The joint position of several ecological organizations on the occasion of June 5, 2024, World Environment Day
This document was accessed by AlterPresse on June 4, 2024
We, together with ecological organizations that defend the right to live in a holy environment in Haiti, we regret the act of burglary in the Citadèl, San Sousi and Ramye Parks where individuals cannot be identified and shot several cannons at the Citadèl Laférière which is the largest monument. history for Haiti and the Caribbean region.
It is an additional evidence that shows once again that the historical sites and natural landscapes such as the Forest of Dépin, Lavisit Park, Makaya Park have no monitoring and management measures, and are exposed to all damages such as theft, burglary, fire etc.
At the moment we are talking, the population of the commune of Tomazo is eating the dead fish found in the lake. This represents a great threat to the health of the people in the area because they do not know what causes the fish to die by piles and not together
This is what has pushed us, for many years, together with these ecological organizations, to demand that the country have another environmental governance to be able to save protected areas that include natural and historical heritage that are on the verge of disappearing because of the neglected state and even abandoned a set of sites and natural landscapes such as Pichon waterfall, Sò Matrin in the country that is really important.
WHAT DO WE DO?
From October 2023 to June 2024, we have made several visits to the Southern department to provide an overview of the environmental situation in the South of the country, which has a lot of environmental infrastructure.
We noticed many gasoline pumps and vetiver factories all over the city of Okay, which causes air pollution in various areas of the city and people are exposed to respiratory diseases, lung and liver cancer.
We noticed that all the Germoplas Centers were destroyed, like the Levi we visited which cost the state about 2 million dollars. In our visit, we found that the biodiversity project funded by the Ministry of Environment, UNDP, Heifer and FEM has to intervene in it.
The delegation also made it to the South-East department where we noticed the Lavisit Park, it’s called the house of mackerel, the park is delivered with it, there are no monitoring measures. Despite many efforts to raise awareness, FADECOV never stopped. Their knowledge of flooding, land degradation and lack of access to water is extremely important.
Although Haiti has many laws and has signed a number of conventions to protect forests, coastal areas, the natural sites that provide drinking water, water for use, water for gardening and breeding, continue to decrease. The country is on the verge of an unprecedented catastrophe.
In Port-au-Prince, the delegation visited Mòn Lopital, the site of fifteen (15) sources that supply Port-au-Prince with drinking water, which were declared public utilities in 1991. The situation is sad, many of these sources are polluted, many others are dry because of human construction. arebord in mon kanpeve, in boudo jivena doko, pipe intersection fey etc.
This increases the risk for the metropolitan region of Port-au-Prince to experience an unprecedented shortage of potable water and increases the risk of flooding throughout the metropolitan area due to the construction of the entire Hospital Mountain.
If we let the construction continue in Mòn Lopital, we risk losing Port-au-Prince to flooding. Throughout the country, people are building everywhere on mountain tops, in the plains, on the coasts without control under the eyes of the state, which creates great environmental insecurity that endangers people’s lives and property.
At the difficult crossroads, the country has reached the point where we must relaunch, rethink Haiti in all areas.
OUR RECOMMENDATION
We ask for environmental issues to be on the political table this time with a view to:
Provide Haiti with a public policy in the field of environment;
Put in proper development programs on all territories to prevent people from building in risk areas such as along rivers, on top of mountains, and in areas for farming and breeding;
Promote clean energy. Example: There is a good program to install batteries and solar panels in order to remove more than 7 million Haitians from darkness. Haiti is the only country where batteries and solar panels are sold at high prices, while in other countries, they are subsidized because every citizen must have energy at home according to ODD 7.
CLOSE THE MESS
There must be a hand pass made in MDE. Today the Ministry of Environment has about 20 projects totaling more than a billion dollars while the streets, the streams have turned into garbage dumps, the protected areas, the forests, the water sources are completely degraded. The Ministry of Environment must stop under the hands of a bunch of clumsy politicians to put the money for the beauty minister while the environment is ending.
On the other hand, we ask to get a good report on the biodiversity fund that has more than 5 camps that have more than 50 million green dollars while the natural sites are bare, no money, no material.
The chaos must end, the citizens must stop living on garbage in the dark while there are many millions and billions stirring in the environmental sector.
APPEL
We ask the Presidential Council and Prime Minister Gary Konille to take responsibility for correcting the chaos in the environmental sector in Haiti.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?
Other handles of our work are:
1. We are working to launch the national environmental governance symposium in Haiti;
2. We will work to launch diagnostics on all protected spaces in the country in order to evaluate their current state and what must be done to improve them;
3. Continue to investigate all the projects the Ministry of Environment is doing with its partners such as PNUD, FEM, GCF, Heifer. In the coming days, we are going to the North of the country to look at a project that will be realized in the Three Rivers region that was blessed at the climate conference.
WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST ALL CLIMATE CIDE PROJECTS IN THE COUNTRY.
Photo: Dorléan Ring
