Forestry, food security and livelihoods
Resource information
Date of publication
November 2014
Resource Language
ISBN / Resource ID
FAODOCREP:94a47f3e-4492-45f3-aedd-76cc1b4279b3
Pages
4
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Copyright details
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Without human intervention the countries of the Caribbean would be covered in dense tropical forests. The higher the annual rainfall, the higher the trees grow. However, the reality is that especially on the islands of the Caribbean most of the original forest cover has been removed for agriculture and housing purposes. Land use is not static, and so for example, the expansion of the banana industry increased the rate of deforestation on several islands. The decline of the industry, just over a decade later, resulted in reduced deforestation rates and in some instances led to an increase of forest cover.