Repeating Islands

During Emancipation Week in St. Lucia, ethno-botanist, Laurent Jean-Pierre, delivered a series of lectures in the Castries community and in the agricultural community of Choiseul. The lectures were based on the theme “Jardin Creole [Creole Garden]: Its Relevance, Pre and Post-Emancipation.”

Following the lectures in St. Lucia, Jean-Pierre was invited by the Mayor of Ste. Anne and the Scientific Committee of Martinique to deliver a similar lecture in Martinique. The lecture, “Plante sa ou ka manger, manger sa ou ka plante” [Grow what you eat, eat what you grow], emphasized the need for families to make use of whatever amount of land is available to them as a means of creating the Creole garden. Jean-Pierre also said with the ongoing debate about food security and high food import bills, it should be mandatory that every school has access to land for such a project. The speaker stressed that Jardin Creole was a vital means of survival in pre-emancipation days and it continues to be as vital today more than ever. Rather than leaving the land idle, Jean-Pierre insists that planting one’s garden not only helps reduce food bills, but it also creates some form of employment, provides exercise, and may be used as a source of medicinal herbs and healing products.

In St. Lucia Laurent Jean-Pierre is a botanist for the national trust. He lectures in schools and community centers about St. Lucia’s national treasures and tries to encourage young people in the growing effort to save the island’s forests, reefs, and wildlife. Jean-Pierre says, “This forest is being destroyed! Deforestation is taking place at the rate of 2 percent a year on this island. Erosion is occurring. Where once there were tumbling rivers and deep, clear pools, now there are mere trickles. The people should cry out in anger: ‘¿Our patrimony is being lost.’”

For full article and photo of Jean-Pierre, see http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/article.php?news_id=18447

For more on Jean-Pierre’s role in St. Lucia, see http://www.islands.com/article/Destinations/The-Caribbean-Heritage

Drawing of banana plant from http://www.european-schoolprojects.net/festivals/Martinique/jardin/jardin_ecadre.htm