The ecosystem of the “Parc National La Visite" faces an everlasting pressure coming from human activities.
These human activities started in the forest under Louis Borno's government in 1930, with the migration of the first families who resided there in the hope of finding a refuge to avoid the lawfulness of their rural area. This is how a bunch of thugs and thieves settled progressively thus taking advantage of the dense forest to hide themselves. At that time, even five people couldn't extend
their arms together to surround some enormous trees.
During the 1940s, a Haitian-American Company for Agricultural Development (SHADA) was created and installed their first saw-mills. Years later, that company disappeared. As a result, a wild and illegal exploitation of the forest began with the complicity of the governments in place which would provide plots of land to their beloved ones. Furthermore, the ecological degradation intensified with the migration of many farmers coming from the neighboring regions. Their goal was to take advantage of the newly distorted lands provided by the governments.
In 1982, the saw-mills were officially closed. In 1983, a presidential enactment announced the creation of the “Parc National La Visite.” At that time 88 families were living in or nearby the forest. They agreed with the help of the government in place to be relocated immediately. Unfortunately, this project has been violated and the illegal exploitation of the forest has never stopped.
The results of the latest studies of our declining environment, as well as those revealed in reports from the previous years, should convince the authorities to ring the bell and take action.
In fact, a simple visit inside the Park and its surrounding allows us to determine that it would be redundant to say that we are cutting down the branch on which we sit. And it's been a while that the branch has been distorted, as well as the tree that holds it… What would it be for the remaining of the forest?
Again, if nothing is done, the Parc National La Visite and the extraordinary potential it bares, will be nothing than a souvenir.Today, more than 600 families reside in the forest essentially relying on agriculture and wood exploitation to survive with. The lack of supervision of the state authorities, the destruction of many trees on one side, fire-raisings on the other side, offer a very bad image to the park. According to Winnie Attié, co-founder of the Seguin Fundation a not-for-profit organization in Jacmel dedicated to protect the forest, the park is distorted daily by individuals who cut down trees as it was their own property. Worst of all, many trucks loaded with tons of boards leave the area to go towards the shopping center of Port-au-Prince by the seaside.
Since many decades, the “Parc National La Visite,” classified as a protected forest reserve since 1983, has been facing constant pressure from human activities throughout the region. The causes are almost the same experienced by other underdeveloped countries: the need of a source of income through wood exploitation and the farming of the deforested lands.
