A Summary of 20 Years of Forest Monitoring in Cinnamon Bay Watershed, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

St. John, and probably the Cinnamon Bay watershed, has a history of human use dating to 1700 B.C. The most notable impacts, however, occurred from 1730 to 1780 when sugar cane and cotton production peaked on the island. As agriculture was abandoned, the island regenerated in secondary forest, and in 1956, the Virgin Islands National Park was created. From 1983 to 2003, the staff of the International Institute of Tropical Forestry monitored 16 plots, stratified by elevation and topography, in the Cinnamon Bay watershed. The period included Hurricanes Hugo in 1989 and Marilyn in 1995 and a severe drought in 1994-95. In all years, plot tallies showed that from 55 to 60 percent of the stems were in height classes between 4 and 8 m, and 75 percent of the stems were in diameter at breast height (1.4 m above the ground; d.b.h.) classes between 4 and 10 cm. Stem density was greatest on the summit, followed by ridges, then slopes, and lowest in valleys.