How many more lives must we lose to realize the importance of planting trees?
Today we face an undeniable truth, the faith of our beloved country holding by a weak thread. A country once known as the pearl of the Antilles for its lush’s forest is now the desert of the Caribbean. How did we get there? With oil too expensive for the impoverished nation, charcoal from burnt trees has provided 85% or more of the energy in Haiti for decades. As a result, Haiti’s 8 million poor have relentlessly hunted and chopped down huge amounts of forest, leaving denuded mountain slopes that rainwater washes down unimpeded. Back in 1980, Haiti still had 25% of its forests, allowing the nation to withstand heavy rain events like 1987’s Category 3 Hurricane Emily, without loss of life. But as of 2004, only 1.4% of Haiti’s forests remained. Jeanne and Gordon were not even hurricanes–merely strong tropical storms–when they stuck Haiti, but the almost total lack of tree cover contributed to the devastating floods that killed thousands. And it doesn’t even take a tropical storm to dev
