Book Review

Conquering Nature: The Environmental Legacy of Socialism in Cuba. By Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Jorge Pérez López. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. xiii + 328 pp. Maps, tables, notes, references, index. Cloth $50.00, paper $22.95.

Although environmental history as such has had a very limited presence within Cuban historical research, some nineteenth century authors, such as naturalists Ramón de la Sagra and Miguel Rodríguez Ferrer, did mention the adverse consequences deforestation was having on the island. During the twentieth century several well-known Cuban historians, such as Manuel Moreno Fraginals in El Ingenio (Havana, 1964) and Levi Marrero in his Cuba. Economía y Sociedad (Madrid, 1971–1992) paid special attention to environmental deterioration caused by the expansion of sugarcane plantations, especially during the nineteenth century. Similar problems also are addressed by Roland T. Ely and Laird Bergad. Joseph Opatný´s article "Los cambios socioeconómicos y el medioambiente. Cuba. Primera mitad del siglo XIX" (Revista de Indias, 1996) also should be mentioned. Other recent works lie within the general course of environmental history. Such are the articles by Mark J. Smith on "The political economy of sugar production and the environment of eastern Cuba, 1898–1923" (Environmental History, 1995) and the pages dedicated to Cuba in Richard P. Tucker's book Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World (Berkeley, 2000). Stuart McCook's dissertation "The agricultural awakening of Latin America: Science, development and nature" (Princeton, 1996) and David Watt's somewhat wider and chronologically oriented "The West Indies: Patterns of Development, culture and environmental change since 1492" (Cambridge, 1987) have dealt with the environmental implications of sugarcane cultivation. Reinaldo Funes's article on the origins and perspectives of Cuba's environmental history also can be consulted (in González de Molina and Martínez Alier, eds., Naturaleza Transformada. Estudios de Historia Ambiental en España, Icaria, Barcelona, 2001).	1
Winds of Change, by Louis A. Pérez, Jr., contributes an unprecedented review of the impact on Cuban politics, society and culture of a rather frequent (but also frequently overlooked) natural feature of the island's history: hurricanes. This is the first extensive publication on this subject. The introductory chapters are devoted to the origin of hurricanes and their general incidence on the Caribbean region, particularly on Cuba, from 1492 until the first half of the nineteenth century, and to changes in Cuban economy and society during the same period, where agricultural production became more diversified (coffee plantations developed along with sugar cane). The core of the book analyzes the specific impact of three strong hurricanes on western Cuba in 1842, 1844, and 1846, and their influence not only on the economy but on social and political conditions, including those bearing on relations with Spain. The last chapter examines the role of hurricanes on the formation of the Cuban nation and culture.	2
The author has made good use of documents that traditionally have been viewed from other perspectives, such as local histories and the testimonies of travelers. The consultation of Cuban scientific literature on hurricanes is also quite unprecedented.	3
The main goal of this book is to incorporate the influence of hurricanes into the set of variables that have contributed to the formation of the Cuban nation, although the author is well aware that hurricanes acted more as catalysts than as decisive elements within this process. For instance, Perez points out that the crisis of coffee production in western Cuba in the 1840s was due to three strong hurricanes that affected this region, but he also states that strong competition on the international market transformed this otherwise temporary setback into a final crisis.	4
Nevertheless, Winds of Change does not dwell on several other perhaps less perceivable facets of the relationship between nature and society, and this may induce some of its readers to overstate the influence of hurricanes on Cuban history. Despite their effects, which were certainly catastrophic at times, these storms only helped to accelerate or decelerate social processes that already were taking place. In this sense, the "hurricane" that did transform the Cuban landscape as well as the economic and social structures on the island was the large scale development of tropical commercial crops (especially sugar cane), which coincided with the beginning of the industrial era. This circumstance brought about important changes in the relations between man and nature and how they were perceived.	5
During the first half of the nineteenth century, slave plantations, and sugar mills in the Havana region of western Cuba, after having practically depleted the local forests, moved on to other forested areas in the Matanzas region and in central Cuba. Woods provided fuel and building materials and, supposedly, more fertile soils. Besides suffering the effects of hurricanes in the 1840s, sugarcane fields in Havana showed clear signs of soil exhaustion, caused by "a traveling agriculture," as it was then called by the Cuban publicist Francisco de Frías, Count of Pozos Dulces.	6
The "conquest" of nature was clearly one of the main legacies of the nineteenth century and the beginnings of the twentieth century (a process studied in Funes's dissertation "Azúcar, deforestación y medioambiente. Los bosques de Cuba entre 1772 y 1926," Universitat Jaume I, Spain, 2002), but Conquering Nature is a survey of environmental problems faced by Cuba mainly in the last forty years. Written by a demographer and an economist, its first two chapters provide a general introduction to the "natural, demographic and economic setting" as well as to the "law and practice of environmental protection" in Cuba. Other chapters deal with agriculture, forestry, water resources, industrial pollution, nuclear energy, "the neglect of Havana," and recent conditions after the collapse of the Soviet Union (the "special period"). This is a much more comprehensive attempt to assess overall environmental damage in Cuba than the two previous books written by Cuban technicians who defected in recent years (José R. Oro. The Poisoning of Paradise, Miami, 1992; Carlos Wotzkow. Natumaleza Cubana, Miami, 1998).	7
The authors underline the tendency toward "gigantism" in some decisions which have affected the Cuban environment; but, in fact, "gigantism" was present in Cuban agriculture well before the 1959 revolution: immense sugarcane latifundia and enormous sugar mills were created in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Many latifundia were kept undivided after the Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 and some were newly created in order to apply large scale mechanization, fertilization, and pest control. Although these new latifundia were quite common in the 1960s and 1970s, they have given way to organic agriculture, which has been greatly developed during the "special period" (see, for example, P. Rosset and M. Benjamin, eds., The Greening of the Revolution. Cubans Experiment with Organic Agriculture, 1994).	8
A number of industries in Cuba have been paralyzed for several years now, due to the lack of raw materials and other inputs. This is true, for example of all the fertilizer plants and of the French-built bagasse-paper plant in Jatibonico, mentioned in the book as water polluters. Three of the six cement plants on the island are high polluters, but the rest are not. Besides the highly polluting thermoelectric plants, two environmentally friendly plants (acquired in Japan and England) have been working for several years, a fact not recorded in the book. Oil pollution from drilling, though still extant, has been somewhat curtailed by applying internationally approved measures. The nuclear-power program, to which a whole chapter is devoted, has been definitively cancelled.	9
Many of the environmental problems Cuba faces are dealt with in official government reports (some of which are cited in Conquering Nature). Deforestation has been a concern for many years and the very few original forests that still exist (after the heavy deforestation which took place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) likely will be preserved. Many new forest areas have been planted and the area covered by forests is now (according to official reports to FAO) around 21–23 percent (not 18 percent) of the total area. Concerns over the use of wood for cooking due to fuel scarcity during the special period may be exaggerated. Cuban farmers have usually made coal mainly from marabú and aroma, plants that are weeds in Cuba. Erosion and salinization are serious problems in some areas, but projects for soil recovery are being carried out.	10
The "neglect of Havana" comprises one chapter in the book. Although it is true that other regions of Cuba received much higher priority, the main problems of the Cuban capital require huge financing (which no government, in the past sixty or seventy years has been able to provide). The city grew in the past forty years from about 600,000 inhabitants to over 2 million, but the sewerage system has remained practically the same. Additional aqueducts have been built, but water is still scarce in some areas of the city. Housing remains a very serious issue, although houses and other buildings in the older area of the city (a special site for tourism) have been actively restored. These problems are similar to those experienced in most fast-growing capital cities in Latin America and other regions of the so-called Third-World.	11
Cuba has turned to tourism as its main "industry" (even the sugar industry is being downscaled) and this, of course, brings about new worries regarding the environment. The need to provide employment for millions of Cubans and the measures necessary to address a devastating economic crisis may override environmental concerns in some cases, but there is a growing understanding of these problems among the population (especially the younger generation) and local authorities. These developments should bring some hope to those concerned with environmental troubles in Cuba.	12
Pedro M. Pruna-Goodgall, a biologist and historian of science, is a researcher at the Museo Nacional de Historia de las Ciencias. Reinaldo Funes, an environmental historian, is a researcher at the Fundación Antonio Núñez Jiménez de la Naturaleza y el Hombre. Both live and work in Havana.

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