In this Worldfocus signature story, we take another look at the drastic consequences of climate change. The Maldives, an island chain off the southwest coast of India, find themselves being consumed by rising sea levels. The Maldives has set the goal of being the world’s first carbon-neutral country by the end of this decade.
The Mekong, one of the world’s major rivers, starting in Tibet and flowing through south China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, provides sustenance through irrigation and fishing to those living in its basin. But it also provides hydroelectric power through dams, three of which were built in China and with more planned. And it is precisely these dams that are now threatening the water supply, the livelihood of those living downstream, and the relations between China and its southern neighbors.
Thailand’s government is now attempting to deal with record-low water levels in the Mekong, a river which supports the livelihoods of about 60 million people in Southeast Asia. Many along the river blame the problem on China, which has planned eight hydroelectric dams on the upper Mekong, four of which have already been built.
In 1986, China began to build eight hydroelectric dams and two reservoirs on the waterway in Yunnan province, where the Lancang tributary traverses more than 1,000 kilometres.
The first dam at Manwan, was finished in June 1995. The second, at Dachaoshan, began in August 1997 and will be completed in 2003. The 2.7 billion U.S. dollar Xiaowan project, with a total installed generating capacity of 4.2 million kilowatts, is scheduled to be completed in 2012.
Xiaowan should further affect the level of fish stocks in Cambodia and water supply for Vietnam’s rice fields. But China contends controlling the water flow will prevent the adverse effects of erosion caused by the Mekong’s flooding cycle and will supply renewable energy. Winning the debate or coming to a workable compromise is further complicated by China’s refusal to join the Mekong River Commission, an inter-government agency whose members include the four of the downstream countries. And though the global financial crisis has put on hold other dams being planned by the downstream countries, China is moving ahead with its plans.
A new study has concluded that a volcanic eruption of mud in Indonesia’s east Java was caused by human error in a mining operation. An international team of scientists says there is no doubt that drilling at a nearby gas well weakened rock formations, triggering the crisis.
The company responsible for the drilling, Lapindo Brantas, claims the problem was caused by an earthquake. Lapindo Brantas, however, continues to shun its responsibility.
Al Jazeera’s 101 East looks at the basics of carbon trading and its possible impact on SE Asia’s vanishing tropical forests.
The Asháninka live along the Ene River in a remote area of Péru near the Brazilian border. Recently, a joint Peruvian-Brazilian development treaty has begun to threaten the lives of tribal people in the area.
This documentary looks at the efforts of the Asháninka to protect their lands against encroachment and plans by the Peruvian government to build a dam that would destroy their livelihoods and culture.
Political leaders, NGOs and scientific elites from the nine Baltic countries are meeting in Helsinki to take part in a Baltic Sea Action Summit on cleaning up one of the world’s most polluted and poisonous seas.
The sea was used to dump thousands of World War Two planes, chemical weapons, agricultural runoff, untreated waste and even dead bodies.
The World Water Forum says all the Baltic states “are sinners” for dumping over the years tons of sewage and agricultural waste into the sea. As a result, large areas of the body of water are suffering from eutrophication or lack of oxygen.
The Baltic is considered one of the most polluted waterways in the world. The Baltic Sea Action Summit brought together the nine nations who share the coastline, and was chaired by the Finnish President Tarja Halonen.
She said: “Today some of the richest and most environmentally-conscious countries on earth live on the shore of one of the world’s most polluted seas. What a tragedy. It is clear that something has to be done and quickly.”
The Lithuanian President, Dalia Grybauskaite, agreed: “Today we are also facing a historic international challenge, which I would like to point to as as the issue of chemical and conventional weapons dumped into the Baltic Sea.”
Almost enclosed, very shallow, and fed by numerous rivers, the Baltic is a vulnerable sea.
Ninety million people live around its shores, many of them depending on the sea in some way or other for their livelihoods, but waste from industry, agriculture and daily life ends up in the sea.
One of the biggest resulting dangers is too much algae. Excess growth of it robs the water of oxygen suffocating other species.
Juuka Jormola, a scientist from the Finnish Environment Institute, said: “It is caused by nutrients, too many nutrients in the water, like nitrogen and phosphorus. And some of these algae are poisonous and dangerous for children who want to swim, and these algae also appear in other lakes and also in the Baltic Sea.”
In St Petersburg, a huge new water treatment station was inaugurated in 2005 – thanks in part to a 10 million euro contribution from Finland.
It is a start towards achieving the Helsinki Commission’s aim of restoring the Baltic’s “good ecological status” by 2012.
The Dead Sea in Jordan is shrinking at an alarming rate – a development that has led to the creation of some 3,000 sinkholes along the sea’s coasts. Time was when the River Jordan hurled one billion cubic metres of water a year into the sea. The figure now is 10% of that.
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians – everyone wants a bit of Jordan water – and by the time the river reaches its end, there is almost none left. At its mouth, two strides with rolled up trousers can take you from Israel across the river border into Jordan.
The sea has shrunk by a third since the 1960s when its major water source – the River Jordan – was diverted for upstream projects in Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
But for many people, the projects have backfired and the farmers who work near the sea say the once verdant and fertile land has become increasingly barren.
Peter Sinclair’s weekly edition of Climate Denial: Crock of the Week tackles the latest round of nonsense from the climate denialists who point to cold snaps in parts of North America and most of Europe as evidence that the global warming is based on fraudulent science.
Previous entries in the series can be seen here.
From the New York Times comes this short video on the environmental problems that Haiti confronted even before the January 12, 2010 earthquake hit. Brent and Craig Renaud traveled to report country’s deforestation problems just weeks before the deadly earthquake.
The film is produced by Brent Renaud, Craig Renaud, and Jane Bornemeier.
Bay kou bliye pote mak sonje He who strikes the blow forgets; he who bears the bruises remembers. — Haitian Proverb
Reporter Aidan Hartley presents a snapshot of life on the Caribbean island of Haiti as part of the Unreported World series. Described as existing in a permanent state of emergency, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and an extreme example of the dilemma of aid dependency, with a quarter of the population reliant on food handouts.
Hurricanes cause such devastation that any recovery between the storms and floods seems both difficult and futile. Charcoal production has led to deforestation and erosion, leaving the exposed, rocky landscape looking like a graveyard. The land can’t sustain the population and US rice imports are half the price of home-grown. Haiti was forced to liberalize its agricultural regime in 1990 and that move devastated the rural economy.
The libertarian economist Tyler Cowen who blogs at Marginal Revolution asks why is Haiti so poor and posits a few hypotheses:
1. Haiti cut its colonial ties too early, rebelling against the French in the early 19th century and achieving complete independence. Guadaloupe and Martinique are still riding the gravy train and French aid is a huge chunk of their gdps.
2. Haiti was a French colony in the first place and French colonies do less well.
3. Sugar cane gave Haiti some early characteristics of “the resource curse,” dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries.
4. Haiti was doing OK until the Duvaliers destroyed civil society, thus putting the country on a path toward destruction. It is a more or less random one-time event which wrecked the place.
5. Hegel was correct that the “voodoo religion,” with its intransitive power relations among the gods, was prone to producing political intransitivity as well. (Isn’t that a startling insight for a guy who didn’t travel the broader world much?)
6. For reasons peculiar to the history of the slave trade, Haitian slaves came from many different parts of Africa and thus Haitian internal culture has long had lower levels of cohesion and cooperation. (The former point about the mix is true, but the cultural point is speculation.)
7. Haiti has higher than average levels of polygamy (but is this cause or effect?)
8. In the early to mid twentieth century, Haiti was poorly situated to attract Chinese and other immigrants, unlike say Jamaica or Trinidad. It is interesting that many of the wealthiest families in Haiti are Lebanese, such as the Naders.
I think many of these theses are plausible explanations for the enduring poverty of Haiti though not surprisingly he leaves out one of the more recent ones – the failure of free markets – and a more traditional one – an enduring racism that has pervaded the world’s relationship with the world’s first black republic.
From a Slave Society to a Black Republic
The sugar slave society in Santo Domingue was particulary brutal compared to other slave societies. They were higher rates of mortality compared to other slave plantation society and society developed along highly stratified lines.
The Haitian revolt was also particularly bloody. Les blans, the mostly French plantation owners, were largely massacred over the course of a very violent war of independence that also destroyed the economic base of the country. Haiti’s slave population was also hit hard. About of fifth of the population of half a million black slaves died during the course of the revolt. The Haitian revolt, the only successful slave revolt in world history, wasn’t just a political revolution but a social one. Its success threatened to upset established social orders across the breadth of the world.
The American and Latin American revolutions were far different in character and less far-reaching in consequences. Take suffrage, in the US even by 1830 male suffrage still differed from state to state and was far from universal. In Latin America only Colombia and Uruguay broadened their suffrage measurably in the 19th century. In Haiti, in part due to the French Revolution, Haiti adopted universal suffrage though in the post independence period the country descended into civil war. By 1807, the country had split in two. Haiti was born in blood and that character remained well into the post-independent period. A mostly dark-skinned north and a mostly mulatto south. That pattern still exists today. The north of the country is more like Africa than Latin America.
An Country Long Ignored & A Sabine Rape
Haiti after independence was isolated. No one wanted to recognize a black republic whose freedom was the product of a slave revolt. In the 1820s, South Carolina Senator Robert V. Hayne made the US position absolutely clear when he stated: “Our policy with regard to Haiti is plain. We never can acknowledge her independence.” The United States finally recognized Haiti in 1862 when the South no longer held sway of the direction of US foreign policy.
France recognize Haiti in 1825 but only after Haiti agreed to pay reparations of some 150 million francs. It bankrupted the country though in 1838 the amount was reduced. Still Haiti spent the next 109 years paying off that indemnity. The final installment was paid in 1947. All told Haiti spent 122 years paying off a debt for its freedom. Trade was negligible. France had other colonies from which to import sugar, coffee and bananas – the main Haitian exports. The country was effectively cut off from world trade well into the 19th century. Haitian ships were barred by law from calling on American ports. You can thank Thomas Jefferson for that. Racism cannot be discounted as a cause. Haiti was the first black republic and the product of a slave revolt.
Political instability
Only one president in the 19th century finished his term. Three died in violent coups – a rarity in Latin American, elsewhere coups were generally the bloodless kind. The army played a greater role in Haiti’s political life than elsewhere in Latin America. One governed on the power of a militia. The first President Dessalines declared himself emperor in 1806.
Polygamy & Culture
Haiti isn’t really polygamous like say the Mormons or Africans back in the Sahel. Few Haitians can afford one wife let alone multiple ones. Common law marriages are the most common. But Haitian cultural practices in the countryside did have polygamous aspects. There is a strong preference for male children. If a woman only bore girls, the male would sire with other women to produce a male. While polygamy has faded in practice over time, the preference for male children has not. This has lead to a population explosion. The country is the second most densely populated in the Americas after El Salvador. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are almost identical in size population wise (the DR has 9.5 while Haiti has 9.0 million) but Haiti has been growing faster. Thirty-eight percent of Haitians under the age 14 compared to just thirty percent of Dominicans.
Poor governance
Another big culprit of Haiti’s poor performance in the 20th century is the poor governance. Both the DR and Haiti have had brutal dictatorships. But Duvaliers were kleptocracy while Balaguer was more enlightened. No where did policy make a difference more than in the approach to the environment. Balaguer created national parks and preserved the watershed. So today, the DR is forested while Haiti is an ecological disaster. In 1925, sixty percent of Haiti was covered by forest, today only 1.5 percent is. While the DR developed a rural infrastructure (roads and electricity), Haiti did not. Electricity in Haiti is basically found in Port au Prince. At least 75 percent of the population is dependent on charcoal for cooking. That has spelled disaster ecologically.
In the post Duvalier era, the corruption from the drug trade has played an increasing role in Haiti’s political life. Corruption is not amendable to progress.
Size and Composition of Elites
Very small in Haiti compared to the rest of Latin America. And very racially stratified. The light-skinned mulattos and the small immigrant population, largely Lebanese, have controlled both politics and the economy.
Free Trade & Neoliberalism
Haiti’s local agriculture has been destroyed by an American-imposed free trade liberalization regime. Haitian farmers simply cannot compete with American produced agricultural products. Haiti would be better served to protect its domestic agricultural market and restrict foreign imports. If you want to talk about free market failure, Haiti is a case in point. Here’s a brief overview of the Haitian rice market:
Haitian rice which is most likely of West African origin has been cultivated in Haiti for over 200 years. Rice is the staple food of Haiti and up until the 1980s Haiti was self-sufficient in its production. In the mid-1980s Haiti’s domestic rice production decreased rapidly. By the 1990s rice imports outpaced domestic rice production. This displaced many Haitian farmers, traders, and millers whose employment opportunities are extremely limited. Two factors are identified as being the most significant causes for the decline in Haitian rice production: the adoption of trade liberalization policies and environmental degradation.The trade liberalization policies at their center have involved the lowering Haiti’s lowest tariffs on rice imports. Currently the rice import tariff is 3%, which is much lower than rice import tariffs of all other nations in the Caribbean Community. The Haitian market is now flooded with US rice imports (“Miami rice”) and some have accused the US of dumping its rice in Haiti. The impact of the decline of rice production in Haiti has been devastating to its rural population which is already desperately poor.
Haiti’s problems are vast but to pin them on Haiti is to miss the point entirely.