One island, two worlds: A comparative political ecology of deforestation disparity causes in Haiti and the Dominican Republic
(2020) STVK02 20201Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- On the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, two countries share the same environmental and climatic pre-conditions, but show monumental differences in current forest-cover. While tropical forests are covering almost half of the Dominican Republic, Haiti is down to just a few percent. In this thesis, political ecology and earlier research is combined to formulate four hypotheses: colonial history, human development and demography, local institutional context, and energy.
The hypotheses are tested against a timeframe compiled from temporal data on Hispaniolan forest-cover and compared in a dynamic case-study approach design. The approach was inspired by Mill’s logic of inference, causal case-study criteria, process-tracing and the... (More) - On the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, two countries share the same environmental and climatic pre-conditions, but show monumental differences in current forest-cover. While tropical forests are covering almost half of the Dominican Republic, Haiti is down to just a few percent. In this thesis, political ecology and earlier research is combined to formulate four hypotheses: colonial history, human development and demography, local institutional context, and energy.
The hypotheses are tested against a timeframe compiled from temporal data on Hispaniolan forest-cover and compared in a dynamic case-study approach design. The approach was inspired by Mill’s logic of inference, causal case-study criteria, process-tracing and the dynamic-comparative case study method.
By asking what factors that explain the difference in forest-cover in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and how they affect the countries’ forest-cover, the thesis aims to contribute to the general understanding of deforestation and the interaction between society and nature.
The study finds that the current forest-cover disparities stems from a development in the 1980-90’s, and that the policy, project approaches and norm changes within the local institutional context matches and precedes the development of the forest-cover. Economic incentives and participatory approaches in reforestation projects are shown to have a positive effect. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9026439
- author
- Marzelius, Milla LU
- supervisor
-
- Nils Droste LU
- organization
- course
- STVK02 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Political ecology, deforestation, dynamic case-study approach, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Hispaniola, soil degradation
- language
- English
- id
- 9026439
- date added to LUP
- 2020-09-21 15:44:18
- date last changed
- 2020-09-21 15:44:18
@misc{9026439, abstract = {{On the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, two countries share the same environmental and climatic pre-conditions, but show monumental differences in current forest-cover. While tropical forests are covering almost half of the Dominican Republic, Haiti is down to just a few percent. In this thesis, political ecology and earlier research is combined to formulate four hypotheses: colonial history, human development and demography, local institutional context, and energy. The hypotheses are tested against a timeframe compiled from temporal data on Hispaniolan forest-cover and compared in a dynamic case-study approach design. The approach was inspired by Mill’s logic of inference, causal case-study criteria, process-tracing and the dynamic-comparative case study method. By asking what factors that explain the difference in forest-cover in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and how they affect the countries’ forest-cover, the thesis aims to contribute to the general understanding of deforestation and the interaction between society and nature. The study finds that the current forest-cover disparities stems from a development in the 1980-90’s, and that the policy, project approaches and norm changes within the local institutional context matches and precedes the development of the forest-cover. Economic incentives and participatory approaches in reforestation projects are shown to have a positive effect.}}, author = {{Marzelius, Milla}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{One island, two worlds: A comparative political ecology of deforestation disparity causes in Haiti and the Dominican Republic}}, year = {{2020}}, }