new images of natural and environmental
disasters these disasters take all kinds
of forms it can be forest fires that
destroyed thousands of acres of forests
and threatened homes lots of jobs they
can be floods the destroys cities
coastlines threaten lives they can be
human disasters exploding oil rigs
contaminate huge oceans destroy wildlife
and cause environmental impact but what
all these impacts these environmental
impacts and natural disasters have in
common they’re drastic their shocking
their immediate and their newsworthy but
what if there was a different kind of
natural disaster occurring kind of
natural disaster that doesn’t take place
immediately it’s a slow-motion disaster
we think about a coral reef that’s been
degraded over decades slowly invisibly
without anyone noticing and to all of a
sudden we realize that the coral reef is
no longer living it’s no longer
supporting life it’s no longer realizing
the functions it was meant to a hillside
on a mountain slowly chipped away at and
fragments disappear of this forest until
it’s no longer a viable habitat these
kind of environmental disasters happen
gradually incrementally slowly almost
imperceptibly and we don’t realize
they’re taking place scientists have a
term for this type of disaster they call
these landscape amnesia creeping
normality shifting baselines death by a
thousand cuts the idea is essentially
the same for all of them environmental
wreckage occurring over long periods of
time gradually incremental e that we
rarely see we rarely perceive as
happening and it changes our perception
to the point where we feel that it’s
acceptable becomes normal in 2011
we started work on a film not
coincidently called death by a thousand
cuts what we wanted to do is look at the
famous case study of the island of
Hispaniola as you know Hispaniola is one
island shared by two different countries
Dominican Republic in haiti and the
island has a shared history but
different cultures different language
different political systems delivering
different colonial pasts but they share
the same resources you may remember this
photograph was published in 1987 in
National Geographic and then it was
reproduced numerous times in books in
magazines it even made an appearance the
oscar-winning film Inconvenient Truth
what we see in this photo is the famous
case study of Hispaniola on the one side
we have the verdant green of the
Dominican Republic which has been
responsible about the way they manage
their environment the Dominican Republic
is protected their forests the
implemented aggressive and almost
drastic measures to protect their force
they militarized the protection of
national parks they declared over twenty
five percent of the National territories
National Park and they’ve been able to
recover the area to close to thirty
percent forest cover and it’s also known
as one of the fastest growing economies
in Latin America on the other side we
see Haiti we all know Hades story it’s
barren it’s treeless it’s ben de
forested they’ve been irresponsible
about how they’ve managed their
resources they’ve cut down all their
trees to make wood charcoal a
subsistence living and not surprisingly
as we all know Haiti is the poorest
country in the Western Hemisphere but
what if we know about this story and
about this photo is not altogether
accurate what if there’s a different
story behind this photo what if in one
iconic photo we’ve changed our
perception of way this island operates
and we’ve distorted our ability to take
effective action to change this paradigm
death by a thousand cuts was a journey
that we took over the course of five
years to investigate
fectly the illegal trafficking of wood
charcoal from the border force of the
Dominican Republic into Haiti Haiti
still relies on wood charcoal for over
ninety percent of their needs for
cooking fuel Dominican Republic has made
aggressive changes and no longer relies
principally on wood charcoal so as a
result the Dominican forests have become
an attractive source for wood for
production of charcoal and so we follow
the production of wood from the high
mountain forests of the Sierra Nevada Co
national park to the lowland surrounding
la going at ikea lagoo angry kyo lake
where the poorest of the poor produce
rudimentary charcoal ovens out of local
trees we follow as a charcoal is
trafficked across the border illegally
by night by trail on people’s heads on
mule on the backs of trucks even on
boats and at the end charcoal arrives in
the urban centers of haiti where it
becomes a prized commodity there’s
almost an insatiable appetite for
charcoal and in haiti and the dominican
republic is increasingly becoming the
source of that charcoal what’s left
behind is environmental wreckage barren
trees and hillsides loss of soil rivers
that are drying up loss of habitat loss
of productivity but more than just that
more than just the environmental
consequences of the production of
charcoal there’s also real human
consequences there’s a human drama
unfurling on the board of Dominican
bollock in Haiti and we follow this in
the movie becomes a personal story we
look at the consequences of how
deforestation can impact people in this
case we follow the murder of a Dominican
park ranger who’s murdered by Haitian
charcoal producer while doing his job in
the Sierra vuko National Park Milania
Vargas goes into the National Park to
apprehend the Haitian charcoal producer
and he’s murdered there’s a
confrontation he’s killed with a machete
he’s
to pieces his throat is cut and the film
follows the story of what happens
afterwards the consequences on the
families on the individual and on the
communities that are impacted by this
murder we get to know chichi Milano’s
brother who has never been able to
recover from the death of his brother
Chi Chi is also a park ranger and he’s
never come to terms with the fact that
the Sassen is still free there’s been no
justice in Milan neo is still dead we
get to know Kalina colino is the widow
of Melania and colinas also Haitian this
is almost the perfect border story
Dominican park ranger married to a
Haitian woman they have three children
half haitian half Dominican we learn
about colinas struggle as she’s trying
to survive after the death of Melania
she has to find work she has to help her
children survive she faces deportation
and she faces separation from
Millennials family who no longer want
anything to do with her specifically
because she’s Haitian and they associate
the death of Melania with Haitians when
we think about our perspective on
environmental change it’s really
important to think about the way we
perceive environmental change what if I
were to tell you that this photo of a
forest is not actually Dominican
Republic this is in Haiti the image we
have of Haiti is of the treeless
moonscape but there’s nothing left there
it’s barren yet many people go to Haiti
are very surprised to see there are a
lot of trees in fact recently
researchers have begun looking at the
famous two percent forest cover of Haiti
that’s cited regularly and still no one
has found any evidence that in fact
Haiti has 2% forest cover most estimates
now think that it’s closer to twenty to
thirty percent forest cover much closer
to what the Dominican Republic has this
is not to say hey d is not de forested
it’s not to say Haiti doesn’t face great
vulnerability it’s not to say hey d
doesn’t have serious environmental
issues but it’s not as hopeless as it
might look
similarly the Dominican Republic which
has been held up as a model for
environmental protection maybe isn’t
doing such a great job of protecting
these twenty five percent of its
territory that’s named on paper at least
as national parks this is the Sierra
about eco national park which has been
widely impacted by deforestation both by
agriculture by charcoal production in
the last ten years the national parks of
the Dominican Republic have lost 122
square miles of forest the sierra echo
has lost 22 square miles of forest the
dominican republic has had great trouble
controlling illegal trafficking of
charcoal heading into haiti but in our
research what we found was in fact most
of the vast majority of the charcoal
that was illegally transported into
haiti was controlled operated and
produced by Dominicans not by Haitians
similarly much of the deforestation that
happened in Haiti happened in colonial
times and it very little to do with
charcoal production it was timber it was
demand by the colonial powers for
repatriations in fact in many cases
charcoal has been used as a tool to
explain why haiti is soda forested and
it has remained as a tool but why does
any of this matter why does our
perspective on Hispaniola matter why
does our perception of environmental
impact matter at all when we look at
Haiti and Dominican Republic we see a
divided island we see two separate
countries we see two separate practices
we see two separate histories and two
separates trajectories but at the end of
the day Haiti and Dominican public are
in fact one island that share one set of
resources they can have their
differences they can have their
different culture they can have their
different language but the end of the
day they rely on the same natural
resources so instead of seeing a divided
island like we’ve seen for so long in
these images of a winner and a loser of
a country to emulate in a country to
avoid becoming what we need to see is
more joint action by Dominican Republic
in Haiti and recognize that it’s one
island
and not two separate countries the
Dominican Republic in Haiti have turned
into a case study but they’ve become a
negative case study by changing the
perception of the way we view the island
by changing the way that we look at the
stories we tell about the people that
are here by connecting environmental
impact to the people to the communities
and to the different individuals that
are infected by environmental impact we
can create urgency when we create enci
we can create action so rather than a
cautionary tale for the rest of the
world dominican republic and haiti can
become an example for the world of how to stop a slow-motion disaster thank you