14877: EWEN: Re: 14855: Christophe: Re: 14824: LeGrace Benson: deforestation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stephen Ewen <sewe0171@fau.edu>


Pinpointing out one particular era of Haitian history as most devastating
to its environment has been a bit difficult for me (was anybody keeping
statistics on these things?--none that I can find), though I think most
agree the indemnity to France and the new Constitution the U.S. coerced
and connived on the country during the U.S. Occupation were the main
causal factors that set it all into motion.  As far as getting a view of
the deforestation from various times gone by, consider the words of
Frederick Douglass, the appointed U.S. ambassador to Haiti.  In 1893, he
returned from an extended visit to the island.  That same year, Douglass
sought to portray the Haitian landscape to an assembled U.S. audience.  He
proclaimed,

"Haiti is a rich country [.]  In its typography it is wonderfully
beautiful, grand and impressive.  Clothed in its blue and balmy atmosphere
it rises from the surrounding sea in surpassing splendor [.]  It is a land
strikingly beautiful, diversified by mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers and
plains, and contains in itself all the elements of great and enduring
wealth.  Its limestone formation and foundation are a guarantee of
perpetual fertility.  Its tropical heat and insular moisture keep its
vegetation fresh, green and vigorous all the year round.  At an altitude
of eight thousand feet, its mountains are still covered with woods of
great variety and of great value. [Frederick Douglass, "Lecture on Haiti:
The Haitian Pavilion Dedication Ceremonies Delivered at the World's Fair,
in Jackson Park, Chicago, Jan. 2, 1893,"
<http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/murray:@field(FLD001+02012340
+):@@@$REF$> (23 March 2002)]

Contrast this with one Haitian's current, yet memory-filled description of
the island.

"In some instances, the soil has eroded to bedrock.  Haiti is turning into
desert as her remaining topsoil is eroded into the sea. Her rivers and
streams are drying up except during periods of rainfall, which themselves
have diminished due to the lack of forest cover.  The trees on the top
levels of Haiti's mountains used to 'milk the atmosphere' for moisture.
That is to say, water would condense on the leaves at the higher
elevations and provide a constant flow of moisture to the forests at the
lower levels of the mountains, as well as feed the streams of Haiti with a
year-round water flow.  All of this has ceased."

What is ironic to me is that so many of the voices who would "look after"
Haiti's development advocate for the peasantry to abandon agriculture and
animal husbandry.  And externally imposed measures have been taken to
force population shifts in these regards (e.g. PEPPADEP, U.S. Rice imports
affecting the Artibonite).  But it seems to me that both endogenously and
appropriately improved measures among these very sectors could hold the
very solutions to Haiti's environment.

Stephen Ewen