Land, Memory, & Resistance: What St. Vincent & the Grenadines (SVG) can teach the Black diaspora about Environmental Stewardship.
By
Andy (Kwaku) Kusi-Appiah
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“For Black communities, environmental stewardship has never been
optional or abstract; it has been a practice of survival, a defense of
dignity, and a memory carried in the land itself.”
Andy Kusi-Appiah
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Abstract:
This article examines community resilience and environmental stewardship through the historical and contemporary experiences of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). Drawing on Garifuna and Afro-descendant histories of resistance, it argues that SVG offers globally relevant lessons on community-led environmental governance, cultural survival, and ecological ethics. Grounded in Caribbean historiography, political ecology, and Afro-Indigenous environmental thought, this article places Vincentian experiences in dialogue with contemporary Black community initiatives in the Canadian diaspora, including Ottawa. Using a qualitative, interpretive methodology that combines historical and textual analysis, the article centers community knowledge and treats history as a living archive.
Keywords: environmental stewardship; Black diaspora; community resilience; SVG; political ecology.
Introduction:
Environmental crises are frequently framed as technical or managerial problems, obscuring the historical and racialized processes that have shaped ecological vulnerability (Robbins, 2012). For Afro-Indigenous communities across the diaspora, environmental injustice is deeply intertwined with histories of enslavement, colonial extraction, land dispossession, and forced migration (Bullard, 2000; Taylor, 2014). At the same time, these histories have generated enduring traditions of resistance, adaptation, and environmental care rooted in community knowledge and collective survival. We foreground Afro-Indigenous epistemologies that remain marginal within dominant environmental discourse. It asks what lessons contemporary Black communities might draw from Caribbean histories of ecological survival and resistance, particularly in an era of climate instability and urban precarity.
Why St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG)?:
SVG hold a distinctive place in Caribbean history due to sustained Garifuna resistance to European colonization, where eighteenth-century Carib wars centered on land, autonomy, and ecological survival rather than solely military conflict (Gonzalez, 1988; Hulme, 2000). SVG’s history demonstrates that environmental stewardship is inseparable from sovereignty, as land and waters were defended as foundations of cultural continuity and collective life. This challenges extractive plantation-based development models that transformed Caribbean ecologies through monocropping and forced labor, offering a community-centered counter-narrative to colonial modernity (Watts, 1987; Beckles, 2013).
Philosophical Foundations:
The article is grounded in relational philosophies common to Afro-Indigenous knowledge systems, emphasizing interdependence among humans, non-human beings, ancestors, and future generations (Kombo, 2007; Simpson, 2017). In SVG, this worldview is reflected in communal land use, subsistence practices, and collective responses to environmental and economic crises. These ethics contrast with colonial-capitalist paradigms of extraction and individual ownership, framing stewardship as a shared moral responsibility rooted in reciprocity and care (Sultana, 2023; Kusi-Appiah,& Mkandawire, 2025) and aligning with Afro-Indigenous environmental thought that links ecological struggle to racial justice and community survival (Kombo, 2007; Finney, 2014; Taylor, 2014). Caribbean historiography documents how colonial plantation economies reshaped island ecologies, producing lasting environmental and social harm (Watts, 1987; Beckles, 2013).
Political ecology offers a framework for analyzing how power, race, and colonial legacies shape environmental outcomes (Robbins, 2012; Kusi-Appiah & Mkandawire, 2025), while Afro/Indigenous environmental scholarship centers Black relationships to land and survival in diasporic contexts affected by environmental racism (Bullard, 2000; Finney, 2014; Taylor, 2014). The work of Simmonds and Simmonds (2023) further underscores community-led stewardship and cultural memory as practices of resistance shaped by histories of displacement and struggle. Within this context, Garifuna resistance in SVG is understood as both political and ecological, centered on land defense and autonomy (Gonzalez, 1988; Hulme, 2000).
Findings:
The findings show that in SVG, resistance to colonialism was inseparable from land defense and ecological stewardship, which emerged through collective practices and cultural memory rather than imposed governance (Gonzalez, 1988; Hulme, 2000; Kombo, 2007). These dynamics persist in diasporic contexts, where Black-led environmental initiatives frame food sovereignty, land-based education, mutual aid, and climate resilience as survival strategies (Bullard, 2000; Finney, 2014). The analysis highlights the political nature of environmental stewardship in Black communities and reveals forms of knowledge often excluded from technocratic policy frameworks (Robbins, 2012). Supporting literature also affirms that relational philosophies and community governance foster resilience under marginalization, as demonstrated by SVG despite displacement and environmental hardship (Simpson, 2017; Taylor, 2014).
Conclusion:
Environmental stewardship has long been a Black survival practice grounded in land defense, memory, and collective responsibility. From Garifuna resistance to present-day community initiatives, stewardship is relational rather than optional. For Black diasporic communities, including those in urban centers like Ottawa, this history underscores the importance of community-led, justice-oriented environmental work that centers ancestral knowledge and self-determination. Amid escalating climate and social crises, the Vincentian experience affirms that resilience lies in sustaining life, culture, and relationships to land across generations.
Works cited:
Beckles, H. (2013). Britain’s black debt: Reparations for Caribbean slavery and native genocide. University of the West Indies Press.
Bullard, R. D. (2000). Dumping in Dixie: Race, class, and environmental quality (3rd ed.). Westview Press.
Finney, C. (2014). Black faces, white spaces: Reimagining the relationship of African Americans to the great outdoors. University of North Carolina Press.
Gonzalez, N. L. (1988). Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and ethnohistory of the Garifuna. University of Illinois Press.
Hulme, P. (2000). Remnants of conquest: The island Caribs and their visitors, 1877-1998. Oxford University Press.
Kusi-Appiah, A. & Mkandawire, P. (2025). Social Relations of Water Access among the Poor in Urban Malawi. Water Alternatives, vol. 18, no. 2, 2025, pp. 461–76.
Kombo, J. (2007). “Chapter Eight. The Notion of God Among the African Peoples: The accounts of B. Idowu, J.S. Mbiti, And G.M. Setiloane.” The Doctrine of God in African Christian Thought, vol. 14, 2007, pp. 163–96, https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004158047.i-298.57.
Robbins, P. (2012). Political ecology: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
Simmons, A. & Simmons, A-A. (2023). “The Caribbean Perspective: Building the Capacity of National Institutions as a Strategy for Enhancing the Resilience of People and Communities to the Impact of Climate Change in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.” Building Institutions for Resilience, Springer International Publishing, 2023, pp. 43–75, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28881-4_3.
Sultana, F. (2023). “Whose Growth in Whose Planetary Boundaries? Decolonizing Planetary Justice in the Anthropocene.” GEO: Geography and Environment [London], vol. 10, no. 2, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1002/geo2.128.
Taylor, D. E. (2014). Toxic communities: Environmental racism, industrial pollution, and residential mobility. New York University Press.
Watts, D. (1987). The West Indies: Patterns of development, culture, and environmental change since 1492. Cambridge University Press.
About the Author
Andy (Kwaku) Kusi-Appiah is a community leader, political ecologist, researcher, lecturer/educator based in Ottawa. A former president of the Ghana Association of Ottawa (Andy served as president for two terms), he is deeply committed to serving his community, mentoring young leaders and fostering dialogue among African and Caribbean diasporas in Canada. His work explores leadership, sustainability, and community renewal.