Haiti’s Forests: What the Numbers Miss

The statistic you hear most often about Haiti’s forests is that less than one percent of primary forest remains. That number is accurate and it matters. But it has become a shorthand for something more damaging, the idea that Haiti is ecologically finished, that the land is beyond recovery.

That is not what we see in Cap Rouge.

What the one percent figure leaves out is secondary forests, the regenerated landscapes that have grown back in areas that were previously cleared. These forests are younger and less complex than primary growth, but they are alive. Species are returning. Canopy is forming. The soil beneath them is recovering.

Reforestation is not just a response to what has been lost. It is a bet on what is still possible. When we plant native and productive trees, we are not recreating what existed before in exact form. We are building something new that serves the land and the people who depend on it now, while creating conditions for biodiversity to return over time.

We have watched it happen on our own properties. Bees that were not there before. Birds that show up once canopy starts to form. Soil that holds moisture through dry months that used to bake it out completely.

The story of Haiti’s land is not finished. It is mid-sentence. And the direction it goes depends on what gets planted, and by whom, in the next decade.