DESHAIES, France (AFP) — The Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, famous for its tropical beaches, plans to remove some of its iconic coconut palms to stem coastal erosion and eradicate a contagious tree disease.

Despite their association with the West Indies, the coconut palm is not native to the French archipelago and does not have the same capacity as some local species to put down deep roots.

Even tall palms have a tiny root system that spreads less than one square metre (11 square feet) from the base of the trunk.

So they cannot fix the sand in place to stop it washing away in powerful waves, according to the island’s environment department.

At the picture-postcard beach of La Perle, the authorities have a two-year plan to take out some of the palms that fringe the turquoise waters and replace them with native species with roots that will better stem the erosion.

Native species may also be more resilient to a disease ravaging the exotic coconut palm.

“Not having coconut palms detracts a bit from the postcard image we have but there’s still the sand and the warm sea,” said Liliane and Gary, a couple of retirees spending their Christmas holidays on Guadeloupe.

The beach in front of their hotel is also affected by another palm problem
— a devastating, yellowing disease that has already led to the emergency felling of around 50 trees.

“The disease is spread by a tiny insect that looks like a cicada,” said Fabian Pilet of the Tropical Agronomy Research Centre.

“It’s curtains for the palm the minute the first symptoms appear.”

Coconut palms in other countries have also been decimated by the highly contagious disease, including the Caribbean island of Jamaica in the 1980s.