At first glance, it might seem the earthquake and humanitarian catastrophe in Haiti have nothing to do with climate change and deforestation. But while climate change certainly didn’t cause the devastating quake, unsustainable practices dating back more than 200 years have magnified the scope of the disaster.
If poverty can be considered a sustainability issue, then this issue was at the root of many thousands of deaths and injuries. Just as with the mud houses in Pakistan and Iran that collapsed in earthquakes in recent years killing tens of thousands, when natural disasters strike, the death toll is often a function both of the phenomenon itself but also of poorly constructed buildings that are a result of poverty.
This poverty in Haiti, which flows from a textbook constellation of social justice issues — from slavery to oligarchic corruption to lack of education — has been greatly compounded by an age-long squandering of Haiti’s natural resources.
Many of Haiti’s native forests — its remaining evidence just across the border in the Dominican Republic, with which it shares the island of Hispaniola — were cut to plant sugarcane and other crops under French colonial rule. Its most valuable timber was shipped to Europe. And because of Haiti’s poverty, many of its citizens now cut down the few trees left for firewood. Today, while the Dominican Republic retains 28 percent of its original forests, Haiti is down to 1 percent. It probably is not coincidence that per capita income in the Dominican Republic is some five times greater than in Haiti. The reasons for this disparity are many, but it’s not hard to see that deforestation is both a cause and an effect of poverty.
Without its trees, Haiti’s soil is free to blow or wash away, and what is left is nutrient poor and yields less to a people who rely heavily on subsistence farming. This poverty leads to a self-reinforcing menu of woes and makes any nation more susceptible to the corruption that has marked Haiti’s history. What’s more, deforestation greatly increases the likelihood of catastrophic mudslides once the rainy season arrives.
And while sustainability issues like deforestation have contributed to Haiti’s poverty generally, many of those same issues are now impeding its recovery directly. Perhaps the most dire need at this time is fresh water. Trees in large numbers are a critical player in the whole hydraulic cycle. With their roots, they keep the water table high and accessible. As they hold soil in place, they keep rivers and streams from becoming muddy. And their amazing root systems filter out numerous impurities. In large enough numbers, trees even make it rain.
With its largest city in ruins, thousands of former urban Haitians naturally are returning to the countryside for subsistence living — a countryside bereft of trees with poor soil and inadequate water. While more abundant fresh water in Haiti wouldn’t have necessarily quenched the thirst and met the medical needs of victims in the immediate aftermath, the less water aid workers have to ship in, the more they can concentrate on other supplies like food, medicine, and blood.
While we do whatever we can to improve the situation of those whom the earthquake of 2010 spared, we do well also to glean from the tragedy whatever lessons we can about how centuries-long unsustainable practices have exacerbated the catastrophe.
An ecologically sound Haiti still would have been hit by the earthquake, and it would have been devastating. But with a more prosperous population, more buildings would have withstood the quake, and fewer people would have died. And in a more forested Haiti, the survivors would have had more fresh water, a more fertile countryside to welcome the city’s refugees, and more stable hillsides if, God forbid, the aftershocks continue, especially in the rainy season.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti and with the global community of rescue and aid workers who are supporting them. And our dollars too. By matching employee contributions, EnviroMedia Social Marketing is sending more than $4,600 to Haiti relief efforts, $2,000 of that directed to the United Nations Foundation. —Avrel Seale, EnviroMedia
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just 
Two days after Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced at climate talks $350 million over the next five years to promote clean energy technologies in developing countries, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today from Copenhagen $1 billion over the next three years to reduce carbon emissions caused by deforestation.
