Haiti Becomes a Caribbean Desert

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

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12/19/98

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

Anyone that questions the need for forest conservation should take a

trip to Haiti. It is clear that forest ecosystem functionality can

not be taken for granted, and that forests largely drive the

environment that we depend upon for life.

g.b.

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Title: Feature-As Trees Go, Haiti Becomes a Caribbean Desert

Source: Reuters

Date: December 15, 1998

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Once or twice a month, Maryse

Charistile takes the bus to Haiti's western coast and brings back 20

to 30 large sacks of charcoal-- a load many times larger than she is--

by ferry boat.

Despite her efforts and a steady supply of the fuel-- the product of

constant tree-cutting that has left her homeland with only about 1.5

percent of its original forest cover-- Charistile, 27, said her

business is not good.

"Sometimes I can spend a week not selling at all," she said in the

market outside the Caribbean nation's capital where she sells

charcoal, her face and arms marked with smudges. "You buy but it

doesn't always sell."

Environmental experts say Haiti has the worst case of deforestation in

the Western Hemisphere because of charcoal's place as the primary

fuel. The United Nations estimates that 70 percent of the population

uses charcoal for cooking.

The use of charcoal has been an environmental catastrophe. Haiti has

been losing forests for decades but the rate at which woodlands have

been logged out, burned and turned into farmland or scrub has risen in

the 1990s. Now Haiti's forests are disappearing at a rate of 15 to 20

million trees a year, slowly turning the once-lush country into the

region's first desert.

'PARTS OF HAITI WILL NOT COME BACK'

"In general, I think we are getting close to the dropoff point where

parts of the country will not be able to come back," said Paul

Paryski, an environmental specialist for the U.N. Development Program

who contributed to a recently released U.N. report on Haiti's

environment.

Charistile and other charcoal sellers say they are aware that

deforestation is a problem but said they have no other way to feed

their families. Haiti is the hemisphere's poorest nation with a per

capita income of about $260.

"We have to make a living somehow. The children are crying in our arms

and we don't have anything to feed them. It's just a little charcoal

to sell, to get a little money to feed our children," the single

mother of three said.

Every rainfall in Haiti now sends chunks of mountain down onto roads

and into the sea. Hurricane Georges, which passed over the island in

late September, did even worse damage. The entire village of Fond

Verrettes, southeast of Port-au-Prince, was washed away in flooding

that took 102 lives as Georges went through, nearly half of at least

229 lives lost nationwide.

Mapou, a valley village in the southeast, is still flooded more than

two months after the hurricane. After Tropical Storm Gordon ravaged

Haiti in 1994, it took 13 months for the water to drain out of Mapou,

which has no canal or drainage system.

"The environment has continued to be degraded," Paryski said. "Some

areas are so degraded that they will never be what they once were."

EROSION CLAIMS TONS OF TOPSOIL A YEAR

The United Nations says erosion claims an estimated 36 million tons of

Haiti's topsoil each year. Areas around Gonaives in the department of

Artibonite and parts of Haiti's northwest are the most badly

deforested, with dry, brown desert-like mountains.

Political in-fighting and the government crisis that has left Haiti

without a prime minister for 18 months have aggravated the already

disastrous environmental situation. The environment ministry, created

in 1995, has no official minister or law to determine its functions

and it receives only 0.25 percent of the national budget, according to

the report.

"It's virtually dysfunctional," Paryski said. International donors are

eager to work with the government to salvage what remains of the

environment, he said. "But without a government that is motivated and

willing to take action the donors are merely plugging holes in a dam

that one day will break."

Some environmentalists point to the example of the Dominican Republic,

which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The Dominican

government has outlawed the use of charcoal for cooking and subsidizes

gas for stoves.

Agronomist Dimitri Norris, who works in Haiti's environment ministry,

said the government will take aggressive steps to protect the

environment and has just completed a National Environmental Action

Plan outlining problems and solutions.

"I think this plan is a significant accomplishment. Now there is a

plan of action for the government and donors regarding rehabilitation

and protection of the environment," Norris said.

Local groups and government projects have undertaken scattered tree-

planting campaigns. But random planting will not solve Haiti's

problems, environmental experts say.

"We see there are no trees so we plant trees, but we are not attacking

the roots of the problem here," said Aldrin Calixte, who works with a

local environmental group.

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