7. Sharayah McDonald- Free Response 3

    In class, we watched the very moving documentary, "Death by a Thousand Cuts", which explains the political tension between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This documentary was very important to me, for I grew up in a very Christian, religious family, and many of my family members have sponsored children in Haiti, and many acquaintances from church have been on missions trips to Haiti to build schools and churches. Growing up, I heard a lot of different things about Haiti, but never quite understood the political situation and why it is so poor. I feel like this documentary explains very important situations that many people do not know about. I had no idea that the Haitian forests are decimated, and that the Dominican Republic ensured their forests' sustainability due to an environmental movement that banned cutting down their trees. I did not know that Haitians have to sneak over the DR border and chop down their trees to produce charcoal because their own trees are gone. The situation is extremely complicated, for the people of Haiti need this charcoal to survive, through cooking, heating their homes, and their only source of power. However, the DR also needs these trees as forests, and has park rangers to patrol the forests and protect them. The park rangers have admitted their feelings of guilt when they destroy charcoal ovens, for they know that they are taking food out of someone's mouth just to be paid themselves. They know that the people of Haiti need this charcoal just as they need power to survive too. Nonetheless, this situation has created much tension between the 2 countries, to the point of the people of the DR attacking Haitian immigrants and burning their houses down. 

    It is even more unfortunate that the forests in Haiti cannot be replanted, for the soil has been eroded and nothing will grow. Due to the lack of root systems, all of the water ways that the forests supported and supported the forests are gone, and there is no rain. It is impossible for new trees to grow. Now, Haitians are also turning to mangrove trees along large waterways to turn into charcoal, which will also inevitably  run out. This raises questions of what should the country do to preserve its future, and what are other countries' responsibilities to help Haiti? Dr. Redick explained that it is hard for people from other countries to travel to Haiti to help because violent gangs will kidnap them and hold then for ransom. There are forested areas in Haiti that are protected by the government, but what happens when all other charcoal sources are gone and these protected areas are the only trees left? I feel as though these protected areas need to expand, and any areas that could potentially support the growth of new trees should have trees planted immediately so there could be some chance of new growth. I also wish that the current mangrove trees could be left untouched, and maybe new ones could be planted, that way they would have enough trees to produce charcoal without having mass deforestation. Another solution would be for wealthy countries with excess charcoal supplies to donate charcoal to the people of Haiti so they would not have to cut their trees down, however this would take money from the Haitian charcoal producers, some of which creating charcoal is the only skill they have. The Haitian economy does not have "American" jobs, so that charcoal producers can simply work somewhere else. For many, charcoal is their livelihood, and without it they have no income. This situation is extremely complicated, and I wish it was talked about more. There is definitely more that wealthy nations could be doing to help, including ceasing the destruction of our own forests, so that more carbon is not released in the US from the chopping down of trees, which leads to more global warming.