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Researcher(s):
Gus Hynes-Hoffman
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2011 Completed: May 2012 Go to project site
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The island of Hispaniola is in the northern part of the Caribbean Sea. Roughly two-thirds of the island is the Dominican Republic and the remaining third, on the western portion of the island, is Haiti. The political, social, economic, and environmental situations in the Island’s two constituent countries present striking contrasts. Historical analysis of developmental trends in Haiti and the Dominican Republic reveals that several factors have contributed to the contrasting levels of environmental degradation in the two countries. Haiti’s predominantly slave population and the adoption of small-scale subsistence agriculture by the majority of the populace led to an otherwise disproportionate level of deforestation and environmental degradation. The majority of the land under cultivation in Haiti is extremely steep and not suitable for intensive use. Thus, soil erosion is a massive concern. As the cultivated land degrades it is often left fallow or abandoned entirely, and new land must be cleared for subsistence use. Sedimentation from erosion has wreaked havoc on the patterns of surface water flow and storage, further damaging the agricultural productivity of the land. With less than two percent of the country remaining forested and the population still increasing, the issues are only growing more extreme. In the Dominican Republic a slowly growing population and developing industrial base followed the gradual decline of the plantation system. With more land to utilize, a lower population density, and the lack of rampant agricultural subdivision, the human impact has not devastated the ecosystem to the same extent as Haiti. Soil degradation and deforestation are present, but fully 30% of the country remains forested.