosity, the "Bush Bush" island, a strip of land covered with forest that emerges a few meters above the waters of the swamp and that shelters an important population of monkeys.