Space Invaders - Banana Cultures - page 31

lion. 25 By 1921, the company operated fifty farms (about 18,600 hectares
of bananas) linked by more than 300 kilometers of railroad. That year, a
U.S. consular agent called the port of Tela ''the largest banana exporting
pointinHonduras,andoneofthelargestintheworld.'' 26 Bytheendofthe
decade, the Tela Railroad Company's main line extended 64 kilometers
along the eastern bank of the Ulúa. 27 Near El Progreso, land covered with
''heavytimberandwildcane''gavewaytothousandsof hectaresof banana
farms and pasture. 28 In addition, some 27,000 meters of drainage canals
had been dug and more than 13,000 meters of dikes erected to protect
the farms from seasonal flooding. In 1928, the El Progreso district alone
produced 8.5 million bunches of bananas. 29
When U.S. botanist Paul Standley visited the Tela region between
November 1927 and March 1928, he described a landscape that had been
radically reworked by banana production.
Practically all of the land within this area that is fit for the purpose is
covered with banana plants, which, however beautiful when standing
alone or in moderate quantities, become exceedingly monotonous
when massed in plantations many miles in extent. 30
He also observed several large pastures where cattle, horses, and mules
grazed on Guinea grass, and manyguamiles,abandoned farmlands giving
way to young forest species: ''Nearly everywhere along the whole line of
theTelaRailroad,exceptwhenpassingbymarshesorveryswampywoods,
oneseesnothingelsebutsecondgrowthandbananaplantations.'' 31 Stand-
ley contrasted the rich biological diversity found on the sloping lands of
Lancetilla, United Fruit's experimental garden, with the radical reduction
in plant diversity in banana farms: ''where bananas are grown there is no
other vegetation of interest to the botanist.''
In the botanist's eyes, the most interesting plant communities were
found precisely where export bananas were not growing:
Between banana plantations however are large areas unsuited for
their cultivation. These consist, near the coast, of wide marshes and
of densely wooded swamps which cannot, or at least have not, been
drained. The most spectacular of these unused areas is the great Toloa
Swamp that is crossed by the railroad as it approaches the Ulúa River
from Tela. It is like many other swamps or marshes in Central America,
a shallow lake with an abundance of aquatic plants, and such a
profusion of water birds as one sees only in the tropics. 32