ABSTRACT
To the Europeans who explored the Caribbean in 1492 the islands seemed overwhelming in their attractiveness and munificence. Columbus informed his King that ‘these countries far surpass all the rest of the world in beauty’. Today this beauty provides the resource base for the tourist industry which attracts modern visitors to the region. Yet the beauty of the contemporary Caribbean landscape is a chimera. The environment has been severely degraded in the last 500 years and the region is listed as one which has suffered a major loss of plants and animal species (Westermann 1953).
