Abandoned Haitians turn fruit trees into charcoal in wake of hurricane and violence

Jean Noël, 53, has grown bananas, maize, yams and cassava on his farm in Fond-Cochon, west Haiti, for more than 30 years. After Hurricane Melissa tore across the Caribbean in October 2025, Haiti’s westernmost areas were among its worst-hit. Noël says the hurricane destroyed several hectares of his crops, including scores of fruit trees.

The devastating event forced Noël to do something quite different with trees to generate an income: “I started turning them into charcoal.”

Noël is not alone. Patrick Innocent, the town hall director of Roseaux commune, which incorporates Fond-Cochon, says a significant increase in tree felling was observed in the months following Melissa. This was primarily for making charcoal, which remains one of the country’s main sources of household energy.

Innocent says local authorities are sorely lacking in resources to support affected populations: “Nearly a thousand residents have lost their vegetable crops but the municipality is unable to help them due to a lack of funding.”

Since 2018, Haiti has been engulfed in a prolonged security and humanitarian crisis. It was triggered by protests over rising fuel prices that evolved into years of efforts to oust the government. The social unrest has been intensified by growing violence and the presence of gangs, which has accelerated since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021.

Some 1.4 million people have been internally displaced, according to the UN. The World Food Programme estimates more than 5 million are facing food insecurity.

Across a large proportion of the country, public institutions are no longer able to deliver basic services, limiting access to healthcare, education and security. This absence of the state has worsened the impact of climate-related disasters, such as Hurricane Melissa.

The country faces a genuine environmental emergency, according to several experts. “We are in a critical situation, where several ecological crises are overlapping,” explains David Noncent, a Haitian climate change and environmental science expert.

The hurricane hits

Amid the crisis, Haiti’s agricultural sector is suffering the effects of several shocks, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global tool to evaluate food insecurity. For example, farmers are struggling to sell their produce due to tolled road blockades controlled by armed groups.

Haiti was not directly hit by Hurricane Melissa but it still experienced significant damage. The south-western Grand Sud region suffered in particular, enduring flooding, landslides and burst riverbanks.

According to Haiti’s Permanent Secretariat for Disaster Risk Management (SPGRD), 43 people were killed, 21 injured and 13 are missing and presumed dead. Nearly 16,000 affected people were housed in evacuation centres, mainly in the Grand Sud departments of Sud, Nippes and Grand’Anse. There were also significant agricultural losses.

From the initial devastation and throughout the aftermath, the absence of the state has taken its toll. Several affected residents tell Dialogue Earth that no long-term support has been provided.

This has pushed many, such as Noël, into environmentally damaging practices. Felling trees illegally to produce charcoal and slash and burn farming have, for example, worsened the deforestation happening in many regions of the country.

Tree loss has been particularly acute in Haiti’s south-west (Data source: Hansen / UMD / Google / USGS / NASA, Map: Dialogue Earth)

Like Roseaux, the commune of Saint-Michel de L’Attalaye in the Artibonite department is also dealing with deforestation. Residents are raising the alarm over the mass felling of fruit trees – particularly mango – to produce charcoal.

Marc-Wisly Hilaire, a community leader in the region and member of the Leadership Society for Another Haiti (SOLID), explains that state inaction leaves people with few options: “The lack of enforcement leaves the population free to cut down trees. In a context of economic hardship, residents often have no choice but to resort to this practice. The state remains powerless and does not intervene.”

According to Hilaire, this dynamic is part of a vicious cycle, in which deforestation exacerbates drought conditions, which in turn further undermines livelihoods: “Sometimes it doesn’t rain for more than four months. Crops planted during this period are often lost.”

While recent data is scarce, available estimates suggest Haiti continues to lose thousands of hectares of forest each year. According to the US-based monitoring service Global Nature Watch, 3,200 hectares of Haiti’s primary rainforest was destroyed between 2002 and 2025. This represents a loss of 4% of national tree cover.

Smoke rises from the mountains near Gavanneau peak in Haiti’s south-western Sud department. The area has been one of the country’s most deforested in recent decades (Image: Iolanda Fresnillo / Flickr, CC BY NC SA)

According to a report from the Green Climate Fund (referencing data collected approximately 10-15 years ago), only around a third of Haitian households have access to electricity. In 2023, the country’s Bureau of Mines and Energy said wood and charcoal accounted for more than 75% of the country’s energy needs.

There is no reliable estimate of how many farmers have shifted to charcoal production, but research indicates it is the second most valuable agricultural activity in Haiti, after mango production. “It all ties into the same spectrum, stemming from the political and security crisis, which is further exacerbating environmental degradation,” says Noncent.

State absence

Since the 2021 assassination, the country’s political situation has been very fragile. At least three leaders have held executive power without being elected. In 2024, a nine-member Transitional Presidential Council was established with the support of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and other international partners, followed by the establishment of Haiti’s current prime minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, in February. Elections are currently scheduled for December.

A 2022 report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs suggested there were 200 gangs operating in the country. These armed groups have exploited the power vacuum to extend their control through violence.

The expansion of gangs beyond the capital, Port-au-Prince, and into the western regions, has continued to undermine state authority and disrupt humanitarian and commercial routes. Gangs have attacked several communities across various regions, destroying agricultural property and dealing significant blows to local economies.

Thousands have been killed according to the UN, including nearly 400 in just over two months earlier this year in parts of the capital.

The crisis has made conservation work in the country’s protected areas increasingly difficult, if not impossible, allowing deforestation to thrive. The extent of gang involvement in these environmentally damaging industries is unclear. But observers and residents say the exploitation of natural resources – including charcoal production, illegal logging and the occupation of protected areas – has expanded alongside the deterioration of the security situation.

Some farmers have been forced out. “We practically no longer have access to our land,” says Maryse Lorima, a resident of Kenscoff, a town close to Port-au-Prince. “Since the gangs invaded the area, it has become extremely difficult to farm.”

She says armed groups now have access to crops, livestock and the area’s natural resources. “They cut down trees to make charcoal, and they take residents’ harvests to sell,” she claims.

A man pushes a trolley of cardboard boxes down a street patrolled by an armed guard in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince. Since 2018, the country has been engulfed in a prolonged security and humanitarian crisis (Image: Francisco Proner / CIDH, CC BY)

Protection failures

Kenscoff is one of the main western entry points to the protected area of La Visite national park. The presence of gangs in such areas makes access dangerous and prevents institutions from fulfilling their remit. Prénord Courdo, technical director of Haiti’s National Agency for Protected Areas (ANAP), described these difficulties to the local media outlet AyiboPost in 2025: “For the past five years, we have been unable to carry out proper fieldwork in a significant proportion of protected areas.”

Officially responsible for managing some 20 sites, the ANAP, which operates under the supervision of the Ministry of the Environment, now finds itself largely overwhelmed.

Some armed groups are incorporating Haiti’s protected areas into their strategy for territorial control. Gang coalitions, such as Viv Ansanm and the 400 Mawozo, occupy key positions around strategic natural resources, particularly in green zones located in the western region. Many of these areas serve as transport corridors, safe havens following clashes with the security forces and centres of informal economic activities, including extortion. 

This has led to large parts of primary forest, including the Forêt des Pins and La Visite national parks, being converted into charcoal production zones, agricultural land or informal settlements.

The government created the Protected Areas Surveillance Brigade (BSAP) in January 2006 to support environmental protection. The brigade’s numbers have since grown from a few dozen officers to several thousand. It has been accused of corruption, a lack of oversight and – as its activities have strayed into security-related issues – paramilitary-style abuses of power. The environment ministry has already warned of serious internal dysfunction, including a lack of institutional control, unclear command structures and insufficient accountability mechanisms.

A 2024 investigation into the BSAP by AyiboPost revealed allegations of smuggling, kidnapping and acts of repression against civilians. It also highlighted concerns that officers were carrying illegal weapons. Many officers are not officially registered with the government as public employees, the report suggested.

“In the absence of effective oversight and accountability, environmental protection structures can lose their mandate in practice, leaving protected areas exposed to exploitation and degradation,” says Noncent.

Neither the BSAP nor the environment ministry has responded to Dialogue Earth’s requests for comment. In April 2025, the presidential transition council announced an official collaboration between the BSAP and security forces, saying selected BSAP members would be drafted in to help “reinforce public security”.

For residents living near La Visite national park, what is striking is the almost total absence of the officers supposedly carrying out surveillance. One such local, Ronald Aristil, laments: “We hardly ever see any officers in the area, even though they are the ones who should be ensuring security.”