Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World

566 Pages·2000·2.76 MB·English

by  Richard P. Tucker

Insatiable Appetite

Insatiable
Appetite
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Richard P. Tucker
UNIVERSITYOF CALIFORNIAPRESS
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UniversityofCaliforniaPress
BerkeleyandLosAngeles,California
UniversityofCaliforniaPress,Ltd.
London,England
q2000bytheRegentsoftheUniversityofCalifornia
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Tucker,RichardP.,1938–
Insatiableappetite:theUnitedStatesandtheecologicaldegradationofthe
tropicalworld/RichardP.Tucker.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-520-22087-0(cloth:alk.paper)
1. Tropicalcrops—Economicaspects—History—20thcentury. 2. Tropical
crops—Environmentalaspects—History—20thcentury. 3. Investments,
American—Tropics—History—20thcentury. 4. Environmentaldegradation—
Tropics—History—20thcentury. I.Title.
HD1417.T832000
333.7'0913—dc21 00-037774
ManufacturedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
part one. croplands
1. America’s Sweet Tooth: The Sugar Trust and the
Caribbean Lowlands 15
2. Lords of the Pacific: Sugar Barons in the Hawaiian
and Philippine Islands 63
3. Banana Republics: Yankee Fruit Companies and
the Tropical American Lowlands 120
4. The Last Drop: The American Coffee Market and
the Hill Regions of Latin America 179
5. The Tropical Cost of the Automotive Age:
Corporate Rubber Empires and the Rainforest 226
part two. pasturelands
6. The Crop on Hooves: Yankee Interests in Tropical
Cattle Ranching 285
vii
viii Contents
part three. forestlands
7. Unsustainable Yield: American Foresters and
Tropical Timber Resources 345
Conclusion 417
Appendix 425
Map 1. West Indies: Lesser Antilles
Map 2. West Indies: Greater Antilles
Map 3. Hawaii: The Eight Major Islands
Map 4. Philippine Islands
Map 5. CentralAmerica
Map 6. Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela
Map 7. Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina
Map 8. Indonesia and Malaya
Map 9. Liberia
Map 10. Mexico
Notes 437
Bibliography 485
Index 525
Acknowledgments
Atprofessionalgatheringsofenvironmentalhistorians,oneparticipant
is likely to ask another how on earth she or he ever became enmeshed
insuchanimpossiblycomplexfield.Theresponseisoftenidiosyncratic:
thepractitionertracesthemeanderingpaththatledtoafusionofwork
andplay,professionandcitizenship,andthepainstakingefforttomarry
socialandbiologicalunderstanding.
I had been immersed forsomeyearsinresearchontheinterplaybe-
tweenBritishimperialadministratorsandtheAnglicizedeliteofVicto-
rian India, when I began to see that some of their key controversies
centeredonthedistributionofaccesstonaturalresources,suchasforest
and grazing resources. In the summer of 1979 I began to explore the
colonial forestry archives in England, andI soon facedthedifficultyof
explainingtocolleagueswhyIhadbecomeinterestedintreesandgoats,
speciesthatleavenoarchivaldocumentsandinthatsensehavenohis-
tory.Butforestersunderstood;indeed,shepherdsunderstood.Laterthat
seasonIattendedaninternationalforesthistoryconferenceattheEcole
NationaledesEauxetForeˆtsinNancy,France,hopingtofindhistorians
or foresters working on the impact of European forestry traditions in
their tropical and subtropical empires. There was none, but I was en-
couragedbythefactthatmycolleaguesinstantlysawthesignificanceof
thequestion.
By 1981, when someofusmetagainin Kyotoata globalgathering
of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, we were
ix
x Acknowledgments
ready to organize an international network on the history of tropical
forest use and depletion. Many useful works on that subject have
emerged since then; some of them are building blocks in chapter 7 of
this book. European colonial regimes maintained massive records of
theirwork,includingthosekeptfortheirtechnicalagenciessuchasfor-
estry. In contrast, the global reach of the United States,whichcameto
dominate large parts of Latin America and the Pacific Basin about a
century ago, was not a formal empire, apart from its short period of
governing the Philippine Islands. American corporate investors and
speculators in tropical resources did not have to answer to their coun-
trymenincolonizedcountries,andYankeeofficialdomdidnotorganize
and maintain the governmental agencies of tropical countries. I was a
citizen of the country whose economy had become the most voracious
consumer of global resources in the twentieth century world, but the
evolution of that epochal story was virtually impossible to discern.By
the early 1980s many writers had given glimpses of how the global
environmental impact of the United States had been shaped, but no
historian had addressed the subject as the central issue. During five
monthsin1983onaresearchappointmentattheUniversityofCalifor-
niainBerkeley,Ibegantodefinethescopeofthesubjectwithinitsglobal
and comparative context, with the help of geographers Robert Reed,
James Parsons, Hilgard O’Reilly Sternberg, and other colleagues and
studentsofthetwogreatgeographersClarenceGlackenandCarlSauer.
Anthropologists James Anderson and Gerald Berreman and historians
BarbaraandThomasMetcalfwereequallystimulatingindiscussionsof
theshapeofglobalenvironmentalhistory.
In thesameyears,asa memberoftheInternationalProgramsCom-
mittee of the Sierra Club, I joined the discussion of the specific links
betweentheAmericaneconomyandthedegradationoftropicalnatural
resources.OvertheyearssincethenIhaveparticularlyvaluedBillMan-
kin’sinsightsandhisskillindesigningprogramstochallengetheseforms
ofoverconsumption.
When the World Resources Institute invited me in 1985 to attempt
anoverviewofthisdimensionoftropicalenvironmentalhistory,thetask
was daunting but irresistible. My greatestofmany debtsis to WRIfor
financial and logistical support for my first two years’ work, and sus-
tained critical support since then. I am grateful especially to Andrew
Maguire, Robert Repetto, Walter Reid, and above all, Janet Welsh
Brown.WRIalsoorganizedanadvisorycommitteeforthework;Ihave