Discuss how social and economic inequality in Haiti has contributed to a cycle of environmental degradation and poverty.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

By the mid-20th century, a destructive cycle of environmental and economic impoverishment was established that still confronts Haiti. While Haiti was under the rule of corrupt dictators from 1957 to 1986, Haiti's elite benefited as the conditions for the country's poor worsened. Half of Haiti's people are peasants who work small hillside plots and seasonally labor on large estates. As the population grew, people sought more land. They cleared the remaining hillsides, subdivided their plots into smaller units, and abandoned the practice of fallowing land in an effort to eke out an annual subsistence. When the heavy tropical rains came, the exposed and easily eroded mountain soils washed away. As sediment collected in downstream irrigation ditches and behind dams, agriculture suffered, electricity production declined, and water supplies were degraded throughout the country. Deforestation was further aggravated by the dependence of the population on wood for fuel. Because of their poverty and limited electricity supplies, most Haitians use charcoal (made from trees to cook meals and heat water. By the late 1990s,only an estimated 3 percent of Haiti remained forested. Ongoing political turmoil hampers reforestation programs, and the effects of forest removal have only worsened. In less than a lifetime, hills that were once covered in forest now support shrubs and grasses.