125 hectares

125 hectares is the area of land that has been illegally occupied since 1983 by a farmers’ collective in Morne-Rouge, in northern Martinique. Véronique Montjean, a founding member of the collective, recounts the history of the occupation, which began as a response to real estate development projects that would have reduced the island’s arable land. The collective promotes subsistence farming based on biodiversity through the rotation of local crops, opposing the banana monoculture imposed by France, which has led to the pollution of soil and rivers due to the use of carcinogenic insecticides.