The Greening of Saint Lucia: Economic Development and Environmental Change in the West Indies

By Bradley B. Walters

Saint Lucia’s rural landscape is more forested today than at any time in at least seventy-five years (probably much longer). This change is profoundly significant given widespread efforts to achieve sustainable development on small-island states like Saint Lucia. Yet, this seemingly good-news story runs contrary to most conventional narratives about the worsening state of the environment in the Caribbean and elsewhere. How did this remarkable change come about? What role did government, the private sector and other actors play in this? What are the links between this environmental change and wider changes in the Saint Lucian economy, politics and society? Is there more to this story than meets the eye? These questions are explored in this interdisciplinary study of changing human-environment relations since the Second World War.

The Greening of Saint Lucia is based on the results of a long-term, field-based research project that began in 2006. It entails the application of a novel research methodology for doing human-environment research (ACE: abductive causal eventism) that the author co-developed with a colleague from Rutgers University. This causal-historical methodology allows for the rigorous integration of findings derived from natural and social science sources, including ecological and air photo assessments, interviews, secondary data sources, and archival investigations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of the West Indies Press
• Release date: Feb 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9789766407070

Bradley B. Walters

BRADLEY B. WALTERS is Professor of Geography and Environment, Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada. His publications include Causal Explanation for Social Scientists: A Reader (co-edited with A.P. Vayda) and Against the Grain: The Vayda Tradition in Human Ecology and Ecological Anthropology (co-edited with B.J. McCay, P. West and S. Lees).

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© 2019 by Bradley B. Walters

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CONTENTS

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1Explaining Land Use Change and Reforestation

2Before Bananas

3Post-War Changes in Forests and Land Use

4Banana Booms and Busts

5Land Tenure, Tree Planting and Forest Conservation

6Migration, Labour and Land Use Change

7Tropical Tourism: Blessing or Curse for Saint Lucia’s Environment?

Conclusion: The Greening of Saint Lucia

Appendix 1: Summary of Tree Species (by Habitat Type) Identified in Vegetation Surveys of Soufrière and Mamiku Watersheds in 2006

Notes

References

Index

FIGURES

Figure 1.1. Map of Saint Lucia, including study watersheds

Figure 1.2. Map of Soufrière watershed, showing thirty-four sampling points for vegetation plots

Figure 1.3. Map of Mamiku watershed, showing twenty-two sampling points for vegetation plots

Figure 3.1. Back-casting land use on census plots over time, using field census and air photos

Figure 3.2. Total area of all agricultural landholdings (1974–2007) nationwide and in Soufrière and Micoud Districts

Figure 4.1. Saint Lucia banana exports, 1950–2015

Figure 6.1. Saint Lucia population, 1851–2011

Figure 6.2. Working population in agriculture in Saint Lucia, 1960–2008

Figure 7.1. Tourism visitor arrivals in Saint Lucia, 1978–2015

TABLES

Table 1.1. Examples of questions for human-environment researchers using causes-to-effects reasoning versus effects-to-causes reasoning

Table 2.1. Summary of plantations with primary land use in Soufrière and Mamiku watersheds in 1787

Table 2.2. Number of agricultural estates by primary crop in Saint Lucia, 1787–1834

Table 3.1. Summary of major habitat types by sampling plot frequency and watershed

Table 3.2. Summary of select tree measures of vegetation plots, comparing mean values (and standard deviations) between Mamiku and Soufrière watersheds

Table 3.3. Cumulative species richness of natural and planted trees in vegetation plots by primary habitat type

Table 3.4. Recent changes to the area of land under forest/bush as cited by farmers in 2007, comparing watersheds and type of farmer

Table 3.5. Reasons cited by farmers in 2007 for the presence of forest or bush on their lands

Table 3.6. Summary of watershed vegetation survey comparing currently farmed versus recently abandoned plots by mean (with standard deviation) of altitude, slope and distance from nearest road

Table 3.7. Recent changes to the area of land under cultivation as cited by farmers in 2007, comparing watersheds and type of farmer

Table 3.8. Primary reasons cited in 2007 for decline in farming in Saint Lucia, according to farmers and key informants

Table 3.9. Recent changes to crop cultivation as cited by farmers in 2007

Table 3.10. Percentage of agricultural holdings growing common tree crops in Saint Lucia, 1974–2007

Table 3.11. Percentage of farmers interviewed in 2007 (n = 43) who cultivate selected tree species (smallholders and estate farmers combined)

Table 3.12. Percentage of agricultural holdings growing common vegetable crops in Saint Lucia, 1974–2007

Table 3.13. Percentage of agricultural holdings growing common root crops in Saint Lucia, 1974–2007

Table 4.1. Key trade-related policies and their impact on Windward Island banana production and export

Table 4.2. Early banana exports (tonnes) from Saint Lucia, 1924–1950

Table 4.3. Selected population and agricultural statistics, 1961–2007

Table 5.1. Summary of vegetation plot samples by land tenure category and watershed

Table 5.2. Measured elevation and slope of vegetation plots comparing means (and standard deviations) by land tenure category (n = no. of vegetation plots)

Table 5.3. Summary of farmer landholding sizes (acres) by category of land tenure, based on farmer interviews (n = no. of farmers)

Table 5.4. Summary of vegetation plots comparing land tenure by primary habitat (n = no. of vegetation plots)

Table 5.5. Summary of selected ecological characteristics measured in vegetation plots, comparing mean values (and standard deviations) by land tenure (n = no. of vegetation plots)

Table 5.6. Summary of vegetation plots comparing land tenure by land use (n = no. of vegetation plots)

Table 5.7. Tree crop abundance on farms by land tenure category, based on qualitative farmer estimates (n = no. of farmers)

Table 5.8. Farmers’ perceived barriers to tree planting by land tenure category, based on farmer interviews (n = no. of farmers)

Table 6.1. Age structure (per cent of total) of Saint Lucian farmer population, 1996 and 2007

Table 6.2. Estimated number of private households by select district, 2001 and 2010

Table 7.1. Percentage of farm holdings growing selected vegetables in Soufrière and Micoud districts

Table 7.2. Tourism amenities/assets on agricultural estates in Soufrière and Mamiku with relative size ranked (+ = small; ++ = moderate; +++ = large)

Table 8.1 Major agricultural declines in Saint Lucia and their causes

PREFACE

I had the good fortune to first travel to Saint Lucia in 1990 to work as an intern with the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute, a non-governmental organization then based in the southern town of Vieux Fort. The focus of the institute’s work then was mostly coastal resources management (Walters and Renard 1992), but it was apparent that the country’s most urgent environmental problems at that time were unfolding in the rural countryside. Saint Lucian farmers were pushing ever deeper into the island’s rugged, mountainous interior, cutting and clearing forests to plant bananas and ground provisions like yams, sweet potatoes and dasheen. Illegal farming was rampant within the public forest reserves. Soil erosion and agrochemical pollution of waterways was widespread. Conservationists expressed increasing alarm about threats to the island’s wild animal and plant species, including the iconic, endemic Saint Lucian parrot (Amazona versicolor), which was endangered because of habitat loss and hunting (Christian et al. 1996). I departed the island in 1991 feeling much apprehension about the country’s environmental future.

After a fifteen-year absence, I returned in 2006 and was astonished by how much Saint Lucia’s countryside had changed. On the one hand, residential housing and tourism infrastructure had expanded dramatically, replacing huge tracts of valley-bottom farmland and coastal scrub forest. The quiet country abode where I had resided outside of Vieux Fort was unrecognizable, the mixed farm–dry forest landscape transformed into an expanse of residential subdivisions and commercial developments. Seeing all this was unsettling yet not surprising, because one comes to expect these kinds of changes with the forward march of development (Potter 1993, 1995).

What did genuinely surprise, however, were changes in the country’s rural interior, where large tracts of hillside farmland were abandoned and returning to forest. There was still some concern in 2006 about deforestation, soil erosion and agrochemical contamination, but these were problems cited mostly as localized cases. There was no longer the sense of nationwide urgency about these things that had predominated in the 1980s and early 1990s. By 2006, illegal incursions into the island’s network of protected forest reserves had become rare occurrences. The once-endangered Saint Lucia parrot was now thriving, its population having grown about fivefold since the early 1990s and its range now expanded well beyond previously isolated interior forests.

In fact, despite growing development pressures in the lowlands and near the coast, Saint Lucia’s wider rural landscape has more land under forest today than at any time in at least seventy-five years, perhaps much longer. This change is profoundly significant in light of the many ongoing efforts to achieve sustainable development on small-island states like Saint Lucia. More generally, this seemingly good news story runs contrary to most conventional narratives about the worsening state of the environment in the Caribbean and elsewhere. It begs various questions of interest to citizens, activists and policymakers who strive to reconcile continued economic development and environmental conservation, among these: How did this remarkable change come about? What role did government, the private sector and other actors play in this? What are the links between this environmental change and wider changes in the Saint Lucian economy, politics and society? Is there more to this story than meets the eye? These and related questions will be explored in this book.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful for the support of the Government of Saint Lucia and, in particular, members of the Forestry Division, including Michael Bobb, Adams Toussaint, Michael Andrew, Rebecca Rock, Methodeus Fouscher and Anais Vernai. I am also extremely grateful to Melvin Smith, Marshall Symons, Lisa Hansen, Jennifer Sargent, Nigel Selig, Frances Ross and Shannon White for assistance with fieldwork. Lisa Hansen’s diligent work on plant identification and Roger Graveson’s generous sharing of his knowledge and data base of Saint Lucia plants were invaluable. Special thanks also to Yves Renard, Kai Wulf, Gregor Williams, Chistina Tardif, David Barker, Peter Jackson, Chris Alcindor, Michael Oatham, Amy Deacon, Donnie Mackinnon, Charles Cartwright and Mariana Baptista. Finally, I would like to thank Pete Vayda, Tom Rudel, Jolien Harmsen, Kevin Flesher and anonymous reviewers for editorial suggestions on earlier drafts of this book or chapters therein. This research was supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Marjorie Young Bell Faculty Fund of Mount Allison University.

This book includes material that has already been published, albeit in revised form. Specifically, chapter 1 and the conclusion draw in part from B.B. Walters, 2017, Explaining Rural Land Use Change and Reforestation: A Causal-Historical Approach (Land Use Policy 67:608–24); chapter 3 draws from B.B. Walters and L. Hansen, 2013, Farmed Landscapes, Trees and Forest Conservation in St Lucia, West Indies (Environmental Conservation 40 [3]: 211–21); chapter 5 draws from B.B. Walters, 2012b, Do Property Rights Matter for Conservation? Family Land, Forests and Trees in St Lucia, West Indies (Human Ecology 40:863–78); chapter 6 draws from B.B. Walters, 2016a, Migration, Land Use and Forest Change in St Lucia, West Indies (Land Use Policy 51:290–300); and chapter 7 draws from B.B. Walters, 2016b, Saint Lucia’s Tourism Landscapes: Economic Development and Environmental Change in the West Indies (Caribbean Geography 21:5–23).

ABBREVIATIONS

ACE abductive causal eventism

ACP African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States

GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

LCS land change science

SES socioecological systems

SLBGA Saint Lucia Banana Growers Association

UFC United Fruit Company

WINCROP Windward Island Banana Growers Crop Insurance

WTO World Trade Organization

INTRODUCTION

THE NATURAL HERITAGE AND BEAUTY OF THE ISLAND CARIBBEAN has long been celebrated, yet the environment and environmental change have remained background concerns in most Caribbean scholarship. This book is different. It is an interdisciplinary study of the changing relationships between people and the environment. Specifically, it examines how people in Saint Lucia, West Indies, have used the land and changed its forests. It asks why the island’s forests were for so long degraded, and why in recent decades they have seemingly recovered. It is, in short, a story about environmental change and the wider social and economic developments that brought this change about.

In many respects, the story presented here about Saint Lucia’s greening is an optimistic one. It suggests that environmental conservation and economic development may co-occur under the right circumstances, or at least that some forms of environmental conservation may co-occur with some forms of economic development. That the two phenomena might be causally related is an especially intriguing prospect, given the conventional wisdom about environmental protection being a constraint to, and typically undermined by, economic development. If the state of Saint Lucia’s forests contravene such wisdom, it is important to understand why.

AGRICULTURE, DEVELOPMENT AND FOREST CHANGE

Economic development and agricultural expansion throughout history have typically proceeded in tandem and at the expense of forests (Williams 2003). The island Caribbean’s biologically rich and diverse forests were among the first in the Americas to be extensively cleared for agriculture, as Europeans colonized and established plantations throughout the region to grow cotton, sugar cane, coffee and cocoa beans, fruits, and spices for export back to their homelands (Watts 1987; Kimber 1988; Harmsen et al. 2014). Over four centuries, all but the most remote, impenetrable lands were cleared of forests to make way for agriculture of one kind or another.

The conversion of tropical forest to agricultural landscapes has been central to the historical development of the region, but Caribbean island environments are especially vulnerable to damage, given their rugged geography and the highly restricted habitat distributions that result from steep topographic and climate gradients and island insularity (Lugo et al. 1981; Kueffer and Kinney 2017). Many plant and animal species are endemic to one or a few islands and so are at heightened risk of extinction from deforestation. Likewise, removal of forest cover from island watersheds increases the risk of flooding, soil erosion and landslides during rainfall events and leads to reduced stream flows during dry periods (Bruijnzeel 1991; Bonell and Bruijnzeel 2004; Pattanayak 2004; Trancoso et al. 2010). These are especially pressing concerns for Caribbean countries as they become more dependent on fresh water-demanding industries like tourism and face increasing risk of damaging weather events associated with climate change (Courchamp et al. 2014; Walters 2016b; Moore et al. 2017).

The findings presented in this book are important for these as well as other reasons. Conventional narratives about the environment in the Caribbean have long emphasized its worsening conditions. There is still much truth to this sentiment, especially considering the degraded state of coastal environments throughout the region. But findings presented here reveal a very different picture about the current state of Saint Lucia’s upland environment. In short, the conditions of Saint Lucia’s upland environment have improved dramatically in recent decades because of widespread reforestation of the landscape (Walters and Hansen, 2013). Why has this happened?

At the most general level, Saint Lucia has transitioned over the past half-century from an agricultural to a predominantly post-agricultural economy or post-agrarian society. Caribbean scholars have for years documented aspects of this transition, including accelerated urbanization, outmigration, growth of the tourism and services sector industries, and restructuring of labour markets (Peach 1967; Lowenthal 1972; Hope 1986a, 1986b; Momsen 1986; Conway 1993; Potter 1993, 1995; Byron and Condon 2008). But few scholars have considered the consequences of these changes for Caribbean island environments.

In contrast, a growing body of research from tropical regions outside the Caribbean has documented what appear to be similar trends of widespread reforestation on lands that had been previously deforested for agriculture (Brown and Lugo 1990; Corlett 1995; Finegan 1996; Guariguata and Ostertag 2001; de Jong et al. 2001; Chazdon 2003; Aide et al. 2013). The term forest transition was first coined by the geographer Alexander Mather to describe such historical reversals in forest cover change where these have manifested at regional or national levels (1992). Initial research on the topic focused on historical studies of forest change in Europe and North America, where it was found that many countries displayed a shift from net forest loss to forest gain as they industrialized and urbanized (Mather and Needle 1998; Agnoletti and Anderson 2000). Attention has since shifted to include studies of land use and forest change in the global south, where evidence suggests such transitions may also be underway in some developing countries (Rudel et al. 2005; Aide et al. 2013; Keenan et al. 2015).

The idea of a forest transition originated as a historical generalization about how forest cover often changes – from net loss to net gain – as economies and societies develop. Theoretical explanations to account for this tend to take one of two general forms (Rudel 1998; Rudel et al. 2005). The first of these – referred to as the forest scarcity thesis – is microeconomic in character and argues that forest transitions reflect a relative shift over time in the value placed on forests and forest products/services. As forests are depleted over time, their value grows, and this eventually incentivizes widespread action to protect and restore them. Barbier et al. (2017) adopted this kind of microeconomic approach but framed it more explicitly in terms of the relative value of alternative land uses (i.e., land used for agriculture vs forest, etc.).

The second, economic development thesis emphasizes broader structural and technological changes as central to explaining forest transitions. In short, as societies industrialize and urbanize, rural people – especially younger adults – are drawn from the countryside to live and work in urban areas, sapping the rural farm sector of the labour needed to sustain it. Farms are downsized and farmlands are abandoned as a result. These trends are reinforced by the mechanization of agriculture and food production which redirects investment to the most productive farmlands only and drives down food prices so that marginal producers can no longer compete.

I will not attempt at this point to evaluate the merits of these respective theories, although both claim evidential support from the literature (Rudel et al. 2005). Arguably, the two are not mutually exclusive but rather differ in their points of explanatory emphasis. For example, both forest scarcity and economic development theses anticipate that reforestation be concentrated on more marginal farmlands. Theoretical interpretations are also complicated by the fact that most scholars have applied the forest transition concept using a fairly broad brush and, by doing so, typically overlook socio-economic, geographic and ecological variations within the areas bounded by their analyses (Robbins and Fraser 2003; Perz 2007).

In this study, these shortcomings were largely overcome by integrating information on national trends with findings based on detailed, field-based investigations. As well, the analytical approach used here, abductive causal eventism (ACE), and described in the following chapter explains reforestation in particular places in Saint Lucia by constructing event-causal histories specific to those places, not by appealing to theory or models of forest change more generally. In this regard, the most relevant ideas from the forest transition literature are those about events – specifically events that have been shown elsewhere to contribute to forest transitions. Such events include farm productivity declines, farm input cost increases, farm commodity price declines, rural outmigrations, enacted policies that redirect incentives away from agricultural development and towards promotion of forest conservation and tree planting, and so on (Mather and Needle 1998; Rudel et al. 2000; Foster and Rosenzweig 2003; Robbins and Fraser 2003; Rudel et al. 2005; Aide et al. 2013).

In fact, recent scholarship on Caribbean forests suggests that Saint Lucia may not be alone among island states in the region in its experiencing a forest transition (Helmer et al. 2008; Alvarez-Berrios et al. 2013; Timms et al. 2013; Keenan et al. 2015; van Andel et al. 2016; Newman et al. 2018). For example, a forest transition in Puerto Rico has been well documented and its causes thoroughly studied (Rudel et al. 2000; Grau et al. 2003; Pares-Ramos et al. 2008). But Puerto Rico aside, research on other Caribbean islands has focused on national-level assessments of land use change only or, in the case of Jamaica, on intensive study of just one district. As such, little is still known about the specific character and causes of forest transitions within the island Caribbean (Walters 2017). A central aim of this book is therefore to enlarge our understanding of the causes and consequences of forest transitions by in-depth examination of the Saint Lucian experience.

EXPLAINING RURAL LAND USE AND FOREST CHANGE

Saint Lucia’s rural landscapes are now heavily forested, but not all forests are alike, and sometimes a forest is not exactly what it seems. For example, forests that have been planted or regrown naturally on former agricultural land are likely to differ in composition and structure from the original, primary forests that once existed there, although they may still be rich in native species and can quickly re-establish a complex vegetation structure that helps conserve soil and water (Corlett 1995; Grau et al. 2003; Chazdon 2003; Junqueira et al. 2010). Even some types of agriculture, including home gardens and agroforestry (growing of tree crops), each of