Islands, Forests and Gardens in the Caribbean: Conservation and Conflict in Environmental History

The continuing struggle to preserve the ecological abundance of the eastern Caribbean is a recurrent theme in this collection of essays on the gardens (both botanical and small holdings) and the forests of such diverse islands as Martinique, St. Vincent, St. Dominigue (present Haiti) and Barbados.It pays homage to the indigenous Caribbean people and imported slaves and their descendants, who fashioned gardens in remote jungles to achieve both personal dignity and independence from the slave and post-slave plantation economy. The resilience of island ecosystems following natural disasters is documented.The book's pioneers include botanists and gardeners from many countries, who strove to introduce food crops and medicines to the Caribbean for an ever-growing population, and enlightened local administrators, who tried to prevent the ravishes of deforestation and its consequent climate changes wherever they could. This includes, in contemporary times, Dr Earle Kirby of Kingstown, who has studied and acted on these questions all his life, and in whose honour this book is created.In conjunction with the University of Warwick, "Macmillan Caribbean" presents the latest and most authoritative research in Caribbean Studies. The series aims to study the complexity and variety of a remarkable region and reflect the pan-Caribbean, inter-disciplinary approach of the Warwick University Centre for Caribbean Studies. It features new titles in the fields of history, sociology, economics and development, literature, anthropology and politics, as well as the re-issue of major works. Some are contributed by individual authors while others are collected papers from symposia at Warwick or elsewhere.