Haiti On Track To Lose 100% Of Its Primary Forest Cover By 2035, Mass Extinction Under Way

[hatrack]

A deforested mountain in the Haitian Chaîne de Matheux. Image courtesy of S. Blair Hedges

New findings indicate that at current deforestation rates, all of Haiti’s primary forest will be gone within the next two decades, leading to the loss of most of the country’s endemic species. The study was authored by researchers at Temple University, Oregon State University, the U.S. Forest Service and Société Audubon Haiti, a non-profit conservation organization based in Haiti. Its results were published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

By analyzing aerial photography and satellite images, researchers discovered that primary forest cover in Haiti shrank from 4.4 percent in 1988 to just 0.32 percent in 2016. They report that 42 of Haiti’s 50 largest mountains have lost all of their primary forests and the country is already undergoing a mass extinction of its wildlife due to habitat loss.

EDIT

Hedges says that Haiti’s deforestation is largely driven by small-scale farming and charcoal production, which involves harvesting wood and heating it to remove water and volatile compounds. Doing this turns wood into a source of fuel that can be burned without producing as much smoke. Around 11 million people live in Haiti, and many of them depend on wood charcoal for fuel and subsistence farming for food. As the lowlands lost their trees, people began deforesting higher and higher into the mountains.

The researchers witnessed this first-hand while conducting their biodiversity surveys, even encountering locals at study sites they had to use a helicopter to reach. “I did a lot of hiking and we would run into Haitians at the most remote places in the country,” Hedges said. Even protected areas aren’t immune from deforestation. Hedges recalled meeting a ranger a few years ago in Pic Macaya National Park – one of the last remaining sites of primary forest in Haiti. “He told us that there were only 20 of them [rangers] but at any given time there are at least 200 teams of tree cutters all throughout the park – it’s a really big area – and they all have weapons, yet the rangers don’t have any weapons.”


Haitian primary forest being cut and burned. Image courtesy of Eladio Fernandez



EDIT

https://news.mongabay.com/2018/11/haiti-may-lose-all-primary-forest-by-2035-mass-extinction-underway/

[BlueWI]

1. What an unfortunate development.

Thanks for increasing the awareness.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Rapa Nui (Easter Island) repeat.

[secondwind]

3. In 2011, I flew from Dominican Republic to Haiti, for a three-day

mini vacation with some ladies. When we cleared the border, it was a staggering difference. Lush and green mountains etc on one side, and sand-colored devastation on the other. Truly staggering.