Our Organisation
A National Conservation Voice
Rooted in the Field
WEPTT was founded by conservation professionals who understood that protecting Trinidad and Tobago's extraordinary biodiversity required an organisation willing to act across science, law, community education, and public advocacy simultaneously.
Mission
What We Stand For
The Wildlife and Environmental Protection of Trinidad and Tobago (WEPTT) exists to protect and conserve the natural environment, habitats, and wildlife of Trinidad and Tobago, and to foster a culture of public respect for the environmental laws that safeguard them.
We operate across the full conservation spectrum: rescuing injured and displaced wildlife, rehabilitating animals for release, educating schoolchildren and communities, monitoring threatened species and habitats, and advocating for stronger environmental governance.
Trinidad and Tobago's biodiversity is not merely a natural asset; it is a national responsibility. Our forests filter water, our wetlands buffer coastlines, our reefs sustain fisheries, and our wildlife reflects the ecological health of two islands that punch far above their weight in global biodiversity rankings. WEPTT is here to make sure it stays that way.
Trinidad & Tobago: By the Numbers
Advocacy & Policy
Conservation Starts in the Field.
It's Secured in Policy.
WEPTT does not only respond to what is happening in the field. We shape the policy environment that determines what is and isn't protected, which areas get designated, and how international funding for conservation is spent in T&T. Trinidad and Tobago has robust environmental legislation and WEPTT works to ensure these laws are understood, respected, and enforced for the benefit of all citizens.
National Environmental Policy
We participate directly in the development of T&T's environmental legislation. Through Cabinet-appointed seats on national bodies, we bring field-level conservation knowledge into the rooms where laws are written and updated, and advocate for the regulatory gaps that field work keeps exposing.
Protected Areas & Species Oversight
We participate in national oversight bodies responsible for the conservation, management, and enforcement of the country's Environmentally Sensitive Areas, protected species, and forest reserves, the same designations that underpin our biodiversity work.
International Conservation Investment
Conservation at scale requires funding that no single organisation can generate alone. WEPTT has helped direct multi-million dollar initiatives funded by the United Nations, European Union, and Global Environment Facility, translating international investment into work that actually happens on the ground in T&T.
Global Environmental Commitments
T&T is party to international biodiversity and climate agreements that carry real obligations. We contribute to how the country meets those obligations, making sure national conservation efforts connect to the global frameworks that hold governments to account, not just in principle but in practice.
Our Values
How We Work
Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation
We respond to injured, displaced, and stranded animals across both islands. Animals are stabilised, rehabilitated, and returned to the wild where possible, or relocated to appropriate care where they are not. Every rescue is also an education moment: the people who call us leave with a better understanding of the animal, the law, and what to do next time.
Legal Stewardship
Trinidad and Tobago has the laws. The Conservation of Wildlife Act, the Environmental Management Act, the Forests Act: the framework exists. What's often missing is enforcement capacity and public awareness that these laws apply. We also work to strengthen and update that framework, advocating for new legislation where the gaps are clear. Closing those gaps is a core part of what we do.
Evidence-Based Action
When a wildlife crime happens, when a development threatens a sensitive ecosystem, when a species needs a public defence: we respond with documented evidence and ecological context, not just alarm. Our statements are ones journalists and regulators can actually use.
Community Partnership
People call us when they find a caiman in their yard after flooding. When snakes turn up during the rainy season. When they witness something and don't know who to report it to. Being genuinely useful to communities in those moments is not a side programme. It is how conservation actually works.
Public Education
Most of the conservation failures we document begin the same way: someone who didn't know the law, or didn't know the animal, made a bad decision. Changing that over time, through schools, media, and communities, is the only intervention that scales.
Programmes
How We Educate
Our education work spans formal schooling, community engagement, digital outreach, and policy literacy, reaching Trinidad and Tobago's full spectrum of citizens.
Rescue, Rehab & Field Education
Every wildlife rescue is also an education moment. When we respond to a call, the people who made it, their neighbours, their community, leave with a better understanding of the animal, the law, and what to do next time. That kind of direct, in-context learning doesn't happen in a classroom.
Public Awareness Campaigns
Targeted campaigns on bushfire prevention, hunting seasons, sea turtle protection, wetland conservation, and illegal wildlife trade. Delivered across social media, radio, and community events, timed to when the issues are live: dry season fire alerts, rainy season displacement advisories, the opening and closing of hunting seasons.
Media & Journalism
Environmental stories in T&T are often reported without the ecological context that makes them meaningful. WEPTT briefs reporters, prepares public statements, and provides expert commentary on wildlife incidents, environmental law, and conservation cases as they happen.
Digital Education
Species identification guides, conservation alerts, environmental law resources: built for T&T citizens, not specialists. Our digital content is designed to be useful whether you're a teacher preparing a lesson, a community leader responding to a local incident, or a citizen who just saw something unusual and wants to know what it was.
Environmental Law Literacy
The Conservation of Wildlife Act protects ocelots. The Forests Act prohibits clearing in reserves. The EMA Act governs what development can happen and where. Most people don't know any of this. WEPTT delivers plain-language explanations of T&T's environmental legislation to schools, communities, and institutions, because ignorance of the law is one of the most preventable conservation failures there is.
International Programme Management
WEPTT has guided the strategic direction of multi-million dollar conservation initiatives funded by the United Nations, European Union, and Global Environment Facility. That experience shapes how we design education and outreach work: grounded in international best practice, built for local conditions.