Although difficult to quantify, ecological demand represents an important user of water and water itself is needed to maintain the productive ecology of the island’s rivers and wetlands (Government of Trinidad and Tobago, 2003). The poverty rate was estimated at 22 per cent in 2005 (Kedir and Sookram, 2005). In 2004 the country’s Environmental Management Authority (EMA), highlighted that income disparities and poverty are driving many persons, households and communities to seek affordable living space, homesteads and livelihood opportunities on hillsides, in peri-urban areas, and along access routes into the valleys. This pattern of settlement is associated with deforestation which degrades the country’s watersheds and pollutes its main water sources. The population of a country at risk to economic inequalities also places the environment at risk.