>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> Carolyn Brown: Today's event is brought to you by the Kluge Center,
which was established through a very generous donation
in 2000 by John Kluge.
To establish a venue on Capital Hill where there would be an opportunity
for the world's finest scholars to come
into informal conversation with policy makers.
To sort of bring together the world of ideas and the world of action.
In execution of that, we also invite these scholars to spend time
at the library doing their research.
Our community has two levels of this very senior scholars.
And the more junior, rising generation of scholars.
Who we look forward to becoming in another 20 years
or so, our senior scholars.
If you want to know more about the programs, which are mostly presented
by our scholars, you can pick up a brochure in the back,
and you can sign up for webmail -- email notification.
Today's program is going to be introduced --
our speaker is being introduced by Professor John McNeill of the School
of Foreign Service and Department of History of Georgetown University.
Dr. McNeill held the Cinco Hermanos Chair in Environment
and International Affairs, until his appointment
as a university professor at Georgetown.
He's specially known to most of us, and probably most of you,
for his work in environmental history.
And his most recent book, "Mosquito Empires Ecology and War
in the Greater Caribbean".   1640 to 1914.

You can see why then, that Dr. McNeill would be --
I can fairly characterize him as a mentor to Dr. Mouhot.
And it seemed particularly appropriate, therefore,
that we ask our colleague from across the town
to introduce our speaker.   John?

>> Professor John McNeill: Thank you Carolyn [pause].

So I will say a few words about today's speaker.
But I'm also going to say a few words about environmental history.
A very few words about why his topic is important.
And then I'll get on to the subject of the speaker himself.
So in case you don't already know,
environmental history is perhaps best characterized as the history
of the relations -- some would say hostilities --
between the natural world and the cultural world.
Between environment and society.
And it is a sub-discipline that has existed for 30 or 40 years now.
I'd like to think that it comes in three main flavors.
One is the material.   And that's about biophysical --

bio-geophysical things, frogs and forests.
The political and policy and legal.
And that's about regulation and environmental law and its history.
And the cultural and intellectual.
Which is about what people have thought and written
about the relationship between humankind and the natural world.
So that is a sub-discipline that is alive and well.
And it is one that Jean-Francis Mouhot has taught himself.
He's not actually trained in it,
but he has become a seasoned practitioner in it.
His subject today is something
that he's been working on for two years now.
And it's important in at least two main senses.
One is that nobody's ever done anything like this for Haiti,
or the island of Hispaniola.
In fact, there's very little environmental history done
for any part of the Caribbean.
And it is -- this is the second part --
a part of the world
with a tumultuous environmental history, even up to this day.
It's got a tumultuous environmental present,
as well as a tumultuous environmental history.
The Caribbean in general, even Haiti in particular is a place
where the forces of nature are often unruly --
hurricanes; earthquakes as we were reminded only 3 years ago.
And the forces of culture and society have been powerful
in altering environments.   Colonialism.

Plantation economy.
Particularly powerful environment changes to those two forces.
So both natural and cultural forces have conspired
to make the environmental history of this part of the world tumultuous.
And therefore, worthy of our attention;
worthy of Jean-Francois Mouhot's attention.
That said, a word or two about today's speaker.
Jean-Francois has studied, or worked at universities
in four different European countries.
Italy, France, the UK and Ireland.
And two in North America -- Canada and the United States.
He took his PhD eight years ago
at the European University Institute in Florence.
And has not let the grass grow underneath his feet
in the subsequent eight years.   He's published two books.

One of them about Acadian refugees in France.
That is the 18th Century Atlantic study.
And the other one out, only a few months ago --
I can't remember how many months ago --
which examines the comparison between slavery and fossil fuel use.
Which is not an obvious and intuitive pair to compare.
And it's actually rather controversial work I think,
but imaginative.   And worthy of our attention.

And lately, he's been housed at the Kluge Center
and a post-doctoral research fellow at Georgetown University,
working with a Marie Curie Fellowship.
Which is one of the most difficult fellowships on the planet to get.
He had 600 competitors.
His proposal was ranked second out of 600.
And that is why he is here today.   Jean-Francois [silence].

[ Applause ]
>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: Thank you John.
Thank you Carolyn for this very generous
and grossly exaggerated introduction [background chuckles].
Thank you also to the rest of the staff of the Library
of Congress and the Kruge Center.
Thank you to Jason for organizing this event.
Thank you to Mary Lou Rieker [phonetic] as well.
I must say I had a wonderful time here, but also a very stressful one.
And it was very stressful for me, because I knew from the start,
the day I walked in this building that never again
in my life would I have at my disposal some 23 million books
that I can order from my computer, and that get delivered
to my cubicle after a few hours.
And I knew that the clock was ticking, and I should rush and read
as many of these books as possible.
And I must confess that I miserably failed to read them all.
But thankfully I'm not here today to talk
about all the books I have not been able to read,
but rather about the more interesting and more limited topic
about the environmental history of Haiti.
I would like to start first with a couple of pictures --
if this is actually working.
And this is a map showing the general situation
of Haiti in the Caribbean.
And a little close up on the island of Hispaniola, that's,
as you can see on this map, occupies about 1/3 of the island.
And the rest of the island is occupied
by the Dominican Republic on the eastern part.
Hispaniola was first discovered
by Christopher Columbus in October of 1492.
And it was quickly colonized by Spain.
Though much of the island remained the backwater of the Spanish empire
until a few thousand French and hundreds of thousands
of slaves moved to colonize the western part of the island
from the mid 17th Century onwards.
The very prosperous colony called Saint Domingue, became independent,
however, in 1804 after a violent revolution in which slaves rebelled
against their masters and won their liberty
and independence from France.
I'm sorry, I moved to this slide a little bit too early.
But I wanted to show this picture because Haiti --
like Easter Island -- often stands as a powerful [inaudible]
to warn the public about environmental degradation.
Al Gore, in his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006 --
a movie seen by millions -- comments on this picture of the border
between Haiti and the Dominion Republic.
I'll come back to this iconic picture, which will kind
of be the core of my talk today.   I'll talk around this picture a lot.

Because it's a picture that a lot of people have seen.
A lot of people, if they've not seen it have heard about this comparison
between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
And the final reason is that the photographer who took this picture,
we managed to track down.
And he's a photographer from "National Geographic",
happens to live in Washington.
And I was hoping until yesterday that he could come today
to this lecture, and be a kind of live --
give a living testimony to this picture.
But unfortunately he was not able to make it.
Anyway, this photograph reveals naked, brown soil on Haiti's side
of the boarder, and luxuriant, tropical forest on the other side.
Al Gore uses this example to note how different sets
of policies can impact the land.
Scholars often use Haiti in their publications to the same effect.
Jared Diamond, for example, most famously the most won chapter
of his bestselling book, "Collapse", to brief comparison of the histories
of Haiti and Dominican Republic.
Again, emphasizing good and bad practices
on each side of the border.
Many more scholars mention Haiti in passing,
usually providing the reader with a well-established,
yet shallow narrative of the ruin of the country's ecology.
The narrative is perhaps best summarized in the title
of a recent book by Philippe Girard, "Paradise Lost,
Haiti's Tumultuous Journey From the Pearl
of the Caribbean to Third World Hotspot".
This story is repeated with only minor variations in a number
of studies, and can be abridged in a few sentences.
This narrative almost always begins with a reminder
that Haiti was first described by Christopher Columbus as very fertile
to a limitless degree, and filled with trees of a thousand kinds,
so tall it seemed to touch the sky.
And that Haiti was once considered the "Pearl of the West Indies".
Haiti is part of the second largest islands in the Antilles,
and was once largely covered with forest and tropical vegetation,
which provided a luxuriant ecosystem
for indigenous species of animals and plants.
The familiar story continues during the colonial era,
with the development of the plantation economy.
Whose aim was to produce cash crops for the European markets.
The resulting land clearance, firewood demand,
and rapid population growth have progressively destroyed the native,
virgin, ecosystem.
These human encroachments on nature have left
for us standing today only 2% to 3% of Haiti's land.
The deforestation and poor land management,
combined with violent storms, have triggered,
in turn, massive soil erosion.
Haiti is today, considered a naked pearl; a deforested country,
enmeshed in a self-reinforcing process
of environmental degradation.
This standard narrative then, more often then not,
links this environmental degradation to social
and economic hardship and violence.
Haiti, a country now of over 10 million, is indeed also one
of the poorest countries in the world, with extremely low standards
of living, high mortality rates, and endemic violence and anarchy.
The situation is so dire that Haiti's permanence on the
"Failed States Index", currently ranking 7th.
And squeezed between Afghanistan and Iraq, and the only American country
to make it to the top 50.
As Lester Brown puts it, "Once a tropical paradise,
Haiti is a case study of a country caught in an ecological
and economic downward spiral
from which it has not been able to escape.
It is a failed state.
A country sustained by international life support systems of food aid
and economic assistance."
And one should note, these lines were written before the earthquake
of 2010.
Which added some acute problems on an already chronic condition,
to paraphrase the words of Paul Farmer.
Yet, the number of times stereotyped narrative is reproduced
in publications or news reports, is inversely proportional to the number
of scholarly studies devoted
to study the history of Haiti's environment.
That's where I'm hoping that my current project,
which seeks to trace the history of Haiti's environment from Columbus
to today can fill in a gap.
For this project, I am looking at numerous interconnected questions,
such as the role of the environment in shaping the history
of the country and vice versa.
How people have transformed the island's environment.
This work entails, among other tasks,
examining how tropical diseases and how this --
such as malaria and yellow fever --
might have anchoraged the implantation
of slavery on Hispaniola.
And how these conditions might have put a break on Haiti's development.
I am also considering how natural disasters --
hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts, etcetera,
shaped the history of the colony.
Looking at the other side of the coin, I'm also interested in finding
out how people have transformed the natural environment.
For example, by introducing animals and crops from the old world.
Or by cutting down trees --
the issue on which I would like to concentrate today.
I will first show in this talk why this topic is important
for Haiti's history, and then look in more detail
at the message conveyed by this picture, and show some of the --
and talk about some of the issues arising from this --
from the cautionary tail this picture seemingly conveys.
I will then try to establish when the differences at the border --
that can be seen on this picture -- appeared.
And finally, I will offer some brief and general comments on who
and what caused the massive deforestation.
Concluding with an examination of the question of what, if anything,
we can learn from this history of Haitian deforestation.
The history of Haitian's deforestation
and erosion is important because it has become a symbol
of the country's seemingly unstoppable slide towards poverty
and chaos.   And because Haiti's deforestation

and soil loss are probably the most severe problems faced
by Haiti today.
At least they are linked to a good many interconnected problems.
Furthermore, these issues are [inaudible] point
into the wider environmental history of the country,
as deforestation goes back all the way to Christopher Columbus.
And touches on almost every other aspect of the country's history,
including sugar, slavery, the country plantation system adapted
after independence, production of coffee,
French and US military interventions.


Conversely, Haiti's loss of vegetation affects almost everybody
in the country, and creates huge problems.
Soil erosion, resulting directly from the removal of tree cover,
is responsible for the loss of a large amount
of [inaudible] lands every year, in a country already unable
to feed its growing population.
It is said in Haiti that the peasants follow the soil.
As a German ergonomist said at the time when Haitian boat people trying
to reach Florida or the Bahamas were daily in the news,
"If the soil of Haiti is allowed to go out to sea, it is not surprising
that the Haitian people also take to the sea."
And indeed, a few years ago a poll showed that 2/3
of the Haitian population declared that they would
like to immigrate if it were possible.
Chopping down trees also increases aridity; decreases water retention
in the soil, and triggers desertification
through increased evaporation.
Deforestation also increases the society's vulnerability
to hurricanes and tropical storms frequent in the region.
Consider also how trees filter the soil
in the -- the water in the soil.
Without forest cover, the presence of e coli
and other contaminants rises sharply,
reinforcing a vicious circle.
When peasants cut trees down, the water is less clean,
and more likely to make people sick.
But the Haitian's remedy to this problem only worsens it.
They boil water with wood fires,
made possibly by clearing even more trees.
There are also links between deforestation
and the increased prevalence of malaria, exacerbating
yet another viscous circle.
It is not uncommon for people to chop down trees in order
to generate short-term income to buy medicine for example.
And the trees are sold, to be transformed into charcoal.
Left standing, these trees would generate long-term sustainable
benefits, including food and income for peasants and their pigs.
And please note that I'm not implying in any way
that Haitian peasants are stupid, or unaware of these vicious circles.
But they often simply don't have any choice --
or at least not much choice.
In summary, the loss of tree cover is not benign,
and has severely impacted Haitian lives.
As such, it is worthy of the attention of the historians,
who need to establish the chronology and the causes of these conditions.
Let me now return to this iconic picture showing the contrast
in forest cover between the two borders of Haiti
and the Dominican Republic.
This picture powerfully captures this cautionary tale,
and has been used in countless publications for that reason.
These publications often start any discussion of Haiti
by depiction of this photograph.
I've counted many, you know, several dozens of these examples,
starting with the description of this photograph.
As I just mentioned, Al Gore, in his movie,
"And Inconvenient Truth", also uses this picture.
And takes Haiti as an example of the "Bad guy" who doesn't care
for its environment, and has cut down all its trees.
While the Dominican Republic, on the other side, is the good guy
who protects its forests.
But there are several other threads to the story
of Haiti's deforestation which needs to be unraveled.
And I would argue that Al Gore should have perhaps chosen a
different example to illustrate his point here.
Or at least use this picture differently.
Indeed, Haiti's history of deforestation is as much a story,
I would argue, of what happens to a country that lacks access
to fossil fuels, rather than a story of bad governance --
though there's plenty of that too, unfortunately.
And this truth fits rather uncomfortably
with the main message of the movie.
For those of you who might not have seen the -- "An Inconvenient Truth",
it's a movie -- it's a commentary about a climate change
and what happens -- the problems caused by our over-reliance
and over-consumption of fossil fuels.
Don't misunderstand me.   I am a firm believer in the reality

of climate change -- manmade climate change.
I very much believe -- I very much like
and recommend "An Inconvenient Truth".
And I wholeheartedly agree with the main goal and message of the movie.
But one of the main reasons why Haiti has only a small percentage
of forest left, is because 70% of the energy needs
of its growing population are fulfilled by wood
and charcoal rather than by fossil fuels and other types of energy,
like in most other countries of the world today.
And anybody who has ever visited Haiti can attest,
that charcoal is produced and sold almost everywhere on the island.
As can be seen from these pictures
that I took a few months ago in Haiti.
This is a picture of charcoal-making on an island off the coast
of Haiti called la Gonave, but this is typical of what happens in many,
many other places in Haiti.
So basically, peasants cut wood and pile them in these little places.
And they cover it with stones and soils and they put fire
to it and it burns slowly.   And it becomes charcoal.

And you can see, these trucks, for example, that I took in the street
of Port-au-Prince, you can see these trucks transporting bags --
huge bags of charcoal.
Everywhere in the country to you see bags
of charcoal everywhere; lying on the streets.
And it's really produced everywhere.
So conversely, one of the key reasons
that the Dominican Republic is not heavily deforested,
is because it imports large quantities of propane and butane,
and forbids the production of charcoal on its territory.
Many Haitians, of course, are aware of this,
and concerned about the state of their environment.
And several initiatives have been undertaken to try
to replace charcoal by fossil fuels.
As shown, for example, on this wall painting, which is an advertisement
for gas that I took in one of the streets of Port-au-Prince.
And you can see -- I don't know if the laser pointer works,
but you can see here a tree that is presumably going to be saved
by the use of this natural gas and --
sorry, the caption reads [French Spoken].
It doesn't seem to be working anymore.
Anyway, [French Spoken], which means let's protect the environment.
So as you see, the problem is that there are many obstacles
for the switch to fossil fuels on the part of Haitians,
and they are not easily overcome.
That's the reason why they have to rely on charcoal.
There are a few more remarks that should be made
about the larger context of this picture.
Which explains why many colonies and many Haitians are annoyed
at its constant use in so many publications.
The use of Haiti as a cautionary tale and a symbol
of decay itself has a long history.
As early as 1511, less than 20 years after the discovery of Hispaniola
by Christopher Columbus, Dominican priest, Antonio Montesinos,
charged his fellow Spaniards with having turned Hispaniola
from paradise into a desert in a sermon delivered in Santa Domingo.
That was a sermon that actually triggered the conversion
of las Casas to defend the Indians.
Montesinos' reference to the desert is metaphorical, and he was thinking
of a human desert, rather than a place that had lost all its trees.
Nonetheless, it's interesting to note the emergence already 20 years
after the beginning of colonization,
of what has become the dominant narrative for the history of Haiti.
What federal historians would call a typical declensionist narrative
from paradise to desert.
Also, Haiti was also used in the 19th Century
as a boogeyman in the US and Europe.
The violence of the Haitian Revolution,
the following political struggle, civil wars and anarchy,
and the collapse of sugar exports were used as examples of the negroes
in capacities to govern themselves.
And thus to justify the continuation of slavery
in the southern United States, and in the rest
of European colonies of the West Indies.
Haiti for some was a basket case; glaring evidence
that freed slaves were unable to rule themselves,
have a good government, functioning institutions and so on.
Of course this story conveniently paid no attention
to the relative prosperity and wellbeing
of many Haitians during much of the 19th Century,
especially when compared with the harshness that many Africans had
to endure in bondage in the American south.
The story also conveniently forgot the role played by France and the US
in isolating Haiti, both diplomatically and economically,
and in interfering in its affairs during the 19th Century and beyond.
Much as stories of Haiti's deforestation today,
conveniently tend to forget the responsibility
of other nations in Haiti's plight.
Knowing this antecedence of the uses of Haiti as a scarecrow
for other nations, I first tried to assess whether this difference
in land cover -- visible on this picture --
was representative of the reality or rather, an anomaly emphasized for,
so-to-speak literary effect.
If one follows the international border,
using Google Earth, for example.
With an eye to major differences in land cover between Haiti
and the Dominican Republic, one does not easily find many
such differences.
The difference in vegetation cover is noticeable in several places.
But in many other places, both sides appear pretty much the same.
But this, I learned afterwards, is because environmental destruction --
as one "New York Times" journalist recently put it,
bleeds across the border.
Haitians have been increasingly committing illegal logging
and charcoal-making operations across the border.
Which contributes to tensions between the two countries --
between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
And frequent violence.
Moreover, as anybody who has flow over the border between Haiti
and the Dominican Republic can attest,
you can still see the difference in vegetation cover today.
Unfortunately, the contrast between the two countries does exist.
It's not a myth.
And there are serious problems of deforestation in Haiti,
as can be seen from this slide
that I took a few months ago near Port-au-Prince [pause].
To my mind, the next step was to try and identify where, when,
and by whom exactly this iconic picture had been taken.
Which was not as easy as it may sound.
As a picture is often not properly credited when it is credited at all.
I finally managed to track it down to a 1987 article
in "National Geographic", and managed to speak
with the photographer, Gene Blair, who told me about a year ago
that the picture was taken somewhere
in the northeast region of Haiti, in 1987.
Blair told me that the difference
between the two countries could be seen everywhere, from, you know,
the day he took these pictures,
and that his photograph was representative of the contrast
of the border at the time.
Even though, of course, he chose for dramatic effect,
to spot where the contrast was particularly visible.
One should immediately note that this picture was taken one year
after Jean-Claude Duvalier left Haiti during a time
when many peasants took advantage of the relative vacuum of power
to make some desperately needed money by chopping
down trees and making charcoal.
I then tried to find out when this difference
at the border had become apparent,
or at least when people started to talk about it.
This is still, of course, a question for ongoing research.
But so far the earliest mention of the stark contrast at the border
between Haiti and Dominican Republic I have been able to track down is
in Paul Morrow's [phonetic] study titled,
[French Spoken], published in 1961.
And in this book, Morrow specifically mentions the contrast
as seen from a plane -- that's the first time I've seen this.
However, it is probably Graham Greene, in his novel,
"The Comedians", published 3 years later,
who most popularized the clich.
There are several [inaudible] in the novel to deforestation,
and one of the characters specifically contrasts --
notes the contrast at the border between the two countries.
As regards deforestation specifically, the earliest mention
of this problem that I've been able to find,
does not appear before the early 1940s.
These concerns were first expressed in an article published
by a Haitian -- though US educated --
forester, named, Sheila Nicola [phonetic],
in a professional journal in 1940.
And it is, however, possible that concern had started
to rise during the 1930s, and perhaps as early as the 1920s
as is evidenced by the creation of the [French Spoken] --
the tree festival -- in the 1930s.
As well as the attempt to create a national forest reserve
in the pine forest of the [French Spoken],
in the south of Haiti in 1937.
Though these concerns and efforts do not seem to have had any real effect
on the ground, as it were, they show that ideas about the protection
of forest resources was printing at the time.
That said, several of the sources from the 1920s including reports
from US geologists working in Haiti, and various articles in the
"National Geographic" do not seem alarmist at all, and still speak
of excellent forest cover, although they mention some deforestation
and erosion already.
Establishing the chronology of the growing awareness of the problem
of Haiti's deforestation is important.
Because it can revise and enhance the work of other researchers
who have looked at this issue before,
with a different methodology.
What is more, my conclusions defer from several previous studies
in this regard, as I will now briefly discuss.
So far I have talked almost exclusively about representations
or representations of, and concerns about deforestation,
rather than about the reality
of deforestation itself and its history.
I have done so in part, in order to stress how late
in the game people began to talk about these devastating problems.
The long absence of concerns for environmental degradation
in Haiti may reflect the fact that the vast majority of those who were
on the ground, tilling the soil,
and who might have first noticed the growing problem had no education.
Very little power.
And very limited means to make their voices heard.
The complete lack of interest for the countryside on the part of those
who had the means to leave written records --
the elite in Port-au-Prince --
means the problem had possibly started much earlier
than the 1930s and 1940s.
But in that case, the initial absence of concern
from US scientists who worked on the island
in the 1920s would be hard to explain [pause].
At a turning point in the actual situation
of Haiti's forest took place in the 1920s and 1930s however,
seems to be confirmed by scattered figures
that I've been able to chart on this graph.
These figures seem to match in terms of chronology,
showing a sharp decline in forest cover starting around the 1920s.
And please note that these figures should be taken with the proverbial,
"Grain of salt", as most of the time there is no reference
to how they come -- from -- to where they come from
and how they were populated.
But you can see on the green line it shows progress of deforestation
of Haiti, with about 60% of the land still covered in forest,
according to some sources in 1920, and only about 9% around 1955.
And going down to about 2% today.   And the red line shows the increase

in the Haitian population at the same time.
And shows that there's a strong inverse correlation with the growth
of population during that time.
If these figures are correct, and unless I discover some robust copies
of documents that undermine my conclusions so far, one can fairly,
reasonably argue that deforestation
and erosion were not a major problem during the time
of French colonization, except perhaps, in very specific places.
Nor was the problem seemingly single-handedly caused by the export
of timber during the 19th Century to pay for the infamous reparation
that France managed to extort from Haiti in 1825.
Some scholars have argued that this was responsible
for the deforestation of Haiti, because the country had
to repay most of its debt through selling mahogany
and other types of precious woods.
Researchers who have argued that the deforestation started during the
French colonial times, are of course right in the sense
that planters cleared a lot of land for sugar cane and other crops.
And particularly coffee from the 1770's onwards.
Which was, at the time, cultivated in open fields.
Now it's cultivated in the shade with lots of --
and requires lots of trees to grow.
And that was not the case at the time.
But these researchers made the mistake --
make the mistake, in my opinion,
of concluding that there was a general shortage of wood
from the fact that measures were enacted to protect native woods.
And that timber was importing
from the United States during the French Regime.
And there's plenty of various laws and references to [pause], you know,
measures to protect the forest in -- during the French Regime.
But that should not be conflated with an indication
that forests were widely already damaged
by the time of the French Regime.
It was small and the wood was difficult to access.
Researchers who have argued that the deforestation started during the
French Colonial Time -- sorry [chuckles] I already said that.
We should be careful so -- to look at when, for example,
there is large withdrawals of timber --
principally mahogany for export during the 19th Century.
These exports do not explain disimportation
from the United States, for example.
Either -- do not prove either that there was a shortage of wood,
and widespread shortage of wood,
except in limited places in the country.
So what can account for the stark deforestation
of Haiti in the 20th Century?
Now many interconnected factors that can only be sketched very briefly
in the limited time I have today.
But the main factor seems to originate
in trends set up after independence.
In this period, Haitians established what some scholars have labeled the
counter plantation system.
That is a system of subsistence agriculture erected by freed slaves
as a reaction to the plantation system that had compelled them
to work in inhuman conditions for so long.
Peasants occupied land for which they had often no official titles,
which they subdivided among their children.
This system, coupled with their rapid growth of the population,
led to more and more encroachments on forests and hills,
once the more fertile and flat lands were occupied.
The problem was compounded, and started to take
on dramatic proportions with the rapid increase
of the Haitian population during the 19th -- the 20th Century.
The US occupation of Haiti from 1915
to 1934 also exacerbation the problem.
The United States encouraged more clearings and exploitation
of Haitian forests, and programs for modernizing the Haitian economy,
also contributed indirectly to deforestation.
New roads, for example, facilitated access to remote places
that could then be cleared.
And medical programs, promoted by the US contributed
to a sharp rise in the population.
The Anti-superstition Promoted by the Catholic Church in 1941,
for example, also added to the problem.
In order to dissuade practices of Voodoo --
a religion practiced by a majority of Haitian.
So in order to dissuade them from worshipping the spirits living
in certain trees, the Church set out to chop
down a fair number of these trees.
Deforestation also accelerated after Hurricane Hazel.
A massive Hurricane that killed 5,000 people and left a quarter
of a million homeless in -- and that struck the island in 1954.
And much of the trees that were downed during
that episode were turned into charcoal in response
to Port-au-Princes' growing need for charcoal.
Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, the infamous dictator who ruled Haiti
from 1957 to 1971 can also be blamed for the burning down of vast tracks
of forest near the Dominican Republic border.
This is because you can simple fear opposition from rebels.
And he cleared the forest to, you know,
prevent them from using them as hiding place.
But to be fair to Duvalier, many people I interviewed
in Haiti also remember very clearly
that trees were protected during his dictatorship, and that of his son,
Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
Duvalier is also responsible for much of the growth of Port-au-Prince
by encouraging people to come and support him
through demonstrations in the capital.
And then to stay in the shanty towns he created.
This new population -- this new urban population contributed
to increased -- sharply the demand for charcoal.
Because in -- people in Haiti use charcoal mostly in cities.
In the countryside they mostly use wood directly.
The further acceleration of the process of deforestation took place
in the years that followed the fall of Duvalier.
Because all restrictions on the cutting of trees --
already badly enforced during the Duvalier Regime --
were lifted during the vacuum of power
that followed the departure of "Baby Doc" in 1986.
This period is sometimes referred to as the time of discourage
by partisan of Jean Bertrand Aristide,
the priest advocating liberation theology, rose to prominence during
that time, and later became President of Haiti.
[French Spoken] is a Haitian political slogan that came straight
out of Haiti's farm culture.
From the French [French Spoken] [inaudible] or fallen,
it was the word used to describe the violent movement
against the [French Spoken] -- the special police used by Duvalier --
so it was a word used to describe the violent movement
against [French Spoken] that followed Duvalier's downfall.
And more generally to describe the necessity
of ridding the country of Duvalierism.
But ironically, it also describes what happened
to many real trees during that period.
Though most were chopped and not literally uprooted,
the result was the same; fewer trees on the island.
The embargo of 1991/1994, and then the liberization of the economy
that followed, accompanied by sharp increase in the importation
of cheap rice from the US, all contributed
to further impoverish peasants.
And many farmers abandoned traditional crops such as rice,
which could not compete on the market with rice from Arkansas,
or food donated by the international community.
Population pressure -- especially urban --
and the lack of an alternative source of revenue means that a lot
of people have resorted
to charcoal-making as a source of revenue.
The inward looking economy -- which manifests itself by preference
of subsistence over export-oriented agriculture, and a suspicion
for foreign investment and foreign ownership of land also means
that Haitians are able to import enough fossil fuels
to fulfill their needs, and instead rely heavily on homemade charcoal.
This last factor is widely considered to be the main factor
in the large-scale deforestation that plagues the country.
It's now time to conclude.
What I've tried to establish in this talk is that Haitian deforestation
and erosion are more recent problems
than what previous scholars have argued before.
Which can be seen on this picture comparing two satellite images
of the sections
of the Haitian/Dominican border in 1973 and 2010.
And you can see on the --
I don't know if the laser pointer works again, but you can see
on this -- on this side of 1973, that --
that's Haiti and that's the Dominican Republic.
Now you can see it is far more forest rich
in 1973 than in 2010 [pause].
Deforestation is linked to population growth.
The system of land tenure, poor governance, and the unavailability
of fossil fuels for large sections of the population,
rather than the French Regime.
I'm not trying to exonerate France from its responsibilities here.
The French were responsible for the development
of a slave-based plantation system.
So we'll perceive that it set the country on a distinctive pattern.
Haitians experience in fear of slavery led to the rejection
of the plantation model and the development
of subsistence agriculture,
resulting in the disastrous clearings of Haitian hills.
These fears also led to the adoption
of a constitution forbidding foreigners to own land,
and invest in the country.
The inward-looking economy means Haitians rely heavily
on homemade charcoal, which results in large-scale deforestation.
There is unfortunately no time here
to discuss the full environmental long-term implications
of slave-based plantation system.
But for Haitians, deforestation really became an issue
in the 20th Century.   And unfortunately we've seen

that this deforestation is not a mere clich.
It has a firm basis in reality.
Even though, of course thankfully, Haiti is not a desert,
devoid of trees, as many people imagine
when they first land in Haiti.
And this is a slide showing that there are, indeed --
for those of you who might wonder --
there are indeed some trees in Haiti.
Are there any lessons that we can learn
from this story of deforestation then?
I'm probably too idealistic and I still
like maybe the professional detachment that many
of my colleagues exhibit, but I believe in the use
of good stories with a moral.
And I still want to believe that history can be useful and serve
to illuminate the future and guide our actions today.
So should we discard Haiti as a mistaken, cautionary tale?
Yes we should stop using Haiti as a cautionary tale
if we think Haiti is a special case that can happen
to no other people on earth.
And certainly not to us in the western world.
Just in case you think what happened to Haiti cannot happen
in developed countries, don't be too sure.
There are many reports in Greece today that shows how,
as fossil fuels have become too expensive for many,
a lot of people resort to burning trees.
A similar phenomenon arose in much
of Europe during the second World War, when access to fuel for heating
or cooking became either too expensive or unavailable.
Many European countries only managed to avoid complete deforestation
by switching to fossil fuels in the 18th and 19th Centuries
which coincide historically was the lowest extent of forests
in countries such as France.
And yes, we should discount Haiti as a convenient, cautionary tale,
and stop using this clich to blame Haitians
for the environmental degradation in their country.
We should not ignore the responsibility of the US, France,
and other western countries in the process
of environmental degradation.
I am using the term degradation cautiously here,
because I believe it is warranted in the sense that this type
of deforestation and erosion is, in the words of John McNeil,
the type -- I quote -- "A type of environmental change that is bad
for virtually all forms of life."
But Haiti's history of deforestation can be useful as a cautionary tale
for us if we realize that what has happened
to Haiti could happen to us.
And that we are not sheltered from the kind of degradation
that plagues Haiti today, and that Haiti perhaps is a sign
of what is to come.
If we use this cautionary tale in a slightly different way,
Haiti can still teach us a few important lessons.
Such as the problems associated with failed states.
At least for the environment, the [inaudible] who stay in a dense --
in a highly, densely populated country seems to be worse
for the environment than even a [inaudible] state
like the Duvalier Regime.
Haiti's environmental history can remind us of the danger
of vicious circles and negative feedback processes.
And of the benefits offered by international trade
and the economic fury of comparative advantage.
In the sense that buying local
and being self reliant does not only have advantages.
But to me, the history of Haiti's deforestation
and the negative geographic picture in particular,
powerfully illustrates what happens to a country
that has a growing population and finite amount of land,
on the one hand, and that lacks access to fossil fuels
and other forms of energy on the other.
Al Gore was right, in my opinion, to include this picture
in his movie about climate change.
But he should not have used this picture primarily
as an illustration of bad governance.
Rather, this picture could have served to highlight what people have
to resort to -- that is to cut down trees,
and disquietly saw off the branch they're sitting
on when they lack access to other forms of energy.
This would be one more way of conveying the message
that we should carefully manage our finite energy resources,
including fossil fuels, and stop squandering them.
A message that would nicely compliment Al Gore's [inaudible]
recommendation to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases.
For Haitians themselves, however, one can only hope
that the situation will soon improve
and that they will soon stop being used
as a cautionary tale, or for whatever purpose.
One can only wish that the forest will grow again,
and that's to paraphrase the famous leader of the revolution,
Toussaint Louverture, the trees of liberty --
he was talking in a metaphorical way -- the trees of liberty will spring
up from the roots, for they are many and they are deep.
Thank you very much for your attention.
[ Applause ]
>> Carolyn Brown: Do you have time for a few questions?
>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: Sure [pause].
Yes please [chuckles].   [ Off Mic Question ]

>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: Well yes.
The problem has been used by Jared Diamond as well, there's a chapter,
I think in his book, "National Comparison in History" --
is that the correct title?
He's written a book after collapse --
no sorry, I think the correct title is, "Natural Experiment in History".
And there is a chapter comparing the two Koreas in this.
And Lester Brown that I quoted in my talk also contrast the two south
and north, the countries.
So actually I don't -- it's a good point.
I should try to look further into what's the situation as regards
to access to fossil fuels in North Korea.
That's a very good point.
I don't know much about it, but that's a good point to research.
Please?   [ Off Mic Question ]

>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: Mm-hmm.
Well yes. Thank you very much for your question.
The problem is there are no quantitative data available
to historians to plot the deforestation of Haiti.
There's no geologist or no forester went to Haiti during, you know,
the 18th Century to measure exactly what was the forest cover.
You see often in lots of publications,
but I've never been able to really find
out how this figure was calculated, that at the time
of Christopher Columbus, about 80% of country was covered with forest.
So the only thing I've been relying on for this talk, is you know,
mentions of problems linked to either deforestation or erosion.
You can often -- if you don't hear directly about erosion
in the documents, you can learn about erosions, for example,
if colonists mention muddy waters, for example.
You know, certainly that some rivers become very muddy.
That's usually a sign that there is some erosion taking place.
So I'm looking at the French colonial sources for some evidence
of this, but I mentioned, there's plenty of, you know --
and I really didn't talk at all
about the French colonial period during this talk
because it was just too big and I, you know,
because of the public I was expecting here, I focused on --
mostly on the 20th Century.
But from the evidence I've been able to see, it seems that there are,
indeed some spots, you know, where colonists would say, you know,
this place it's hard to get wood.   So we have to import it from the US.

Or they also say, you know,
that some measures are taken to protect the forest.
But as I said, it's not -- everybody's jumped on these,
you know, sentences gleaned here and there to jump to the conclusion
that there was some problems of deforestation at the time.
But to me it's inconclusive.
The fact that there was some measures to protect the forest seems
to me to reflect more a general concern for the preservation
of forest in, you know, France -- which was the mother country,
you know, the what do you say?   Homelands?

Of the -- [background comments] -- the [inaudible], thank you --
>> Colonial power?   >> Jean-Francois Mouhot: Yes.

The colonial power of Saint Domingue at that time.
And that's when, you know, I don't find this conclusive,
so I'm still looking for evidence.
I'm still pretty much into this research.
So I -- you know, what I've presented here is very tentative
and there's lots of caveats that I didn't take much time to explain.
But this is the gist of -- I don't know if I've answered your question.
Sorry, I've [chuckles] -- okay.   I thin you were first.

>> I'd like to thank you for your presentation.
I do think that [inaudible].   >> Jean-Francois Mouhot: [Chuckles].

>> [Chuckles] But I also think that -- I would also like to let you know
as a Haitian -- Haitian/American -- that we don't like [inaudible].
We know that there are [inaudible].
And so when we talk about the history of Haiti we don't
like to start by [inaudible] and they were enslaved Africans.
So just a point of clarification [inaudible]
from our perspective, that's important to us.
In terms of the history, I know that you sort of --
it's a big, big subject and maybe perhaps [inaudible].
And I did you hear you mention too many Haitians [inaudible].
And I think that perhaps you should have done --
relied a bit more on Haitians [inaudible]
or you could definitely mention [inaudible] which sort
of caused a lot of devastation in the local communities [inaudible].
It wasn't just the vacuum that [inaudible], but the policies
that [inaudible] the government which [inaudible]
which were the bank of the peasants --
>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: Mm-hmm.   >> -- and it devastated the economy.

And basically forced them to cut trees and [inaudible].
The other issue that you mentioned,
but really in passing was the structural [inaudible] changed
drastically [inaudible] discouraging cultivation.
But not only discouraging cultivation,
but [inaudible] communities.   I would have also -- [inaudible] --

I would have also liked to hear about the US government's campaign
to [inaudible] millions of dollars [inaudible].
Of course they won't talk about it [inaudible],
and so we don't [inaudible].
But so, you know, I thank you again because this is a great opportunity
to talk about the issue from that, you know, historical perspective.
But I think that [inaudible] --
I mean I think that talking to [inaudible] she's the head
of this [inaudible], she has incredible --
an incredible Navy perspective [inaudible].
And internal issues in terms of the [inaudible],
the tension between government [inaudible]
and non-government [inaudible].
And how most of the lands are deforested [inaudible] an incredible
source of information for you to give it a little more depth in terms
of the Haitian perspective.   Thank you.

>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: [Chuckles] thank you very much
for your comments.   Yes. I, you know, I only managed

to briefly sketch very quickly, some of the issues.
And obviously I did look them further.
The issue of the pig eradication, actually I had it in my talk,
but I decided to take it out, because just for time constraints.
But I talked a lot about this -- the Pig Eradication Campaign,
caused the US willingness to eradicate the Swine Flu
in the 1980s, at great length with lots of people in Haiti.
And I know it's a very important factor,
and connected with deforestation in many ways.
But yeah. Thank you for your comments.
And I would love to take the name of -- after the talk if --
the name of this person that you mentioned that I don't know.
Thank you.   So I don't know who was next?

>> Carolyn Brown: One last question.   We're a little over time.

>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: [Chuckles].
>> [Inaudible], was charcoal used in the Dominican Republic?
>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: It was used, but it's use --
it's production has been completely forbidden by, you know,
various regimes during the 20th Century.
You know, because they, you know, remarked on the damage
that it was making to the forest.
But there's lots of contraband between the two sides of the border.
Because most of the charcoal is made by Haitian and exported
to the -- there's exported --   >> So it's exported to --

>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: -- yeah.
Yeah. But they often cross the boarder to make the charcoal
in the Dominican Republic.
And then, you know, say it's through Dominicans.
Because it's a very low paid job.   A very degrading job.

And something that very few people want to do that.
It pays very little [off mic comment] Well, but sorry,
I did mention in the talk I think
that the Dominican Republic imports a lot of propane
and butane to replace the charcoal.   This is what the major difference.

And in fact if you hear -- you know, a lot of Dominicans are --
you know, there's a lot of tension --
it's eased a little bit in the last few years, but there were lots
of tensions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
And one of the issue is encroachment by Haitians on the Dominican side.
But one of the main measure that the Dominican Republic wanted the
Haitian government to take was to import more, you know, propane
and natural gas for use in cooking.   So, but there are various obstacles.

You know, I've read lots of reports about the --
why is it difficult for Haiti to switch to, you know,
cooking gas rather than [background comment] [pause] --
>> Carolyn Brown: I think we really are over time,
but if you'd like to continue informal conversations
with our speaker, please do.   Thank you for coming [applause].

>> Jean-Francois Mouhot: Thank you for your attention.

[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at LOC.gov.   [ Silence ]