Excerpt from Coast Erosion Protection Works: On the Case System in British Guiana

Sugar with its allied product of rum constitutes the most important industry of British Guiana. There are also considerable areas of rice and cocoanuts. In 1918 the total value of imports amounted to 249, a large part of which were from the United States, and the total value of exports was Practically the whole of the cultivated lands of British Guiana and all the chief towns and villages are situated on the front lands, which are flat and from 3 to 4 feet below the level of high tide. The reclamation of the coast lands of British Guiana was commenced by the Dutch about the year 1750 and afterwards continued under British rule. The maintenance of the sea embankments which protect the towns and cultivated lands of the Colony from inundation by the sea is therefore of primary importance to the Colony's existence. The upkeep of the sea dams was for many years left to the estate proprietors and as more land gradually came into cultivation, it was found that the flow of water from the artificial drainage channels soon caused erosion of the foreshore. In his comprehensive report on British Guiana made in 1919, the Hon. C. Clementi, Colonial Secretary, reviewing the history of the coast protection works of the Colony, states that the adjacent proprietors emulated each other in endeavoring to divert attacks of the sea from themselves to their neighbors. So grew up an irregular and unnatural coast line, in which each drainage outlet was a danger spot. Heavy expendi ture was incurred by estates' proprietors upon sea defence work of use less and often harmful design. Vertical sheet - piling and stone piled wave-screens only hastened erosion, while the true angle of groynes, their proper height above the foreshore and the importance of maintaining them in an impervious state was never understood.

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