"The image below shows the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Haiti on the left the Dominican Republic on the right. 99% of Haiti's original forest is gone. Most of it cut to make charcoal to be used for cooking. Outside of the cities there is no other source of fuel to to cook with. Most villages have no running water or electricity and certainly no natural gas. Even if there was a source for bottled gas few could afford to buy it.
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The Bad News
Fewer than 100,000 acres of forest remain in Haiti, a country that was three-quarters tree-covered when European explorers first arrived 500 years ago.
Every year, the country's 9 million (and growing) inhabitants burn a quantity of wood and charcoal equal to 30 million trees.. That's 20 million more trees than Haiti grows yearly.
The primary cause of Haiti’s environmental degradation has been caused by Haitian’s need for energy. With an electricity sector that only covered 10% of Haiti’s population in 2006, chronic energy shortages have contributed to Haitian’s search for alternative sources of energy. Unfortunately for Haiti’s natural environment, wood became and continues to be the principal energy source in Haiti, accounting for 70 percent of energy consumption in 2006. This resulted in the steady deforestation of Haiti, with an estimated 6,000 hectares of soil lost each year to erosion. In Haiti's tropical climate with all its rain fall and being in what could be called hurricane ally, the deforestation has caused many major landslides...."
You can read the entire thing at the first link below. There is also a place to donate.
Links for more information:
Re-Tree Haiti homepage: http://web.nmsu.edu/~jfsavage/re_tree_haiti/
An article in the Guardian from 2008: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/nov/23/forests-flooding
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