Enviromental problems in Haiti - Essay Example

e, flooding in Mapou and Fond-Verettes caused the death of over 2,000 Haitians in May 2004 and only 4 months later, in September 2004, 3,000 people died after Tropical Storm Jeanne / Forum on the Environmental Crisis in Haiti, 2004 /. Haiti is an island, which constitutes 1/3 of Hispaniola, and occupies 1,770 km of coastline. Due to the climate and geographical situation the island had extremely rich flora and fauna, but in the last century great climate changes occurred, which caused the change of the whole general view of the island.

One of the greatest problems of Haiti is deforestation of major territory of the island. Over 98% of all forests covering the island were destroyed, which entailed serious consequences like massive land erosion and sedimentation, which in its turn had the gravest possible effect on marine resources / Haiti and San Andrés Join COSALC, 2006 /. Now when we look at the natural picture of the Haiti island we would see a grave picture: of previously rich forests only 1.5 % survived, 15,000 hectares of arable land become unsuitable every year, almost all water sources are seriously contaminated, rich biodiversity of Haiti was greatly influenced and destroyed /Paryski, 1996 /.

The worse is that that the biological problems of Haiti go beyond the problems of the single island but threatens the environment of neighboring islands. For example, the same environmental problems are now also experienced in the Dominican Republic. The whole Hispaniola felt that the population of wintering and breeding birds reduced sharply and coral reefs disappear sharply /Paryski, 1996 /. Now let us dwell in more detail on the problems of the environment of Haiti. It should be also remembered that these problems are for the most part common with the other small island developing states.

The first problem concerns land resources, which decrease considerably due to the bad-considered land use policy, great number and density of the population and the influence