Haitians speak about environmental issues in the country.

Haiti is still the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and some natives say, if they do not leave Haiti they will die.

Environmental issues in Haiti include a severe deforestation problem, overpopulation, a lack of sanitation, natural disasters, and food insecurity. A major reason for these environmental issues is that there is not sufficient protection or management of the country's natural resources.

Deforestation in Haiti occurred primarily during the colonial period, and later after the Haitian revolution to pay a post-independence war indemnity to France. Deforestation has led to soil erosion by decreasing tree cover and leaving soil exposed. In the present era, arboreal fallow, or trees cleared for agricultural production, are then transformed into charcoal as a secondary agricultural by-product.

Today, 'primary' forest cover in Haiti is estimated at less than 1% of all land area, although the accuracy of this figure has been contested. Using the Food and Agricultural Organization (United Nations) global standard definition for 'forest', approximately 30% of Haiti is estimated to be covered with trees and/or forests. These different estimates in tree and/or forest cover in Haiti reflect ongoing debates about how different types of arboreal coverage are defined and measured.

ref:Wikipedia

Overpopulation

A dense slum in the capital Port-au-Prince.

Early researchers claimed that an increasing Haitian population contributed to the degradation of the environment. However, recent research places Haiti as the country with the lowest per capita ecological footprint in the world.

Haiti can be characterized as a low-income, high-density nation. As of 2012, Haiti's population count was at 10.6 million. The UN estimates that 52% of the population lived in urban areas in 2011, with an annual 3.9% annual increase in population in urban areas. Low-income individuals are largely concentrated in urban areas, especially Port-au-Prince, and are subject to poor environmental quality, human health, and quality of life. Port-au-Prince’s urban environmental quality is further reduced by its poor infrastructure, lack of government management, and its subjectivity to natural disasters, as a result of being located on the coast. As the population of urban areas in Haiti grows it is hard to update the already poor infrastructure to meet the needs of so many people. When an abundance of people doesn’t have an adequate waste management system, it can have devastating effects on the environment through air and water pollution. Studies show that more than 60% of Haitians live in low environmental quality urban areas near the coast, such as Port-au-Prince.Environmental quality can be measured by assessing the domestic environment, public environment, physical environment and atmosphere. The areas with the lowest environmental quality have the highest population density, and are subject to pollution and an array of natural hazards,which can destroy natural resources and cause environmental degradation. These individuals face a situation of environmental injustice. In rural areas, overpopulation causes over-cultivation of land and therefore soil erosion, as nutrients are quickly depleted from the soil. Although many Haitian farmers are aware of the effects of their practices on the soil, they are often reluctant to change their practices because political and economic factors, such as insecure property rights and high prices of capital, prohibit them from adopting proper technologies.

IF CURRENT DEFORESTATION RATES CONTINUE, HAITI MAY LOSE ITS FORESTS WITHIN TWO DECADES

Haiti's deforestation is largely driven by small-scale farming and charcoal production, which involves harvesting wood and heating it to remove water and volatile compounds.

By analyzing aerial photography and satellite images, researchers discovered that primary forest cover in Haiti shrank from 4.4 percent in 1988 to just 0.32 percent in 2016. They report that 42 of Haiti's 50 largest mountains have lost all of their primary forests and the country is already undergoing a mass extinction of its wildlife due to habitat loss.