how Haiti lost Its trees

A few times in the past couple of weeks, when I've been talking about Haiti, people have asked me how did the country become so poor? Haiti is known for it's poverty, with over 80% of the population living below the poverty line making the equivalent of about $2/day.

So, I thought I would do a series of blogs investigating some of the history. The first of which is looking at the deforestation - which has been almost total; Haiti is one of the most deforested countries in the world. Why? They routinely cut down trees for fuel (to burn 'raw' or to make charcoal) because it is the most accessible source of fuel. Below is taken from the article Haiti's Dilema, in the CQ Researcher (Feb 18, 2005, www.thecqresearcher.com)

Haiti was once a lush, tropical paradise. Trinidad-born writer C.L. James wrote of Haiti: "A few feet about the cane stalks waves the five-foot leaves of the banana-trees.... Thousands of small, scrupulous tidy coffee trees rose on the slopes of the hills, an the abrupt and precipitous mountainsides were covered to the summits with the luxuriant tropical undergrowth and precious hardwood forests of San Domingo." Two hundred years later, that Haiti is but a memory. Today, one can stand on the Haitian border facing its eastern neighbor - the Dominican Republic - and see pine forests. Then turning and facing westward, one would see "nothing except fields almost devoid of trees," wrote University of California, Los Angeles, geographer Jared Diamond in his 2005 bestseller Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Below is an aerial image that shows the stark contrast along the border of Haiti and the DR.

The border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic highlights the relative deforestation of Haiti. CLICK HERE FOR LARGER IMAGE. Photograph courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

According to the World Bank, Haiti has lost about 97% of its trees. Without tree roots to anchor the soil, most of Haiti's topsoil has been washed away by the Caribbean's heavy rains and storms. And without trees to slow rushing flood waters, everything in their path is swept away.

In May 2004, floods killed 2,500 people, destroyed 1,700 houses and left up to 30,000 people homeless in Belle-Anse an Fonds-Verrettes, near Port-au-Prince. Then, in September, tropical storm Jeanne killed another 3,000 people, destroyed 4,628 houses and affected nearly 300,000 people in the north, including Gonaives, Haiti's third-largest city. In 2008, four hurricanes hit,--Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike--dumped heavy rains on the impoverished nation. The rugged hillsides, stripped bare of 98% of their forest cover thanks to deforestation, let flood waters rampage into large areas of the country. It was reported that 793 people were killed, with 310 missing and another 593 injured. The hurricanes destroyed 22,702 homes and damaged another 84,625. About 800,000 people were affected--8% of Haiti's total population. The flood wiped out 70% of Haiti's crops, resulting in dozens of deaths of children due to malnutrition in the months following the storms. Damage was estimated at over $1 billion, the costliest natural disaster until that time in Haitian history. The damage amounted to over 5% of the country's $17 billion GDP, a staggering blow for a nation so poor leaving

Once the rural areas are deforested and the soil cannot support crops, subsistence farmers head to the cities, mainly teeming Port-au-Prince, to seek new ways to survive. In 1982, 75% of the population lived in rural areas; by 2003, only 60% of the population was rural. In the cities, the newcomers contribute to overcrowding, health problems, violence, and delinquency.* I did a quick check and as of 2008, only 53% of the population was rural*

Haiti's few remaining trees are disappearing because peasants cut them down, mostly for charcoal - to burn or sell - or to clear space for growing food.

"The only way they can survive is to cut down what's left of the forest until every meter of land, whether on a slope or in a ravine, even in downtown Port-au-Prince, is cleared and planted with crops," says Paul Paryski, a veteran environmental official in Haiti for the U.S. Agency of International Development and the U.N. Development Program (UNDP). "I've seen people planing corn in a gravel road, or beans and potatoes using a rope to hold them so they won't fall down a slope."

The relationship between tree cutting and disaster is clearly understood in Haiti. "People are very aware that it's not a good way to go, but if it's a question of cutting a tree or sending your kid to school, that's an easy choice," says Pablo Ruiz, a senior adviser on Haiti to the UNDP Crisis Prevention and Recovery Bureau.

Experts say providing Haitians with propane and propane stoves would solve the problem. Indeed, propane is the cooking fuel of choice in the Dominican Republic, where forests still cover 28% of the country. A new venture in Haiti, Ecogaz, recently began buying propane in the Dominican Republic and reselling it in Haiti, along with inexpensive, cast-iron stoves.