Haiti: an economy from another world

We may be wondering how the UK economy is going to recover from recession, but at least we're not wondering how we're going to recover from an earthquake.
Hard though it is to believe, there was a time when Haiti was a thriving economy which dominated the Dominican Republic, its neighbour on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
How it descended to a level of poverty that has left it unable to cope with the aftermath of an earthquake is a salutary tale about the fragile relationship between population, economy and especially environment.
Haiti's 18th and 19th century wealth came from plantations farmed by huge numbers of African slaves shipped in by the country's French masters.
When the French left, their legacy was an over-populated country whose mainly creole-speaking people had few cultural ties to the world immediately around them and a a slave heritage that encouraged an understandable antipathy towards outsiders.
Unstable governments and long-running dictatorship (the consequence of having been a European colony) allowed the country's abundant forests to be stripped bare for fuel and lumber, leaving productive topsoils to be eroded by wind and water, while failing to invest in home-grown industries of note.
Just how extensive the deforestation of Haiti has been becomes obvious when you zoom in on Google Earth.
The result is that Haiti has been reduced to a barren landscape of subsistence farming, of weak government, of creaking infrastructure, and of no resources of any interest to the rich outside world.
You'll have seen from some front pages that the outside world's only real experience of Haiti is glimpsed from cruise liners. The capital, Port-au-Prince, did have a screen credit in the last James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, but the scenes were actually filmed in the safer surroundings of Panama. Those with longer memories may also recall the cultural caricature that appeared in an Alan Whicker TV documentary about Dr Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, Haiti's murderous 'President for Life'.
Infamously corrupt, both Papa Doc and his son Jean-Claude accelerated a social and economic disaster that had already been gathering pace for decades. Yet on the other side of the island industry and export has grown in the Dominican Republic, a state which has also protected its forest reserves.
The disastrous deforestation of Haiti isn't the only cause of its desperate predicament.
Neither is it the only example in history of the abuse and mismanagement of a natural resource contributing to a society's downfall.
Or, potentially, the last.

• Planting trees won't help Haiti deal with the immediate human tragedy. If you want to help, follow this link to the Disasters Emergency Committee.