From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba

by Funes Monzote, Reinaldo; Martin, Alex

• ISBN13: 9780807858585
• ISBN10: 0807858587
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-03-03
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

In this award-winning environmental history of Cuba since the age of Columbus, Reinaldo Funes Monzote emphasizes the two processes that have had the most dramatic impact on the island's landscape: deforestation and sugar cultivation. During the first 300 years of Spanish settlement, sugar plantations arose primarily in areas where forests had been cleared by the royal navy, which maintained an interest in management and conservation for the shipbuilding industry. The sugar planters won a decisive victory in 1815, however, when they were allowed to clear extensive forests, without restriction, for cane fields and sugar production. This book is the first to consider Cuba's vital sugar industry through the lens of environmental history. Funes Monzote demonstrates how the industry that came to define Cuba-and upon which Cuba urgently depended--also devastated the ecology of the island.The original Spanish-language edition of the book, published in Mexico in 2004, was awarded the UNESCO Book Prize for Caribbean Thought, Environmental Category. For this first English edition, the author has revised the text throughout and provided new material, including a glossary and a conclusion that summarizes important developments up to the present.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

The Omnipresent Forest and the Beginnings of the Sugar Industry

Shipbuilding and the Sugar Industry, 1772-1791

The Struggle over Private Ownership of Forests, 1792-1815

Sugar and the Absolute Freedom to Clear Forests, 1815-1876

Centralization of the Sugar Industry and the Forests, 1876-1898

North American Capital and Sugar's Final Assault on the Forest, 1898-1926

Conclusion: From Forests to Sugar: An Insignificant Change?

Scientific Names of Plants and Animals

Temperature and Precipitation in the Natural Regions of Cuba

Units of Measure, with Equivalents

Notes

Glossary

Bibliographic Essay

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.