Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Paradise Lost?

2017; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 34; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/07402775-4373446

1936-0924

Roberto Múkaro Borrero,

Economic Zones and Regional Development

With their striking flora and fauna and consistently pleasant temperatures, it’s no wonder that the Caribbean islands are often described as paradise. Across the region, ecosystems ranging from high-elevation cloud forests to cactus scrublands boast an incredible array of plants and animals. The Caribbean is also designated as a biodiversity hotspot, which means that its rich natural resources are under threat of destruction. About 70 percent of its original habitats have been lost to natural processes such as water and wind erosion, as well as human activities like deforestation, chemical dumping, and construction. Rising sea levels are another looming menace.One of the first recorded comparisons between the Caribbean and paradise came from Christopher Columbus in 1492 as he gazed upon the islands during his first voyage west. As we all know, Columbus sailed the ocean blue on behalf of the monarchs of Spain, both to find a faster trade route to Asia and to spread Catholicism. His name in Spanish, Cristóbal Colón, translates to “Christ-bearing colonizer,” and by all accounts he took this as a mandate. While justifying his actions with religion, Colón zealously commodified nature and human beings—including Indigenous people and Africans—to fund his colonial enterprise. Colón initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade and supervised shipments of Indigenous peoples from the Caribbean to Europe. It was this ground-zero encounter, this tragic meeting of the so-called Old and New Worlds, that altered the course of global history. From Colón on, emerging European powers launched campaigns of genocide, forced religious conversion, and empire-building in the Caribbean—and subsequently throughout the Americas. These are the origins of the inequitable economic and social power relations that still exist in the region.The islands of the Caribbean were also where the term “Indian” was first applied to the Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. Among those Colón first encountered on his voyage were members of the Arawakan linguistic and cultural group, who called themselves Taíno, which translates to “good people.” At the time of contact, Taíno lived throughout the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas, and even in the southern area of what is today called Florida in the U.S. They traversed the Caribbean Sea by kanoa (canoes), the largest of which were said to hold up to 150 persons. Early European chroniclers noted that they spoke a lingua franca that was widely understood across the islands. Taíno communities were organized into chiefdoms focused on agriculture, fishing, hunting, gathering, and trade. The Taíno also enjoyed a rich spiritual and recreational life: Fray Ramón Pané, a 15th-century Spanish monk who accompanied Colón on his second voyage to the Americas, documented Taíno songs, origin stories, and the religious practice of carving elaborate figures to honor deities.The European colonizers also encountered another group of Indigenous peoples early on, mainly in the Lesser Antillean region. They were known as Caribe—from which the Caribbean derives its name—though on some islands they called themselves Kalinago. Before the arrival of Colón, they regularly interacted with the Taíno and shared a similar lifestyle, though they were falsely accused of being cannibals by the Spaniards. As European colonization continued into the 16th century, conflicts between the Old and New World escalated. Indigenous people who retaliated against the crown were often denounced as “Caribe” to link them to the supposed cannibals. This label, according to the Spanish monarchs, justified their enslavement.Various kinds of scientific data affirm that Indigenous peoples influenced the biodiversity of the islands starting at least 7,000 years ago. They cleared trees for agricultural development and made use of terrestrial and marine resources. However, the data also makes clear that the arrival of Europeans in the 15th century greatly accelerated the decline of the region’s natural resources. As European population centers grew rapidly, island ecosystems began to deteriorate. Deforestation and soil erosion dramatically increased as non-native animals were introduced and colonizers set up plantations to grow cash crops such as sugarcane.The European belief in dominion over the natural world had additional effects. A perfect storm of warfare, enslavement, indentured servitude, and the introduction of unfamiliar diseases drastically reduced Indigenous populations throughout the Caribbean archipelago soon after settlers arrived. This coincided with the regional adoption of Christianity, and the shift from early colonial era human trafficking of Indigenous peoples to the brutal enslavement and importation of Africans. In subsequent years, the remaining Caribbean Indigenous peoples would be further displaced and disenfranchised by changing demographics as peoples of European, African, and mixed descent grew in number, as well as by creolization, which refers to white people growing up in colonized countries.Starting with Colón and his contemporaries, Caribbean Indigenous people were subjected to various forms of violence and rendered socially invisible. Indigenous people and enslaved Africans were viewed by many Spaniards and other early colonizers as subhuman, much like the domestic animals that could be exploited in tandem with the land. Racial castes were developed, linking “whiteness” with racist ideals of European purity and superiority, while devaluing peoples of color.Fast forward to now, as the Caribbean’s colonial past continues to inform its present. Today, the descendants of the Indigenous peoples first encountered by Colón are minorities, living in only a few of the region’s countries and territories, where they are often marginalized and among the most economically vulnerable. Caribbean Indigenous peoples currently have little or no voice in national policy, while continued industrialization, unsustainable agriculture, rapid population growth, and tourism have all directly affected them by critically stressing the region’s ecosystems. Caribbean economies rely heavily on marine resources for food security and jobs, yet recent reports published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature note that overfishing and the degradation of coral reef systems are pushing marine life, including key food sources, toward extinction.The Caribbean region is also among the world’s most susceptible to the negative effects of climate change and the El Niño/La Niña weather phenomenon. Although the impact of climate change is not experienced uniformly across the region, climbing temperatures in the atmosphere and oceans, rising sea levels, beach erosion, the salinization of agricultural lands and aquifers, and increasingly acidic seas are becoming more common. According to a 2016 report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, because of climate change, the Caribbean is also expected to see a surge in the severity and frequency of droughts.As temperatures in the Caribbean continue to rise, extreme weather events are expected to happen more regularly. Scientists have already confirmed that since the early 1980s, hurricanes in the North Atlantic, including Category 4 and 5 hurricanes—those with the strongest winds—have increased in frequency, intensity, and duration. The destructive impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico, Dominica, and the U.S. Virgin Islands provides a sobering example of things to come. Indigenous peoples on all these islands were severely affected by the storm, but most news reports never mentioned them. The Kalinago of Dominica, for example, lost over 80 percent of homes on their reserve territory. These islands, like others in the region, have limited human and financial resources, and rely on agriculture, fisheries, and tourism—industries that storms like Maria can completely disrupt. The specter of hurricanes becoming stronger and more frequent directly links Caribbean survival to the response to climate change.Considering these realities, it is no wonder that the Caribbean’s political leadership is taking climate change seriously. For instance, all 14 member states of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) signed the historic U.N. Paris Climate Agreement, adopted by consensus in December 2015. During negotiations, citing concerns for present and future generations, Caribbean countries advocated for the agreement to set a long-term global surface temperature target limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius—a goal vocally supported by Indigenous representatives—as well as to acknowledge the concept of loss and damage, which introduces the idea that some climate change impacts will be permanent, and should be responded to accordingly. As temperatures increase, Caribbean leaders worry that further negative side effects—such as reduced crop yields, coral reef bleaching, and heightened water scarcity—will follow, threatening ecosystems, food security, and sustainable development.In Paris, governments agreed to address loss and damage and to hold global warming to, at most, 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Indigenous peoples also successfully advocated for the agreement to recognize Indigenous rights. While these developments can been seen as important steps in the right direction, U.N. reports from 2017 indicate that the planet is still on a disastrous course to heat up by 3 degrees Celsius or more before 2100. Nations around the world, including most G-20 countries, are simply not doing enough to meet the targets set in the Paris Agreement.Meanwhile, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased to levels that last existed 3 to 5 million years ago. If the gaps between actual emissions and the pledges made in Paris are not closed by 2030, it will be difficult to keep global warming below a 2 degree Celsius increase. To prepare for the possibility that this goal is not met, Caribbean nations must ramp up efforts to implement mitigation and adaptation strategies. Leaders need to also engage Indigenous peoples, who hold traditional knowledge, as well as collective rights to lands and resources, in planning and policymaking.Strengthening precautionary measures on local, regional, and national levels across the Caribbean is critical. However, the interconnectedness of the global climate crisis needs to be stressed, especially in light of the recent U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. While countries may not always agree, the developed nations that benefited from colonialism (including the United States) now have an obligation to assume a leadership role, acknowledge historical responsibility and current inequalities, and make larger emissions cuts and more aggressive efforts to phase out fossil fuels.The global climate crisis cannot be easily solved with technical advancements or siloed responses. The Caribbean, like the Pacific, the Arctic, and other climate-vulnerable geopolitical regions, needs a climate-just future. This means that assistance in the forms of technology transfer, capacity building, climate-finance schemes, and market-based mechanisms should be used cautiously, as they might become vehicles to perpetuate imperialism and exploitation. These are legacies that Caribbean and other Indigenous peoples recognize, and it is why we are aligning with global climate-justice movements. For the Caribbean Indigenous peoples, moving “forward ever” also requires looking back. Caribbean political leaders would do well to join Indigenous peoples in advocating for systemic change that responds to both the environmental crisis and long-standing calls for social justice.