Me island have mighty fine jungle' : contentions over the cloud forest of Montserrat

A place, or space, is often required to fulfill more than one role for a community. Often, a community's desired uses of a space conflict with one another.This creates the dilemma of wishing to protect one aspect of a place while wanting to benefit from the exploitation of other aspects. Montserrat, an island in the BritishWest Indies, was such a community. Montserrat's Chances Peak was covered with cloud forest, an ecosystem that very likely played a significant role in supplying groundwater to the island. The site was also the most suitable location on the island for telecommunications facilities and media transmitting stations. Furthermore,because of its unique beauty, the cloud forest was also a potential ecotourism site.important to the island in terms of economic development. Each of these uses of the cloud forest was critical to certain segments within Montserrat’s society. However,the latter two uses threatened the ecological integrity of the cloud forest and possibly Montserrat's supply of fresh water. Here I have studied both the physical and social roles of Montserrat's cloud forest. I examined the hydrological aspects of the cloud forest, as it was in 1994, in order to assess its water procurement role.Then I placed the results of my investigation in the context of the community’s social and economic needs. This case study, which uses a multi-method strategy of research is presented as an example of a holistic approach to resource management practices.VIone that combines the physical and social sciences, in order to best serve the public interest.