The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Acklins Island and Crooked Island are two islands which are part of a group of four islands in The Bahamas, Fortune Island (now known as Long Cay, Crooked Island, Castle Island, and Acklins Island) covering 100 miles, 240 miles southeast of Nassau. Columbus is alleged to have come to the area searching for a place the aborigine Lucayans called Samoete, where gold was rumored to be available in large quantities, but the only "treasure" he found was sensory, the jasmine-like fragrance in the air of the Cascarilla plants. Cascarilla bark is used to flavor Campari liquor as well as the native Cascarilla Liqueur.

The islands existed in virtual obscurity until 1783, when American Loyalists began to settle here. These former plantation owners brought slaves and money to start a short-lived cotton industry which, by the beginning of the 19th Century, had more than 40 plantations employing 1200 slaves, but as the blight in the 1820s destroyed most of the plantations, the islands soon became uneconomical. 

As for social gains, within the agricultural sector, the harvesting and exporting of cascarilla bark is a traditional practice in Acklins. Despite this, it remains an unorganized and peripheral activity; essentially, harvested from the wild by low or no wage earners as a means to supplement whatever income they already have. It is laborious and lacks management as seen in the fact that no commercial cultivation exists. The concentrated effort outlined here will offer consistent opportunities for persons needing employment, as well as financial security for the present and for the future. 

Presently work is being done on the 105 acres of land with emphasis on the 5 acres where young cascarilla plants are being planted to sustain the industry. Additionally, we are seeking funding to erect a processing plant with a distillation machine to be used in the processing of the cascarilla essential oil.

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