© NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio In contrast, the Dominican Republic retained a greater proportion of its forest cover, offering the country’s population better protection from the effects of hurricanes. Poverty has resulted in the almost complete deforestation of Haiti. 2.25 > Image of the border, formed by a river, between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as having to subsist on less than 1.25 US dollars/day.įig. Roughly 65 per cent of Haiti’s inhabitants live on less than 1 US dollar a day. Plagued by civil wars and many years of irresponsible government policies, Haiti is one of the western hemisphere’s poorest countries. Haiti is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, occupying the western part of the island, while the eastern part is the territory of the Dominican Republic. Haiti has suffered the drastic consequences of this vicious cycle. More often than not endogenous poverty draws people into a vicious cycle as the progressive loss of natural resources results in further overexploitation of resources, i.e. Soils degrade and erode, resulting in further environmental degradation. Due to a shortage in agricultural land, unsuitable soils are often tilled or forests are cleared. In order to survive, people may need to exploit alternative resources, for example by switching from fishing to arable cropping. In Papua New Guinea, for example, millions of tonnes of toxic effluent were discharged from a copper and gold mine into the Ok Tedi river and the sea between 19, thus poisoning the river, swamps and coastal waters for many years.Įndogenous poverty as caused by the population itself often follows on from externally induced (exogenous) poverty. Similarly, the exploitation of mineral resources in a context of ir-responsible governance may cause exogenous poverty. This may happen, for example, if resource exploitation ruins local livelihoods and the local population does not share in the proceeds, such as in cases where large fishing fleets, with the government’s permission, exploit local fishers’ fishing grounds. In this context, experts distinguish between two types of poverty: exogenous poverty and endogenous poverty.Įxogenous poverty in a population is initially caused by external factors. They do not earn enough money to be able to acquire food or energy by other means, or to move away from regions affected by environmental degradation. In many regions, the destruction of coastal ecosystems primarily harms the poor as they are dependent for their survival on a range of products obtained in their immediate surroundings, such as fish or mangrove timber. The vicious cycle of poverty and environmental destruction
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