In the wake of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that on Jan. 12 flattened Port-au-Prince, killing 150,000 people, international agencies have faced a colossal challenge tending to the injured and burying the dead. But an even more daunting long-term task awaits them—to engineer a sustained recovery for a prostrate nation of 10 million now burdened with over one million homeless and cursed with some of the world’s worst environmental degradation. Haiti’s two mountain chains have been stripped of almost all their forests. Once lush highlands have been reduced by logging and charcoal production to loose brown soil and craggy rock, and the denuded slopes can turn deadly. Heavy rains have unleashed floods and landslides that in the last four years alone have... [Log in to read more]
