St. Lucia has deforested much of its land due to agricultural, tourists and commercial interests. There have been two small areas set aside as nature preserves, but pressure for population growth prevents the government from expanding them. St. Lucia’s has very mountainous land therefore their improper land use is a major cause for soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and poor water quality, which adversely effects many parts of the island.
Tourists are a huge impact to St. Lucia’s land use because the more tourism there is the more land that is developed. They negatively impact biodiversity, water quality and preserved land. Development is instigated by commercial interests and negatively impacts the land in many ways such as degrading preserved and undeveloped lands for businesses and factories as well as reducing water quality and increasing soil erosion. As populations grow so does development, which effects everything previously mentioned. Also the amount of waste that is produced increases causing many harmful environmental factors including weakening water quality and biodiversity.
There is a positive feedback loop between population growth and agriculture land because as population grows the larger agriculture grows and as agriculture grows the more people St. Lucia can support. There is a negative feedback look between agriculture and soil erosion because as agriculture expands more soil erosion occurs and more soil erosion reduces the amount of agriculture. The last feedback loop is between developed land and soil erosion and similar to soil erosion and agriculture because the more development there is the more soil erosion that occurs and the less amount of development that occurs or developed areas are negatively impacted by soil erosion.
A solution is that the Government can set aside money for
preservation of more land and implement better land use practices. This will
promote more ecotourism that will not only help pay for these changes but
encourage them as well. More preserved land will protect St. Lucia’s
biodiversity and maintain its pristine environment.
