Santo Domingo.- 86% of the charcoal the Haitians use to cook is from Dominican forests, where poachers have erected a sort of industry from which they live better than the typical farmer in impoverished provinces such as Baoruco and Independencia (west).

They own vehicles and their cash flow is so good they pay in advance the tree cutters who make the furnaces which devastate the forests in at least 23 areas just in the Baoruco range.

A study determined that Haiti’s market for Dominican charcoal is a monopoly which moves as much as 22,170 tons yearly, made from trees chopped mostly in 23 communities of Independencia and Baoruco provinces, and although the probe affirms that very few Dominicans are involved in its production, points to the Dominican authorities as “the unknown and little structured contacts required to be able to conduct the charcoal traffic across the border.”

The study by the Environment Ministry’s Independencia Provincial Office, through Border Environmental Program (PMT), adds that “it’s impossible to identify any by their name, but they are widely known and repeated in all the surveys and interviews, the involvement of the military and other border authorities in the business, in exchange for gifts and bribes.”

It identified a “simple but effective chain to produce, transport and market the charcoal in Haiti,” whose top echelon lives better off than the common farmer, and have enough capital to pay their workers in advance as much as RD$20,000 to male the charcoal, whereas to reach Haiti intermediaries and truck drivers are paid as much as RD$100,000 in advance.