Reinaldo Funes Monzote
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807831281
- eISBN:
- 9781469604671
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807888865_funes_monzote.4
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book investigates the impact of the sugar industry on Cuban forests from around 1600 to the mid-1920s. More specifically, it explores the link between sugar plantations and deforestation in Cuba ...
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This book investigates the impact of the sugar industry on Cuban forests from around 1600 to the mid-1920s. More specifically, it explores the link between sugar plantations and deforestation in Cuba during this period. Drawing on the concept of physico-natural regions as a spatial frame of reference, the book examines how sugar cultivation in Cuba led to the disappearance of forests on the island. In assessing the environmental impact of the sugar industry, it considers other aspects, including the system that governed the supply of lumber for shipbuilding until the end of the eighteenth century, the establishment of a modern forestry administration, and the efforts of legislators and others to raise awareness about the environmental and economic consequences of deforestation. The book also considers how Cuba's socioeconomic evolution and dominant ideologies have shaped attitudes toward the environment, as well as the role of forests in the formation of the Cuban nation. In a sense, it is a tribute to the central place occupied by forests in Cuban history while highlighting the dangers of wanton exploitation of natural resources.Less
This book investigates the impact of the sugar industry on Cuban forests from around 1600 to the mid-1920s. More specifically, it explores the link between sugar plantations and deforestation in Cuba during this period. Drawing on the concept of physico-natural regions as a spatial frame of reference, the book examines how sugar cultivation in Cuba led to the disappearance of forests on the island. In assessing the environmental impact of the sugar industry, it considers other aspects, including the system that governed the supply of lumber for shipbuilding until the end of the eighteenth century, the establishment of a modern forestry administration, and the efforts of legislators and others to raise awareness about the environmental and economic consequences of deforestation. The book also considers how Cuba's socioeconomic evolution and dominant ideologies have shaped attitudes toward the environment, as well as the role of forests in the formation of the Cuban nation. In a sense, it is a tribute to the central place occupied by forests in Cuban history while highlighting the dangers of wanton exploitation of natural resources.
