Jared Diamond: A divided island: the forces working against Haiti

[depakid]

The trees have long been stripped from the hills on the Haitian side of the border with the still-forested Dominican Republic.
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Why did the political, economic and ecological histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti – two countries that share the same island – unfold so ­differently? Part of the answer ­involves environmental differences.

Hispaniola's rains come mainly from the east. Hence the Dominican (eastern) part of the island receives more rain and thus supports higher rates of plant growth. Hispaniola's highest mountains (more than 10,000ft) are on the Dominican side and the rivers from those mountains mainly flow eastwards into the Dominican side. This has broad valleys, plains and plateaus and much thicker soils. In particular, the Cibao valley in the north is one of the richest agricultural areas in the world.

In contrast, the Haitian side is drier because of that barrier of high mountains blocking rains from the east. Compared to the Dominican Republic, the area of flat land good for intensive agriculture is much smaller. There is more limestone terrain and the soils are thinner and less fertile and have a lower capacity for recovery.

Note the paradox. The Haitian side of the island was less well-endowed environmentally but developed a rich agricultural economy before the ­Dominican side. Haiti's wealth came at the expense of its ­environmental capital of forests and soils. Haiti's elite identified strongly with France rather than with their own landscape and sought to extract wealth from the ­peasants. The lesson, in effect, is that an impressive-looking bank ­account may conceal a negative cash flow.

While those environmental differences did contribute to the different economic trajectories of the two countries, a larger part of the explanation involves social and political differences. One of these involves the accident that Haiti was a colony of rich France and became the most valuable colony in its overseas empire. The Dominican Republic was a colony of Spain, which by the late 1500s was neglecting ­Hispaniola and was itself in economic and political to decline.

Hence France could and did invest in developing intensive slave-based plantation agriculture in Haiti, which the Spanish could not or chose not to develop in their side of the island.

France also imported far more slaves into its colony than did Spain. As a result, Haiti had a population seven times higher than its neighbour during colonial times – and it still has a somewhat larger population today. But Haiti's area is only slightly more than half of that of the Dominican ­Republic so that Haiti, with a larger population and smaller area, has double its neighbour's population density.

The combination of that higher population density and lower rainfall was the main factor behind the more rapid deforestation and loss of soil fertility on the Haitian side. In addition, all of those French ships that brought slaves to Haiti returned to Europe with cargos of Haitian timber, so that Haiti's lowlands and mid-mountain slopes had been largely stripped of timber by the mid-19th century.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/15/forces-working-against-haiti

[dipsydoodle]

1. Thanks for posting

Always useful to know historic backround in detail.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[niyad]

5. the people alive --at least until this week--are not the ones who basically raped the land in the

19th century. are you aware of the history--forced reparations to the french, crippling debt, coups, dictators (with our support) the "free market" crap that is basically strangling the country?

[robinlynne]

6. The haitians are the descendants of the slaves of the poeple who raped the environment.

The timber went to france. think again.

[Lisa0825]

7. Good fucking grief.

:eyes: :thumbsdown:

[ThomCat]

8. "They" aren't the ones who raped the environment.

The colonial owners in France were the first environmental rapists.

Then the US, and what is now CitiBank took over ownership from the French, and our economic exploitation of Haiti continued the environmental rape of Haiti until there was essentially no sustainable environment left.

For decades our official policy was to extract 40% of all wealth produced in Haiti. So in addition to already being as poor as dirt, and having an environmentally devastated nation, we then took almost half of every dollar they earned or produced just because we could. That policy guaranteed that they would remain desperately poor and could not find a way to climb upward.

Throughout their entire modern history, their governments have been puppets installed by first France and then the US. Whenever they elected their own government through popular democratic vote our CIA went in and staged coups. Our government has refused to allow Haiti to govern themselves, and has refused to allow them to do anything that might free themselves from foreign debt and foreign control.

Blaming Haiti for their desperate grinding poverty and environmental destruction requires that you totally ignore or remain ignorant of their history. :(

[dkf]

3. I was wondering how the split happened

Thanks.

[niyad]

4. k and r and thank you for that info