23235: Simidor Re 23226: Severe's Reply (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Daniel Simidor <karioka9@mail.arczip.com>


Thank you, Constantin Severe, for your thoughtful and thought out response -- maybe a dialog is still possible on this list.

I don’t recall the “colibri” thread; I’m generally so unaware of environmental issues, I tend to read avidly anything that’s posted on the subject without piping a single word.  I’m speaking out now mainly out of a sense of desperation.

Charcoal is a dead-end drug we can no longer indulge in -- unless of course we can productively mine it, or manufacture it from recyclables.  There are coalmines in the Northeast, in the Limonade or Marmelade region, and enough cow dung waiting to be pressed into charbon-looking nuggets. And quite frankly, even if processing that stuff is not commercially profitable in the short term, it pays to subsidize it if only to lessen the pressure on the country’s few remaining trees.  We have to STOP cutting down trees, even if it means shooting a few tree vandals dead to get the rest of the country’s attention.  The government can profitably pay a few hundred gourdes to peasants to plant seedlings instead of cutting down trees.

I’ve been to other Caribbean islands where the urban poor accommodate themselves with those inconvenient propane tanks, not because they have no trees to cut down, but because it is socially the thing to do to trudge down to town for a refill.  Haitians too can adjust with the right incentives.  If our “petits blancs” friends, en mal d’exotisme, are so attached to tree-based charcoal, let them buy packets of it duty-free on their way out of the country.  The rest of the country badly needs to upgrade in terms of domestic combustion.

You are probably right about places like Mapou as inappropriate for human settlement, because they are so “prone to flooding.”  (It is probably too late to reclaim the Cul de Sac or Maribahoux plains for what they used to be before the recent Lavalas upsurge.)  But let’s not write off every mount and valley.  I recall a recent thread on the Corbett list where someone made the proposition that we shouldn’t allow a single drop of water from our precious rivers and ponds to reach the ocean, that we should divert all of it into reservoirs, irrigation canals and urban usage.  This way, even if the soil is not ready to absorb all the excess water pouring down the mountains during the hurricane season, there would be some mechanisms available to lessen the pressure on our towns and villages.

Lastly, I am not as convinced as you are that the Latortue government is not susceptible to pressure.  I happen to think that this is one area where the interim government can perform, especially if it is engaged constructively.

Daniel Simidor