It’s rare to find a T&T local with little or no knowledge of wild meat. From agouti to lappe, deer and manicou, wild hog and iguana: whether or not you’ve have sampled these delicacies, the names undoubtedly form a major part of T&T’s cultural culinary landscape. Classified as neo tropical animals, the demand has been steadily growing throughout the years and there is the belief that commercial wild meat production has immense economic potential since T&T leads in neo-tropical animal conservation in the Caribbean. Professor Gary Garcia is one who holds that belief.
Since 1990, Professor Garcia has been studying the natural fauna that lives not only in T&T, but also in surrounding countries. He has developed a high level of understanding about these animals and the threat that exists to their long-term survival due to human pressures. He will present his professorial inaugural lecture, From Wild to Semi-domesticated: Neo-tropical Animals and a Professorial Journey, at the Noor Hassanali Auditorium, Faculty of Law, UWI St Augustine on Thursday. The professorial inaugural lecture is an opportunity for newly-promoted or appointed professors to inform colleagues in the university and the general public about their research career so far and future research directions. It is a platform for professorial staff to contribute to the academic life of the university through the medium of a public lecture.
Garcia will outline how the wild/non-domestic (neo-tropical) animals in T&T’s backyards and natural environments became the motive force and transportation mechanism for his professorial journey, summarising important and novel outcomes from this knowledge acquisition adventure. He will suggest a sustainable way forward for animal production in the Caribbean, linking conventional domestic animal and food crop production systems with neo-tropical animal production, involving the need to develop harmony between neo-tropical animal wildlife conservation, management, production and utilisation.
Professor Garcia obtained his BSc and PhD degrees at The UWI and now lectures in the Faculty of Science and Agriculture, teaching courses in Lifestyle Products Technology and Tropical Animal Science. Garcia’s lecture begins at 5.30 pm.