By Julie Shaw
In addition to the immediate, horrendous toll that the January earthquake took on the people of Haiti, it also poses a long-term threat to Haitians in terms of the nation’s precious natural resources.
Among the many elements of Haitian society devastated by the disaster is the nation’s conservation sector. Local organizations have long been working to save Haiti’s few remaining forests and the crucial support the forests provide to human well-being, but these organizations have been crippled by the loss of staff lives and resources.
In an effort to boost these groups and the nature that Haitians rely on, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) will provide $400,000 in emergency assistance. These funds will support efforts to:
- Assist in the immediate recovery of civil society groups that focus on environment and development.
- Foster stakeholder engagement and integration of environmental concerns into reconstruction and development planning.
- Prevent the degradation and potential destruction of two of Haiti’s most important areas for biodiversity, Massif de la Hotte and Massif de la Selle.
BirdLife International’s Caribbean Program will administer the emergency funds, which won approval from the CEPF Donor Council in March.
"I, like everyone, have been shocked and saddened by the devastating loss of life and physical destruction wrought by the Haitian earthquake," said James Wolfensohn, chairman of the CEPF Donor Council and former president of the World Bank.
"As with any disaster of this scale, the effects are profound and wide-reaching," he said. "Haiti’s natural environment had already suffered from decades of neglect and degradation before the earthquake arrived. Today it is more vulnerable than ever. That is why this provision of emergency support from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund to help rebuild the capacity of Haiti’s fledgling conservation community is so important."
The poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, Haiti has long been one of the most environmentally degraded countries in the world. It has lost all but 2 percent of its original forest cover. The damage to the country’s environment has only exacerbated the problems of its people by depriving them of the variety of services the forests provide, including provision of fresh water and control of soil erosion and flooding, and mitigation of storm damage and the effects of climate change.
At the time of the earthquake, CEPF was preparing to launch a $6.5 million investment in the Caribbean Islands biodiversity hotspot, which includes Haiti. The country is among the priorities in the five-year investment strategy, and its environmental sector contributed to the development of the plan.
But after the earthquake, CEPF reached out to local organizations and partners operating in Haiti again to determine how the Fund could best contribute to the battered nation’s recovery. Conservation groups there reported that the environmental community had been hit hard, and the country’s already limited conservation capacity had been set back significantly.
The Ministry of the Environment lost its offices, and some ministry staff lost their lives. Haiti’s informal network of 13 local conservation and sustainable development organizations survived, but many of the groups lost their offices and places of employment. They remain in contact with each other informally, but now lack the basic office equipment and resources to work, hold meetings, and engage in efforts to ensure that the country’s environmental resources are safeguarded.
Outside Port-au-Prince, pressure on Haiti’s already degraded lands is increasing with the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people who are fleeing the capital and returning to their traditional villages and other cities.
The two natural areas targeted for emergency assistance are the largest remaining blocks of forest, and are especially crucial to ecological and human health.
- In southwestern Haiti, Massif de la Hotte, at 128,700 hectares, covers three priority watersheds that serve the cities of Les Cayes, Port Salut, Tiburon and Jeremie. These cities typically suffer the greatest loss of life due to flooding and landslides resulting from hurricanes and tropical storms, in part due to the degradation of the upper watershed. The site also harbors the highest number of Alliance for Zero Extinction species in the world with 13 Critically Endangered species that are found nowhere else.
- Massif de la Selle, 166,900 hectares in southern Haiti, is only 22 kilometers from Port-au-Prince and is a major source of water to the inhabitants of the city. It is also home to the only known populations of several globally threatened species.