15976: Brown: Deforestation in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Hunt Brown <hunt.brown@wright.edu>

I recently made a short trip to Haiti where I was taking an initial look
at environmental issues for inclusion in a new environmental course I
will be teaching this fall in the U.S. In this e-mail inquiry, I would
like to address only one issue.

As far as I can tell, deforestation is very high on everyones list of
Haitis environmental problems. I personally saw no heavily forested
hillsides, at least close up (though I am unsure about distant views
from LaHatte, located a little east of Montrouis). However, my visit was
largely confined to Chaines des Matheux foothills along Rt. 1 between
Port-au-Prince and Pont Sonde, and then along Rt. 109 in the Artibonite
Valley as far as La Chapelle. It seemed that I was looking at unforested
hillsides that at one time might have been, according to one
terminology, subtropical dry forest. However, perhaps I was instead in
semi-arid areas that were never heavily forested. Does anyone
know/recall whether the Chaines des Matheux foothills were ever heavily
forested?

Second, in trying to explain the very different extent of forest cover
said to occur on the Haiti and Dominican Republic sides of Hispaniola, I
am confused. On the one hand, I generally hear that the Haitians
themselves deforested their part of the island. On the other hand, I was
told by one source that Baby Doc Duvalier sold timber rights to the
Japanese who then stripped the country of its timber. That would be an
easy explanation but I have seen no written documentation that it
occurred. In any case, the stark difference in forest on the opposite
sides of the Haiti-Dominican border argues for some condition or other
being dramatically different between the two countries.

Does anyone know if the Duvaliers sold logging rights in Haiti to the
Japanese (or anyone else) and if so whether that was a major contributor
to the difference in forest cover between Haiti and the Dominican
Republic? Or, is the difference merely due to the greater pressure of a
more densely populated and economically strapped Haitian population that
caused them to make higher demands on their forests that did their
neighbors? Or is the difference due to other factors?

Thanks for any thoughts.

Hunt


-- 
Huntting W. Brown, Associate Director
Institute for Environmental Quality
Wright State University
3640 Col. Glenn Hwy.
Dayton, OH 45435
Phone:	937/775-2201
Fax:	937/775-4997