Plant cover in Haiti at two percent: UN official

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Deforestation in Haiti, where trees and bushes are routinely felled for cooking fuel, is at crisis level, with just two-percent plant cover now, the UN warned Thursday.

“There is a real urgency, and measures need to be taken … plant cover is down to about two percent,” UN Development Program official in Haiti, Joel Boutroue, said.

Most people in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, live on less than two dollars a day, and they use wood for fires to cook. The result has been widespread deforestation and erosion.

AFP