Land Tenure Study at the Intervention Sites of the Transboundary Environment Programme (PET)
- Studies land tenure at three sites of the Haiti-Dominican Republic transboundary environment program, the Foret des Pins, the Fonds Parisien natural park known as Parc Kiskeya, and Source Zabeth, each with its own legal history.
- Opens with the legislation, separating texts on land from texts on protected areas and areas of national interest, because at these sites the two bodies of law govern the same parcels and the conflict between them is the practical problem.
- Documents tenure and holding structure site by site, alongside slope, soil type and land occupation, so that what is legally protected can be compared with what is actually farmed.
- Sets out the pressures on land, including urbanization and diaspora purchasing, and estimates land values, with price tables in gourdes per hectare for the Foret des Pins over time and for Fonds Parisien in 2010.
- Records land conflicts and the customary arrangements used to settle them, and states the risks these pose to the program's own interventions, which is the study's operational purpose.
- Recommends systematic fruit tree planting at the Foret des Pins, with avocado as the lead species on grounds of market, farmer experience and ecology, and a two-track restoration of dense forest on the highest land with open forest combined with pasture below, arguing that this is among the most effective ways to create jobs and give alternatives to those cutting the pines.
Prepared by consultant Roosevelt Saint-Dic in March 2010 for the Programme Environnement Transfrontalier, the Haiti-Dominican Republic transboundary environment program, this study examines land tenure at the program's intervention sites. Beyond the site-level findings it carries a substantive chapter III on the legislative texts relating to land and to protected or nationally important areas, treating the two bodies of law separately. That makes it useful well beyond its immediate purpose: it is one of the few documents in this collection that inventories the legal instruments governing Haitian land and protected areas, and it approaches the question in a cross-border frame that almost nothing else here does.
How to cite
Programme Environnement Transfrontalier (PET), 2010, Land Tenure Study at the Intervention Sites of the Transboundary Environment Programme (PET), https://agripubhaiti.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Foncier-RAPPORT-ETUDE-FONCIERE-PET.doc