Islands, Forests and Gardens in the Caribbean

Book excerpt: "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. Domingue (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 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 rashes 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. The contributors' essays allow readers to understand the interplay of very local conditions and individual initiatives with larger global dynamics and structures, in order for all interested parties to build the environmental institutions needed to protect this region from growing multi-national exploitation."--BOOK JACKET.