Sustainability and space in Haiti

Environmental degradation reaches every region in Haiti. Rooted in the country's legacy of social and political upheaval, and accentuated by dire poverty, rapid population growth, inadequate agricultural practices and political instability, the pace of environmental degradation defies the efforts of national and international development agencies' Rural to urban migration prompted by abject poverty further contributes to the sprawl of urban slums on inappropriate land areas'.The critical question in this context is - can anything be done to revert this apparently-irrevocable slide to population pressure, increasing poverty and environmental degradation? Prospects appear to be bleak'The starting point for this discussion has to be recognition of the need to promote economic growth in Haiti. Family planning programs are essential in order to help people meet their desired family size and reduce the pressure of population growth; nevertheless, without sustained economic growth, such programs will ultimately fall short of stabilizing population growth and, moreover, will perpetually depend on external aid' The key question is thus - how and where to promote economic growth? '''. This effort at jump-starting the economy has to be carried out jointly with attempts to rationalize the use of space and to protect the environment. It is currently unfashionable to link economic planning to spatial planning nor to environmental planning. Nevertheless, promoting a favorable economic environment inherently implies modifying both the spatial distribution of activities and population as well as the physical environment. The manipulation of public investments in infrastructure and services, the extension of credit, fiscal policies and the manipulation of other fiscal instruments by the State -- all have a direct impact on the spatial location of economic activity as well as on environmental outcomes. Consequently, it is essential that a proactive forward-looking stance towards the sustainable utilization of space be promoted at this juncture'. At the same time, patterns of demographic concentration will have to be reviewed for their social, economic and environmental implications.