ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the expansion of the dune stabilization on the American Atlantic coastline. It analyzes the causes of dune mobility in Cape Cod, a peninsula of the United States, in the eighteenth century. Linking dune activity to the arrival of the Europeans and their interaction and use of land, this chapter explores the planting of beachgrass by settlers—an approach being put into practice in European coastal regions at the time. In this respect, this chapter argues that the settlers in Cape Cod used a native species of beachgrass, Ammophila breviligulata, which they assumed was the European congener, Ammophila arenaria, with which they were familiar back on their home coasts. Finally, this chapter provides several examples of dune stabilization in other areas of the United States, as well as in Mexico and Argentina, where the discourse and practice of dune afforestation gained prominence toward the end of the nineteenth century.
