Far From Home: Antigua and Barbuda's unique century-old land ownership system under threat

In many ways, Barbuda is a lot like many other Caribbean islands.

It has beautiful pink sand beaches, pastel colored homes, and tropical fruits I’d never heard of before I before I went. There are about 1500 residents, and goats and sheep everywhere — probably more animals than people. It’s the kind of island where wild donkeys just walk into your home, and no one wants lobster anymore, cause they eat it three times a day.

But there’s also something really unique about this place. Since the 1800s, Barbuda has always been an island where no one has deeds to their property. They just share the land communally and informally.

Then in 2017, Hurricane Irma severely damaged much of the island.

The government said it can’t afford to pay for the recovery, so nearly three years later, some people are still living in tents.

Now the Prime Minister has proposed changing how things work in Barbuda. He wants to sell residents the plots of land they’ve been living on for one Eastern Caribbean dollar and give them legally binding titles they can take to a bank, to help rebuild. He also wants to open up the rest of the island for tourism and development.

But after generations of living the way they’ve been living, a lot of people are opposed to the idea.

Last December, I teamed up with my colleague Sarah Gonzalez from NPR’s Planet Money podcast to travel to Antigua and Barbuda and tell the story of the island that no one owns (or everyone owns, depending on whom you ask). We learned way more about Antiguan constitutional law and land tenancy regulations than we ever imagined we would. But in the end, it turned out to be a pretty fascinating story.