Gangs control access to « protected green areas » in Haiti

Bandits limit any conservation action and compromise the survival of already fragile ecosystems

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The presence of armed groups in several protected green areas makes access dangerous and hinders any environmental monitoring.

The technical director of the National Agency for Protected Areas (ANAP), Prénord Courdo, revealed to AyiboPost that he has not been able to carry out « real field work » in a large part of these areas for five years.

Officially, ANAP is responsible for the twenty or so protected areas created by the State.

But these spaces, supposed to represent a collective heritage, are today left to their own devices, victims of deforestation, unplanned urbanization and land conflicts.

Forests and classified areas are visibly deteriorating, transformed into coal fields, agricultural plots or informal settlements, according to two AyiboPost articles published in 2020 and 2021, one on Haiti’s largest forest reserve, the Forêt des Pins, and the other on Parc La Visite.

Experts have identified 26 protected areas, classified for their contribution to maintaining biological diversity and ecological processes in the country.

These areas, strategic zones for the survival of ecosystems, include key biodiversity areas (KBAs).

The Port-au-Prince district has the greatest diversity of protected areas, according to a study published in December 2023 in the journal Études Caribéennes.

There is a ZCB, two urban parks, a national natural park already declared, an area to be protected, as well as a private park awaiting official approval since May 2019.

The Croix-des-Bouquets district has four protected areas across its 1,930 km², compared to the 735.78 km² of Port-au-Prince. It also shares, with the Belle-Anse district, the largest forest in Haiti: the Forêt des Pins, in the south of the Ouest department.

The Arcahaie district is home to a 223.43 km² historic park and a protected area, the Arcadins islets, while the Gonâve district includes two protected areas to the northeast and southwest, both also classified as ZCB.

All these spaces, supposed to be protected, find themselves threatened by the territorial expansion of gangs.

The Viv Ansanm gang coalition and their allies have established strategic positions, controlling access to natural resources and seriously hampering the functioning of conservation areas.

The 400 Mawozo, allied with Viv Ansanm and based in Croix-des-Bouquets, thus dominate access to natural resources in the north and east of the Ouest department. Their activities directly affect sites of ecological importance such as Trou Caïman, Lake Azuéi, the Zabeth spring and its irrigation system, the Quisqueya private park, and the Forêt des Pins.

Read also: Photos | Journey to the heart of Haiti’s largest forest reserve

This biodiverse forest now serves as a haven for criminal activity and a refuge for gangs after clashes with the police, the study cited above continues.

Le Morne l’Hôpital, classified as a protected area, has become a strategic corridor for the passage of various armed groups. The Pèlerin National Natural Park and the Martissant National Park are in a vulnerable situation.

The Wynne Farm Reserve, located in Kenscoff, is directly influenced by the bandits who control access to it.

This overlap between natural spaces and gang settlements jeopardizes conservation, prevents ANAP interventions, and accentuates the already extreme fragility of Haitian ecosystems.

« We are facing an extremely difficult environmental situation, where all our protected areas are indiscriminately affected, » ANAP technical director Prénord Courdo told AyiboPost.

The situation worries nature lovers and professionals involved in preserving the country’s biodiversity.

René Durocher, an environmentalist and wildlife photographer for over fifteen years, says he is deeply concerned.

He highlights the practically impossible access to certain sites, such as the protected areas of Soursailles in Kenscoff, due to armed attacks.

Normally, Durocher travels to various botanical conservation areas to photograph animal species, most of them endemic. He can no longer do this work.

« I continue to take photos, but in an extremely limited circle, for example in my neighborhood. In reality, this does not allow access to what one should normally document, » explains the founder of the Eko Ayiti initiative.

The protected areas sector in Haiti was already weakened by the lack of solid structures, a scarcity of human resources or a global approach to botanical conservation.

These shortcomings inspire regular denunciations.

Eraniel Jean, a lawyer at the Croix des Bouquets Bar and coordinator of a youth organization in the commune of Fonds-Verrettes, continues to denounce the Haitian state’s poor management of the preservation of green spaces, particularly in the Forêt des Pins.

According to Jean, the abuses are multiple: uncontrolled felling of trees, land grabbing for illegal construction, but also excesses by certain agents of the Protected Areas Security Brigade (BSAP), accused of using their position to sell land within the forest itself.

Founded in 2006 with just 32 employees, the BSAP saw its membership swell to 6,072 in 2022, the majority of whom are volunteers not covered by the ANAP budget. In 2024, an AyiboPost investigation revealed that only 140 contract employees had been officially integrated into the institution.

The Pine Forest, located between the West and the South-East, represents another example of the limits of public management.

Classified as a nature reserve, it should be a model of conservation.

But on the ground, it is suffering from illegal coal mining, uncontrolled logging and illegal agricultural expansion, according to interviews conducted by AyiboPost with sources familiar with these events.

« The Pine Forest is in danger. Every day, the situation is getting worse, and today, it is practically left to its own devices. This worries us enormously, » laments Jean Rony Contant, a resident of Fonds-Verrettes and member of the Réseau pour la Sauvegarde de la Forêt des Pins (RSFP), a community organization founded in 2011.

The efforts of organizations like the RSFP remain minimal compared to the scale of the problems.

« Sometimes, after reforesting a plot, other people come and pull up the young plants to turn them into vegetable gardens, » says Contant, adding that logging continues unabated, as does the construction of new buildings in the protected area.

Around 5,000 people, divided into 741 households, live in the central area of ​​the park. Their main economic activities are agriculture and the production of oilwood.

However, according to Contant, around twenty BSAP agents are deployed on the site, and some are directly involved in commercial activities involving the sale of forest land.

Added to these practices are natural and environmental challenges. During periods of drought, fires increase.

“Between February and April 2025, we recorded an incalculable number of fires that broke out in the forest,” explains Contant.

According to the professional, it is often members of the community organization, supported by volunteers, who intervene to extinguish the flames. And these fires regularly re-emerge.

Today, access to the Pine Forest is almost impossible. All roads leading to the area are surrounded by gang-controlled territories.

« The only road that remained passable went through Kenscoff, then through Seguin—now under gang control. Now, » Contant concludes, « the only relatively safe access is to cross through the Dominican Republic. »

By : Lucnise Duquereste

Cover : In the Pine Forest, a man wearing a cap leans against a tree. Photo: Valérie Baeriswyl