Building a future for Haiti’s unique biodiversity
Tuesday 2 March 2010
ZSL, in partnership with BirdLife International and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, has secured funding from Defra’s Darwin Initiative in support of vital conservation action to prevent the extinction of Haiti’s unique biodiversity.
© Jim Goetz - Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Haiti’s forests support an incredible diversity of range-restricted endemic animals. However, only 3% remain and these are being lost at a rate of 10% every five years, with the result that many species are globally threatened or even possibly extinct.
The Massif de la Hotte is a mountainous area in south-westernmost Haiti, and is one of the few areas still retaining a patchwork of forest cover, all within the Macaya National Park.
These forests represent one of the most important places in the world for the conservation of 42 globally threatened mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians that live there.
The forests of the Massif de la Hotte also provide important ecosystem services for local communities, including the daily provision of fresh water and firewood and protection from landslides and flooding during tropical storms.
It is the maintenance and improvement of these services, and increasing the resilience of the forests to the effects of global climate change, that lie at the heart of an integrated approach to conservation in the massif.
“The last patches of forest in the mountains of southern Haiti support some of the world’s highest levels of threatened unique biodiversity, and provide invaluable ecosystem services for local communities.
"Without immediate conservation action and sustainable management, Haiti’s last endemic vertebrates are likely to disappear,” says ZSL’s Dr Sam Turvey, who will be coordinating the project’s mammal field surveys.
The devastating 12th January 2010 earthquake had no immediate material impact within the Massif de la Hotte. However, the aftermath is starting to be felt with people fleeing Port-au-Prince to find refuge in the remote communities around the Macaya National Park.
The Darwin Initiative funding comes at a critical time to help work towards accommodating earthquake victims in the communities around Macaya, and to ensure a sustainable future for the people and the area’s unique wildlife.
