ABSTRACT
The Commonwealth of Dominica, the nature island of the Caribbean, is situated 15 25 N, 61 20 W of the equator, with a land area of 750sq km, 47km long, and 26km wide. Its coastline is 148km. The most mountainous of the Lesser Antilles, it experiences heavy rainfall. Dominica’s diverse physical habitats include nine active volcanoes, dense rainforest, hundreds of rivers, woodland and varied fauna and flora. There are natural resources of timber, hydropower and arable lands (CIA, 2016). The island has a sub-tropical climate and is prone to natural disasters having experienced earth tremors, volcanic eruptions, mudslides, floods, cyclones and ravages of hurricanes like Hurricane David in 1979 and Hurricane Maria in September 2017. The country’s population is 73,757 (CIA, 2016); 29 percent live below the poverty line; and 23 percent were unemployed in 2000 (CIA, 2016). A small population of indigenous people – the Kalinago, whose descendants predate European colonisation – live in their own territory on the northeast coast and are virtually the only survivors of the region’s first peoples (Crask, 2016).
