Tourism Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has to cut down iconic coconut palms
Painful intervention in the postcard idyll: the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, known for its dream beaches, has to cut down some of its iconic coconut palms to protect the coastline from erosion.
02.01.2025, 11:50
02.01.2025, 11:54
SDA
For the picture-book beach of La Perle, for example, the authorities have developed a two-year plan to remove some of the trees and replace them with native species. Not only are their roots better able to prevent soil erosion, they are also more resistant to a disease that has already affected numerous palm trees on the island.
Although coconut palms are an integral part of the beaches and turquoise waters of Guadeloupe, they are not native to the Caribbean island. Unlike native tree species, they cannot anchor their roots as deeply in the ground, which means that the sand can easily be washed away by strong waves, according to the local environmental authority.
"The absence of the coconut palms detracts a little from our postcard picture, but there is still the sand and the warm sea," commented tourists Liliane and Gary on the authorities' plans. On the beach in front of their hotel, numerous palm trees have already been affected by a devastating disease that causes the plants to turn yellow. 50 trees had to be felled.
Coconut palms have also been decimated in other countries by the highly contagious disease transmitted by small insects, for example on the Caribbean island of Jamaica in the 1980s.
