L’inégalité des territoires insulaires de la Caraïbe face aux menaces volcaniques

Lesales, Thierry

doi:10.4000/etudescaribeennes.316

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We can notice that 11 islands of the Lesser Antilles have an active volcano (i.e. from the smallest to the largest: Saba, St.Eustatius, Dominica, Nevis, Montserrat, St.Kitts, Grenada, St.Vincent, St.Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe) (Lesales, 2007).…”

Section: The Lesser Antilles Islands Have Different Physical Charactementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We have seen that the Lesser Antilles were partly composed of volcanic islands. For each of the 11 volcanic islands, Lesales (2007) recalls the "volcano exposure index" which reports the number of active volcanoes on the land area of the island (the higher the index is (e.g. Saba), the lesser the areas are sheltered).…”

Section: Air Temperature Volcanic Eruptions Earthquakes Tsunamismentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Some remarks on Mangroves in the Lesser Antilles

Angelelli¹,

Saffache²

2013

RGCI

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During the past thirty years the surface of mangrove swamps in the Lesser Antilles has globally decreased over twenty percent. The phenomenon is worldwide spread but the Lesser Antilles' issues remain noteworthy because, due to the small size of these islands, prejudices on the mangrove swamps may have significant impacts. This paper starts to address some methodological remarks about statistics concerning mangroves (before the nineties, long-term data are incomplete and they impede a good estimate of the evolution of this ecosystem) and is mainly divided in two parts. In the first part, we briefly recall the importance of mangrove swamps in the Lesser Antilles. Despite the different physical characteristics of these islands, mangroves appear from several points of view as one of the common feature in these islands. Quantitatively, from 1980 to 2010, the area occupied by mangroves has regressed in the Lesser Antilles and in the world in general. Mangroves were soon disqualified owing to their inaccessibility and unhealthiness. Furthermore, deprived of their traditional functions, they have been progressively marginalized with economic development and rising living standards in small islands economies notwithstanding their positive role as an ecosystem. Highlighted since the 1980s, this role appears particularly evident in the field of marine resources and protection against hurricanes and tsunamis, but also to help restore the quality of coastal waters and biodiversity. In the second part of this paper, we wonder about the paradox faced by the inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles. On the one hand they really cannot prevent major natural threats on their wetlands like global climate change, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes or tsunamis. And on the other hand, due to their territorial and political scale, these small islands should be able to act against local anthropogenic threats i.e. deforestation, household effluents, agriculture, urbanization, tourism, etc. Indeed, the Lesser Antilles islands have adopted the principles of ecosystem protection and integrated development of coastal areas (including various international conventions in this area). The land use policy, the urban planning, the building on the coastline or next to the mangroves are theoretically under public control. But the paradox is that effective provisions and outcomes are often weak against direct anthropogenic threats even if local solutions do not seem to be out of reach. We give a few typical examples illustrating the damage to mangroves in these islands today whatever the political status or the administrative organization. We conclude by considering that the case of mangroves in the Lesser Antilles may be a good illustration of the economic problem posed by the management of the commons. Shortly, the protection granted to goods depends on the value of goods. As for us the continuous decrease of mangrove surfaces reflects the lack of recognition of their value at every sense of the word. Even outside the market system, the recovery and the...

show abstract

Section: The Lesser Antilles Islands Have Different Physical Charactementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Air Temperature Volcanic Eruptions Earthquakes Tsunamismentioning

confidence: 99%