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Mechanical reaping of the sugar cane. Photo by Erasmus Williams. |
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, JUNE 10TH 2005 A Land Management Unit will likely take over the responsibility of some of the environmental protection functions currently being carried out by St. Kitts Sugar Manufacturing Corporation (SSMC) when it is closed.
This was disclosed by Agricultural Manager at the SSMC, Mr. Conrad Kelly, who has been providing information to the general public at island-wide town hall meetings and other wide-ranging discussions on the significant issues getting the attention of the SSMC Transition Management Team.
He noted that the sugar industry has long been the custodian and manager of lands under sugarcane cultivation, lands in the foothills and ghaut sides, as well as the maintenance of hundreds of miles of feeder roads or cane field roads, 35 miles of railway track, 23 bridges and over 200 open drains and culverts.
It is estimated that SSMC spends about EC$6 million per year on these land management activities. Furthermore, the SSMC not only maintains sugar cane feeder roads, but also plays a strong role in the maintenance of access roads to small farmers plots, particularly in the upper lands outside the cane area.
According to Mr. Kelly, there are several critical land management roles and techniques performed by SSMC.
These include soil conservation - maintaining vegetation cover to protect and prevent topsoil loss, contouring, strip cropping and terracing; drainage structures-construction and maintenance of sluices, cross drains, culverts, grass water ways thereby limiting flows of water that would destroy roads and threaten land settlement areas; feeder road maintenance to keep roads passable and to avoid roads becoming deep gullies and ghaut stabilisation including the construction and maintenance of gabion structures and embankments, he pointed out.
Mr. Kelly said the SSMC also control fires to avoid destruction of crops, other vegetation and adjacent properties; moisture conservation-maintaining crop cover, minimise run off and allow recharging of aquifer
He said the proposed Land Management Unit will take over the responsibility of some of the environmental protection functions currently carried out by the SSMC.
These would include soil conservation, road maintenance, maintenance and repairs to drainage structures and possibly a response team to cater for wild fires. There are other interim land management functions that are likely to be required following the closure of SSMC. These may include a strategy for maintaining sugar cane on the landscape while protecting against fire and livestock damage as this may deliver the greatest environmental benefit at the lowest maintenance cost, said Mr. Kelly, who cited two advantages from a study carried out by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
The FAO submits the importance of maintaining of the surface cover to protect the best agricultural areas of St. Kitts from soil erosion and facilitate the infiltration of intercepted rainfall for generations. For instance, observations around the island reveal that even on gentle slopes of around 5%, the critical combination of the removal of sugar cane cover, the encroachment of livestock and high intensity rainfall events, can rapidly lead to major gully erosion in areas that were previously considered stable.
Providing a temporary barrier to livestock. Dense, mature sugar cane acts as an effective barrier to livestock movement. Controlling access to the sugar fields particular to livestock is an important issue as it is well known that where livestock, especially small ruminants gain access to harvested cane fields, they graze off and kill the new sugar cane growth and remove the trash cover.
Under these circumstances, the quality of grazing declines rapidly and typically, grasses are replaced by unpalatable shrubby species, and the bare ground surface is exposed.
Such undesirable consequences will lead to a reduction in the infiltration of water, runoff increases, and consequently soil erosion and land degradation rapidly occur.
Mr. Kelly stressed that it will be the LMUs responsibility to manage these transitional land management issues.
