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Puerto Rico: Economic and Environmental Overview 75 75 CHAPTER 6 Puerto Rico ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL OVERVIEW s NEFTALÍ GARCÍA-MARTÍNEZ, TANIA GARCÍA-RAMOS, AND ANA RIVERA-RIVERA Humans modify nature more than any other species. Their interaction with nature takes place within a social milieu that comprises scientific, technological, economic, political, ideological, and living and non-living nature-derived elements. The Puerto Rican economy and the social and natural components of its environment have been drastically transformed during the past century. In this chapter we offer an overview of these changes. Puerto Rico is a subtropical archipelago that includes a main island and the smaller islands of Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. Its total area is about 3,435 square miles. It is the easternmost island of the Greater Antilles. Military strategists have coveted its geographical location since the Spanish arrived in 1493. From Agriculture to Industry At the time of the U.S. military invasion in 1898, Puerto Rico, until then under Spanish rule, was in transition from a pre-capitalist to a capitalist socioeconomic formation. Before 1898, the United States was the primary market for Puerto Rican products, followed by Spain. Coffee and sugar cane production were the main economic activities; subsistence farming and artisan fishing were also important. A banking sector had begun to emerge a few years earlier. At this time the U.S. socioeconomic formation was characterized by increasing monopoly control of capital investment in oil, sugar, coal, and railroad transportation, among other economic sectors. Some of the first economic policies pursued by the U.S. government were currency change from the Spanish peso to the dollar, elimination of trade barriers between Puerto Rico and the United States, and suspension of credit.The Puerto Rican government’s autonomous 76 N. García-Martínez, T. García-Ramos, and A. Rivera-Rivera relationship with Spain was abolished, and the archipelago became a U.S. possession , a relationship that prevails up to the present. Puerto Rico was thrust directly into the North American economy without any protection. It was only a matter of time before this would precipitate the destruction of pre-capitalist economic activities, particularly subsistence farming, and the consequent social upheaval (García 1978). In 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship, although they had not asked for it. With citizenship, Puerto Ricans became eligible for conscription into the United States armed forces. The first five decades of the twentieth century saw considerable investment in sugar, tobacco, coffee, citrus fruits, needlework, military bases, subsistence farming, and a few state-owned industries. Sugar production was the predominant economic activity and occupied the best agricultural land, especially along the coasts. Intensive subsistence farming in small plots was pushed into the hills and mountains, resulting in significant soil erosion and loss of fertility. Tobacco cultivation prevailed in the eastern region and the central mountains, with environmental effects similar to those of subsistence farming (García 1978). Aerial photographs from the 1930s to the 1950s provided by the Puerto Rico Highway Authority show a deforested landscape throughout the hills and mountains, except in the shaded coffee areas, mainly in the island’s west-central region. The eastern ElYunque rainforest (Caribbean National Forest) and smaller forests under Puerto Rican government control were also exceptions to the rule. It has been estimated that only about six to seven percent of Puerto Rico was covered by forests in the 1930s (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2000). In 1929, at the beginning of the Great Depression, official unemployment in Puerto Rico was estimated at 30 percent (Scarano 2000). The real unemployment rate was probably much higher. In the 1930s, large numbers of Puerto Rican workers migrated to Cuba and the Dominican Republic in search of better economic opportunities. Federal economic reconstruction and relief programs began on the island in 1932 with grants from the Reconstruction Finance Administration and, in 1933, from the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (PRERA). Construction of public works with federal funds was the predominant economic activity during the Depression years. In the late 1930s, the federal government invested in a cement plant, probably in anticipation of its participation in the war that was then brewing in Europe and Asia. In the early 1940s, military bases were built in Puerto Rico. These included Roosevelt Roads, Ramey, and Vieques Island. The Puerto Rican government later bought the cement plant and invested in the bottle, cardboard, footwear , and ceramic products industries. Funds for these projects came from excise...

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