If no one is willing to save the forests of the Northern Range, then the people at the Asa Wright Nature Centre are more than willing to take up the cause. When the Guardian visited the Centre last week, its manager, Richard Quamina, stressed the great need to protect the "water shed" of the trees along the Range. The hills of the Range often protect the low-lying areas below from the storms which often come from via the Northeast Trade Winds. "Somebody has to save it," Quamina declared.

Located on the Northern Range along the Blanchisseuse Road, between Arima and Brasso Seco, the Asa Wright nature reserve is best known for the 164 recorded species of birds (of which there are 14 species of humming birds) which exist on the estate.

Its reputation even earned it the opportunity to host the delegates of this year's Miss Universe pageant, which was held in Trinidad. The Centre has also been featured in several foreign publications including the Daily Mail, the Financial Times and Islands Magazine. The Centre won Islands magazine's 1998 eco-tourism award.

"Asa Wright has had a flow of people particularly from North America to come down and stay there to enjoy birds," noted Eden Shand, President of the Caribbean Forest Conservation Association (CFCA).

The estate, which one of its tour guides, Sheldon Driggs, explained, got its name from its last owner Asa Wright, has become a champion of forest preservation. Its eco-tourism drive began when Wright sold the former coffee and cocoa plantation to a group of nature lovers who formed the Centre under her name.

Thirty-five years later, Asa Wright, as the Centre is familiarly called, is on a quest to acquire as much of the surrounding forested land as possible in order to save the plant and wild life which depend on it for survival.

As Quamina explained, the bird sanctuary is located on 194 acres of land. But the entire estate is much larger ad growing. It was recently awarded 250 acres of adjacent forest as compensation after winning a case against a quarry that operates in the area. Also under its control is another 234 acres as a research centre, the largest of its kind in the Caribbean. In addition, a deal is being finalized for the purchase of the Rapsey estate in Aripo to build another nature centre.

Asa Wright is also fighting the environmental battle in other ways as well.

"Lately they have realized they can do more environmental education with local people," Shand remarked.

Quamina revealed that Asa Wright has aimed its education drive to rural schools: "because, in these areas, the people will be setting (animal) traps." By getting the children to realize the importance of living in harmony with the forest lands, Quamina hopes to instill sound environmental values in the generation to come: "We probably do about six to eight thousand school children (tours) a year".

Still, in Quamina's view, the overall issue of environmental conservation and education is not getting the attention it deserves.

"The government doesn't se it (the environment) as a priority," he insisted.

But Environmental Management Agency (EMA) Communications officer Dara Healy refuted that claim: "The very existence of the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) is a sign that the Government is serious of placing the environment as a priority."

Giving the example of the recently launched environmental police, Healy indicated that the government authority on the environment has been very involved. She further expressed the EMA's support for eco-tourism ventures like Asa Wright which, "have been doing a pretty good job in terms of getting us back to our core values in keeping in touch with nature."

While acknowledging that "the EMA does not single out eco-tourism in any special way," Healy added: "We recognize that it is vital in terms of environmental awareness."

It is the income earned by Asa Wright's eco-tourism activities that has allowed it to purchase the lands in the area while keeping the Centre, its lodge ad ancillary facilities, in its "natural" state.

That task, especially the upkeep of the 24-room lodge, Quamina conceded, is "very expensive."

Visitors, most of them bird watchers who often overnight, are served by 54 Asa Wright staff members, including tour guides, rangers and hospitality workers. Quamina was proud to point out that they all come from surrounding districts. The staff and their families and dependents, who number between 300-400 people, he added, are dependent on the business of eco-tourism.

Quamina insisted that his quest to preserve as much of the forests as possible is more than a financial interest. He wants to ensure that the country does not lose the Northern Range to those who would use it merely for financial profit and not environmental gain. He is heartened by those who want to maintain that important balance between nature and man.

"We have seen so many NGOs (Non Government Organizations) interested in the environment," Quamina said. NGOs like the CFCA, which Shand insisted, is in full support of the forest preservation endeavours of Asa Wright. "People do get sensitized because people realize there is a value to it (forests)," Quamina commented.

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