In May over 2,000 people died along the Haitian-Dominican border because of flooding from a tropical storm. What can be done to make Haiti less vulnerable to these repeated catastrophes?
Haiti’s environmental catastrophe is rooted in a complicated social, political, and economic reality. Desperate farmers will cut down their trees to make a quick cash crop of charcoal which is the primary source of cooking fuel in Haiti’s cities. The loss of tree cover quickly leads to the loss of soil and even lower yields at harvest time. Destitute farmers then stream to the city looking for any kind of work. The demand for charcoal increases, raising its price, making it even more tempting for poor farmers to cut down their trees to make more charcoal. Forces outside Haiti are also at work. The U.S. government, for example, has pushed Haiti to open its market up to cheap food imports. This food is often heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, meaning that prices are often artificially low. While initially good for Haitian consumers, the cheap food makes it virtually impossible for Haitian farmers to compete and stay in business. Haiti’s capacity to feed itself has declined rapidly, as
