Local and National Approaches to Nature Preservation: The US Virgin Islands National Park on St John and Beyond

National parks constitute powerful focal points in the building of national communities, both as concrete areas of land that offer a commons shared by members of a larger society, and as particular landscapes that symbolise certain cultural values and social relations. The commons, which is envisioned and cherished by members of a larger imagined national community may, however, be quite different from the commons that is used and experienced by members of a local community that has emerged and been sustained in close interaction with a particular natural environment. This paper discusses the uneasy relations between the generalised 'wilderness' commons of the American Virgin Islands National Park, and the local commons of marginal estate land, village resources and family land that have played a central role in the African-Caribbean community on St John through time. The analysis is based on historical and ethnographic research on the Virgin Island of St John, carried out from 1974 to 1996.