Deforestation in Haiti Adds to Post-Earthquake Landslide Concerns

by John J. Berger, Ph.D and Lani Maher

Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, finally captured international attention following a devastating 7.0 earthquake that struck the country on January 12th. The quake killed an estimated 230,000 Haitians and left over a million homeless. International relief organizations are currently working to help Haitian refugees and start rebuilding all that was destroyed.

It is unfortunate, however, that such a catastrophe was necessary to bring Haiti’s ongoing struggles into the public eye. Prior to the earthquake, Haiti already faced extreme poverty and environmental degradation, which severely exacerbated the earthquake’s impact on the Haitian people.

Homeless Haitians set up tents nearby the Presidential Palace, in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Marcello Casal Jr, Agência Brasil.

According to NASA, Haiti has one of the worst cases of deforestation in the world, with only about 2% green cover, in contrast to the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti and has about 28% green cover. Measurements of green cover indicate the proportion of a country’s total terrestrial area that is covered by vegetation, as opposed to soil, sand, or concrete. The lack of trees in Haiti has been very detrimental to the environment and to the Haitian population that depends on them. Five hundred years ago, the island of Hispaniola, where Haiti and the Dominican republic are now situated, was densely forested, but centuries of logging and poor farming practices have removed most of the trees and soil nutrients. Still, Haitians are continuing to scavenge the last forest remnants for fuel.

Because Haiti’s soil is largely void of plant roots, it is especially vulnerable to erosion and it’s ability to absorb and hold water and nutrients is impaired. This makes it especially susceptible flooding, while contributing to the country’s shortage of clean drinking water. The lack of forest also eliminates transpiration, which in turn reduces ambient humidity and rainfall and creates unfavorable conditions for new plant growth. All this presents substantial difficulties for Haiti’s subsistence agriculture. Haiti’s extreme deforestation thus also contributes to the country’s inadequate food supply, as well as its dismal economic condition.

blank

The border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic highlights the relative deforestation of Haiti. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.

January’s earthquake also raised concerns among relief workers about landslides in Haiti, as the quake may have destabilized denuded hills and mountainsides that lack trees to hold the earth in place. This may leave Haitian cities especially susceptible to damaging landslides, even as they try to rebuild. Therefore, relief and rebuilding efforts will not be enough to mitigate future natural disasters unless Haiti’s deforestation problem is addressed. Only then can this country and its people have a chance to overcome its impoverished and weakened state.

Additional Sources

Indonesian Palm Oil Production Causes Mass Deforestation

by John J. Berger, Ph.D and Lani Maher

Recently, deforestation has been a prominent issue amongst scientists and policy makers worried about climate change. The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has called worldwide attention to the issue and challenged us to find a way to slow the destruction of forests around the world.

Palm oil is a type of vegetable oil derived from the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) that is used in many commercial food products sold in the United States. However, as a recent CNN article points out, most of those products simply list palm oil as ‘vegetable oil’ in their ingredient list labels. Therefore, many people are completely unaware of palm oil’s existence, let alone its uses and the environmental damage that is occurring as a result of its production. Indonesia and Malaysia are the world leaders in palm oil production and much of the rain forest in these countries is being clear-cut and burned to make room for expanding palm oil plantations. The island of Sumatra in Indonesia has already lost about 85% of its rainforest to palm oil production.1 Oil palm crops are also being cultivated to make biodiesel fuel. However, the destruction of carbon-sequestering rain forests, which contributes to global climate change, under the guise of biofuel production, which connotes environmentalism, is misleading for the consumer and only benefits palm oil producers. To learn more about deforestation and climate change, palm oil production in Sumatra, and the threats it’s posing to Indonesian forests, watch the video below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRPDA-5gcXo]

For more information about forests, their global importance, and strategies for their protection, please see out Forests Forever: Their Ecology, Restoration, and Protection by Dr. John Berger

UN-REDD Program Has Potential

blank

The United Nations Collaborative Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD program) has received a lot of media attention lately, in the buzz surrounding this year’s U.N. climate change Conference in Copenhagen. Concerned scientists and citizens around the world had hoped a new international agreement addressing climate change would come out of this week’s conference, and many are supportive of the U.N.’s proposed REDD program, which provides countries with incentives to conserve their forests and slow climate change by paying those countries not to cut their forests. However, according to the New York Times, leaders will likely delay making such an agreement this week. Hopefully a framework for a future agreement will emerge from the talks in Copenhagen.

To keep up with the debate and the conference’s progress, please visit the conference website and check this blog often as we will be posting updates.

For more information on forests and their global importance, and strategies for their protection, please, please see Forests Forever: Their Ecology, Restoration, and Protection.

Climate Change Threatens Pervasive Forest Loss

by John J. Berger, Ph.D and Lani Maher

100_0183resize

Aspen leaves showing extensive damage done by the aspen leaf miner
Photo: ©2006, Benson Lee, Copper Center, Alaska

An article by Nicholas Riccardi in Friday’s Los Angeles Times cites global climate change as the primary cause of Sudden Aspen Decline, which has been sweeping through forests of the American West in recent years. Rising temperatures and increased drought conditions—both attributed in part to global warming—have increased populations of insects, such as the aspen bark beetle and aspen leaf miner, to which aspens are highly vulnerable. SAD has ravaged aspen groves in Colorado and elsewhere, significantly transforming the landscape.

Whereas these forests are declining due to the effects of climate change, forests globally have the potential to reduce climate change. Through photosynthesis, healthy forests contribute oxygen to the atmosphere and remove carbon dioxide by storing carbon in plant tissue. This lowers the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Decadent or dormant forests, however, release carbon. As aspen groves die, they stop taking up carbon and release the carbon they had stored.

Forests, of course, can also affect climate locally and regionally by releasing moisture. Tree roots withdraw water from the soil for transport up the stem or trunk to the leaves where the moisture evaporates. The increased atmospheric humidity can reduce or prevent drought.Trees can also extract moisture from the air by their contact with low fog, causing it to condense on leaf surfaces and drip to the ground, where it can add substantially to total annual precipitation. Trees also moderate local temperature extremes and wind velocities.

blank

Badly infested aspen grove. These trees should be predominantly green, given the time of year that this picture was taken
Photo: ©2006, Benson Lee, Copper Center, Alaska

“In addition to their influence on [local and global] climate, forests purify water by filtering it through litter and soil. Much of the water we drink, either form surface or underground sources, comes from forested watersheds, including water that accumulated eons ago. Forests also increase the amount of water reaching groundwater reservoirs by slowing the rate of surface runoff (which helps prevent floods), thus increasing the percolation of runoff in to the soil. This helps recharge deep groundwater, raises the water table, and makes for more persistent streamflow during dry seasons, benefiting vegetation and wildlife . . . Soil and forest litter absorb rain like a sponge and release it to vegetation and groundwater slowly . . . More than half of the water supplies in the western United States flow from national forests.”2

 

Aspen trees, like most forests, provide a rich habitat for many different plant and animal species. The grasses that sprout under aspen groves help slow runoff, hold soil, reduce erosion, and encourage infiltration of water into the ground, which is important for making water available to nearby metropolitan areas. Therefore, the decline of the aspen in the American West means not only a loss of scenic beauty, ecological vitality, and municipal water supply, but is a harbinger of the pervasive forest loss that climate change will bring to much of the American West and Southwest.

——————————————————————–

1 John J. Berger, Forests Forever: Their Ecology, Restoration, and Protection(San Francisco, CA and Chicago, IL, Forests Forever Foundation and Center for American Places at Columbia College, Chicago, 2008), pp. 13-14. Distributed by University of Chicago Press.
2 Ibid.

——————————————————————–

To read Nicholas Riccardi’s article, Global Warming Blamed for Aspen Die-off Across the West, please click here.