“El asiento de su riqueza”. Los bosques y la ocupación del Este de Cuba por el azúcar, 1898-1926

Abstract

This article highlights the importance of extensive forest arcas in the occupation for sugar latifundios of the Camagüey and Oriente provinces (Cuba) during the first decades of the XX Century. These territories in the Eastern half of the Island were not included. mainly, in the expansion of big sugar slave plantations during the XIXth century. when Cuba became the main supplier of the world sugar market after the Haiti revolution. This allowed the anthropic transformation level to be much smaller that in the Western territories. However, this panorama changed drastically because of the new economic and political relationships with the United S tates that conditioned, in good measure, the destiny of the Republic of Cuba inaugurated in 1902. One more visible consequence was intensification in deforestation of the country in its history favoring a sugar growth for the external market. The paper offers some elements about this and other environmental implications. as well as the role of Scíence and Government in the great ecological transformation of the Cubans Eastern territories during those years.