This episode explores Barbuda’s remarkable communal land system, tracing its roots from colonial exploitation and emancipation battles to the Barbuda Land Act that protects collective ownership today.
We also look at how this unfenced island model supports resilience, democratic control over development, and community survival in the face of disaster and outside pressure.
This episode examines how Hurricane Irma was used to push forced evacuations, rewrite land laws, and clear the way for a private runway and luxury development on Barbuda. It also highlights the islanders’ resistance, from communal land stewardship to their fight against greenwashed displacement and environmental destruction.
We trace how Barbudans fed themselves and rebuilt after Hurricane Irma using a longstanding system of communal land and subsistence called the counter-plantation. The episode also examines disaster capitalism, luxury resort development, and the fight to defend collective ownership from privatization.
