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I flew into Port au Prince, and took National 1 (highway) along the sea coast and the interior to Cap-Haitien, then over to Fort Liberte and back. We made a stop at the border with the Dominican Republic, and there were no fences, but the mahogany trees were so thick you could barely walk through them, right across the border. I didn't have a point of reference, but the trees were over a hundred feet tall and six feet wide at the base. I asked how they kept the trees from being poached by the Haitians, and our guide told me they had guards that patrolled and would drop them on sight if they crossed the border. These trees used to cover the whole island, but the Haitians cut all theirs down. I don't know if most of the cutting was done by the French to clear for sugar cane fields, but I didn't see any trees over a couple of inches thick, unless they were inside a gate.

Life is very cheap, there. I was cautioned not to photograph anyone selling meat, although people selling fish and fruit were okay. The meat was quite possibly human, I was told, and they'd suspect me of gathering evidence.

Historically Haitians cut down their trees for lumber and ship's timber and other specialized uses.

Sugar cane is not grown on moutainsides so that's not why the hills are mostly bare on the north jaw and in the center.

Later deforestation came about for charcoal which they use for cooking and heat at night in the hills where it can be chilly.

The French have been gone 200 years....hard to blame them. What sprang up after the French were thrown out and the whites mostly massacred...those who stayed....has been arguably the world's worst experiment in self government we've seen so far in the modern era.

Why is that? I doubt many not even here care to really tackle that.

The common excuse is that somehow the world did it.

Haiti is a strange place, I used to like it there but don't get sick. The stories I could tell...blood curdling....dead babies stacked up like cordwood....necklaced corpses left to rot for days in that putrid stench....murder in front of your eyes like in a play yet real....goons in blue jeeps with AR-15s....

That's Haiti. I hear it's worse now.

Cedras may have been their last decent hope for order but we killed that.