Anthropogenic Pressure and Degradation of Haiti's Coastlines: The Gulf of Gonâve
- The article analyzes anthropogenic pressure and coastal degradation in Haiti through the eastern Gulf of Gonâve, including Port-au-Prince Bay, the Arcadins coast and the South Canal toward Baradères.
- It argues that coastal change is driven by local population growth and migration from inland rural zones toward coastal opportunities.
- Coastal activities include fishing, cabotage, mangrove exploitation, material extraction and agriculture, but many new coastal uses have little direct relation to the sea.
- The author describes visible pollution near Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Léogâne and Miragoâne, including turbidity, oily water and plastic waste.
- Away from cities, degradation remains visible through overexploited mangroves, juvenile conch shells and declining fish resources.
- The conclusion stresses that durable coastal management is constrained less by classic tourism-fishing conflicts than by inland migration, pollution, terrigenous inputs, poverty and weak state action.
Published in Les Cahiers d'Outre-Mer issue 219 (July-September 2002), pages 325-344, in a number devoted to tropical coastlines, this article by Michel Desse examines anthropogenic pressure and the degradation of Haitian coasts through the case of the Gulf of Gonâve. Its argument opens on the driver: Haitian coastlines are changing rapidly in relation to population increase, whether of local origin or resulting from movement out of the rural interior. It is the oldest document in this batch and the only peer-reviewed geography article, which makes it useful as a long-baseline reference for coastal change. Note that the source filename carries '2020'; the article's own date is 2002.
How to cite
Les Cahiers d'Outre-Mer; Michel Desse, 2002, Anthropogenic Pressure and Degradation of Haiti's Coastlines: The Gulf of Gonâve, https://agripubhaiti.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Pression-anthropique-et-degradation-des-littoraux-hitiens-l-39-exemple-du-golfe-de-la-gonave-BT-2020.pdf