This research examines the emergence of a unique, Haitian-initiated response to declining tree-cover and increasing charcoal demand: farmer-managed woodlands. By documenting these woodlands, and providing evidence of their wide extent in some locations in Haiti, the research challenges popular accounts of a country entirely denuded of trees.

Preliminary analyses indicate these woodlands are not original forests, nor the result of secondary or tertiary regrowth of original forests; they are composed primarily of exotic tree species. These trees are not planted as wood-lots, nor are they the remnants of previous reforestation projects. Part of the explanation for the existence of these woodlands is the presence of favorable geographical and ecological landscape features, combined with the natural regenerative properties of these particular tree species. However, this research also documents a series of necessary, conscious steps—active and passive—that Haitian farmers take to ensure the sustained production of wood within these privately owned woodlands. If contributions from either part of this symbiotic human-nature relationship were restricted, these woodlands would likely cease to exist.

By documenting this shift from an extractive natural resource paradigm toward a domesticated natural resource paradigm, buttressed by contemporary and historical parallels, this research contributes to broader theories of human domestication processes.

A nine-month collaboration with three student anthropologists and sociologists from the Faculté d’Ethnologie (Department of Ethnology) at L’Université d’État d’Haïti (State University of Haiti) resulted in the creation and refinement of a series of important theoretical constructs related to this 'domestication of energy' shift.

These students also helped create and implement a large survey instrument designed to collect data on a series of sociocultural, economic, ecological, and spatial variables thought to differentially affect the presence of woodlands. These data address the theoretical constructs, and are contextualized through ethnographic insights generated through a year of fieldwork in rural Haiti.

A regression-based, predictive land-use model is being developed from these data, to be tested at the research location and elsewhere in Haiti. This model could be valuable for the potential to predict whether the case-specific human needs and ecological parameters associated with a particular plot of land are conducive to sustaining a managed-woodland system.

This research is important because of the tangible potential to influence policy-makers; tree-planting and reforestation efforts remain major priorities of Haitian civil society, the Haitian government, and nongovernmental organizations working in Haiti.

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