The Creole Pig
The already fragile peasant farm economy was dealt a crushing blow in the early 1980s when almost the entire National Pig population was eradicated. The United States paid the Duvalier regime to carry out the extermination on the grounds that an outbreak of African swine fever in Haiti threatened the pork industries of North America. Whether such a drastic response was appropriate remains a moot point, but the negative effects on the Haitian economy in the environment where undeniable. Over the course of five hundred years, the pigs brought to Hispaniola by European colonists had adapted well to the climate, flora, and fauna, and each peasant family could rear one or two without much trouble or expense. Once fully grown, the pigs were sold to raise cash in times of need. Following the eradication of the Native Pig stuff, a program to repopulate with pigs imported from the US proved a miserable failure as a the new pigs we're not used to the conditions found in Haiti, and we're not in any case widely distributed among the poor peasants farmers. The result was a serious decapitalization of the present economy, and still further pressure of the remaining tree covered. Not only did peasant farmers rely more heavily on charcoal production in order to raise cash, but there was less need for the trees that had been previously necessary to provide both shade and food for the base.