News
Forêt des pins
valerie baeriswyl
Jun 7, 2019
located between 850 and 3000 meters above sea level, in the Massif de la Selle,
south-east of Port-au-Prince. It is the source of many drinking water points and
rivers that provides water to some of the country's largest cities, making it a
natural water tower. This coniferous forest provides an ecosystem essential for
soil conservation and water regulation. As the second most biodiverse region of
the country, the forest is home to with 5,000 species of plants. The forest appears
splendid...
However, the pine forest is threatened by human deforestation especially on the
Haitian side. The Haitian State has created a forest reserve in order to protect
this natural heritage and limit deforestation despite insufficient resources.
During the night, the farmers set the forest on fire to easily fell trees and gain
ground to grow carrots, lettuce or potatoes. Burnt land is also used for animal
husbandry, including pigs that plow the soil and eat pine seeds.
Depending on agriculture, the inhabitants of the area also toppled the pines to
make charcoal, firewood and furniture aiming to make a meager income.
The state of conservation of the pine forest has been made increasingly
vulnerable because of the devastation undertaken in the early 1960s on behalf of
a private company owned by the dignitaries of the regime of François Duvalier.
The trees of this forest were felled in favor of American companies manufacturing
resin oil for aeronautics.
From the 32,000 hectares of pine trees only 6,000 remain to date. The massive
forest deforestation, straddling Haiti and the Dominican Republic, causes floods
and sometimes-deadly landslides each year. The deterioration of the
environment affects the entire border line all the way from Etang Saumâtre to
Anse-à-Pitres.
This report is intended to give a glimpse of the daily life of the inhabitants of the
enclaved area, where electricity, water, roads, transport and hospitals are lacking
and where logging is a matter of survival.
Valérie Baeriswyl
3,503
