July 20, 2003 - Friends of the East Caribbean: Montserrat is the smallest island country in the Peace Corps / Eastern Caribbean region, with an area of only 39.5 square miles.

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Montserrat: The Peace Corps in Montserrat: July 20, 2003 - Friends of the East Caribbean: Montserrat is the smallest island country in the Peace Corps / Eastern Caribbean region, with an area of only 39.5 square miles.

By Admin1 (admin) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 9:55 am: Edit Post

Montserrat is the smallest island country in the Peace Corps / Eastern Caribbean region, with an area of only 39.5 square miles.



Montserrat is the smallest island country in the Peace Corps / Eastern Caribbean region, with an area of only 39.5 square miles.

Montserrat is the smallest island country in the Peace Corps / Eastern Caribbean region, with an area of only 39.5 square miles. Plymouth is the capital and only port.

Montserrat lies 27 miles southwest of Antigua in the Leeward Islands and is eleven miles long and seven miles wide. It is of volcanic formation, rugged and mountainous. There are three main mountain ridges, the summits of which forested. The highest point is Chances Mountain, rising 3,000 feet in the southern hills above the still-active volcano Soufriere. There are numerous streams and waterfalls, a waterfall, “Great Alps”, of considerable drop.

The climate is tropical with sunshine throughout the year. There is little variation in temperature, the mean maximum being 86 degrees with the mean minimum 73 degrees. Annual rainfall is about 60 inches, with the greater part occurring in September to November, but there is no clearly defined rainy season.

Discovered by Columbus in 1493, Montserrat was named after a famous mountain in Spain on which is situated the monastery where Ignatius Loyola conceived the project of founding the Society of Jesus. Montserrat was first colonized by the British in 1632. It passed into the hands of the French in 1666 for some months and again in 1782, but it was finally restored in 1783 to the British, in whose hands it has since remained.

Montserrat joined the Federation of the West Indies as an independent member of its formation in 1958 and remained a member until its dissolution in 1962.

There was little in the way of alternative employment to agriculture until, a few years ago, the island was “discovered” by resort developers at more or less the same time as emphasis on development swung towards tourism as a source of revenue. The construction and service industries associated with tourism are potential growth areas as sources of employment, and provide Montserrat its greatest promise for the future.

Because of its size, however, and its heavy agriculture base, Montserrat’s tourist trade is still a “mini-industry”.

Montserrat is no longer a sugar island, the emphasis being on cotton and vegetables. Such crops as onions, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, limes, with varying amounts of hot peppers, mangoes, bananas, shallots, pumpkins, black-eye peas, peanuts, cabbage and maize are being raised. The use of mechanical tillage on estates and peasant-cultivated lands has increased, and there is a growing demand for tractors. However, the mountainous terrain places a limit on the degree of mechanization possible, and also limits the possibility of large-scale farming or of extending cultivated land.

Approximately one-fifth of the island’s total land area is covered with forests. Three thousand acres are devoted to pastures which support goats, cattle, pigs and sheep.

The Department of Agriculture operates one cotton ginnery. The Montserrat Company operates a lime juice factory and an oil expeller for dealing with surplus cottonseed. There are also two small furniture factories and a tire-recapping factory.

At present such goods as flour, sugar, lumber, shoes, furniture, cement, electrical equipment, soap, medicine, cigarettes, wine, gasoline, and tires must be imported, with imports greatly exceeding exports in dollar value, by about 30 to one. Most of the revenue producing exports are sold in the West Indies and the United Kingdom and included tomatoes, and other vegetables, bananas, limes and lime juice.

A Development Incentives Ordinance was introduced in 1964 with a view to encouraging the establishment of light industry.

Private education is provided in 12 government schools and four private schools. Plans are in hand for the reorganization of the school system by construction of junior secondary schools to cater more adequately for the needs of pupils between the ages of 12 and 15 who cannot be accommodated in the secondary school. The junior secondary school became operational in 1972. Secondary education is provided in Montserrat Secondary School (about 275 pupils), maintained at government expense. A technical College offering a variety of trades at craft level was opened in 1972, to cater to the vocational training needs of the island’s young adults.

The country’s greatest education needs are for teacher training to upgrade the quality of instruction in the classroom, for curriculum development in new areas such as industrial arts and junior secondary sciences, and for technical and trades training instruction to enable participants to achieve a variety of practical skills.



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Story Source: Friends of the East Caribbean

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Montserrat

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