2025 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 7(2) arability. Currently, less than 1% of Haiti’s primary forest remains, as charcoal production, ‘slash-and-burn agriculture’ and building materials are prioritised over the livelihood of rural populations. 148 These conditions, in turn, create food insecurity, poverty, harms to the agriculture industry, and take away opportunities for long-term employment. Returning to Mezdour, Veronis, and McLeman’s study cited above, participants in rural areas expressed that it is untenable to sustain a livelihood, wage and community under these environmental conditions and thusly move to urban centres of Haiti.149 This is emblematic of Belton’s view that rooted displacement entails a lack of the ‘right to choose to belong to the specific communities within which they were born and raised.’ 150 Individuals in these communities may prefer to remain in their rural homes, but are unable to fulfil their rights to place and purpose as a consequence of the environmental and social degradation caused by deforestation. Without access to gainful employment, secure homes, and with risks of floods and erosion, their role as a citizen is in turn harmed. This is representative of an array of factors contributing to the negative conditions of Haiti’s rural population. Participants noted that these problems appear environmental on the surface but could be attributed to their government. One participant stated: ‘[o]ur environmental problem in Haiti is above all a conjuncture of bad political decisions’. Another lamented that: ‘[i]t is clear that the [Haitian] government is not doing its job … It is poverty that pushes people to cut wood to make charcoal because the government is not there for them’.151 Many various policy decisions (or lack thereof) were attributed to the deforestation; each can be connected to the Haitian government’s actions and their lack of recognition for the population’s interests. These modern policy failings can in turn can be linked to the extractive and exploitative origins of Haiti’s natural resource industries. Though environmental phenomena such as hurricanes are common in the Caribbean, vulnerability to these events is owed to the ‘violence, coercion and exploitation’ that began with the introduction of slavery and plantation agricultural systems to the region. 152 As Oscar Webber argues, across the 19th century, the response to environmental disaster by the colonial white population prioritised limiting the freedom of movement of the African-Caribbean population, to prevent their migration to urban centres and enforcing a return to the status quo for the ‘sites and rhythms of labor’ to ensure the continued economic productivity of the plantations.153 In the following century, during the US occupation, ‘American companies strengthened their hold over all aspects of economic life … they gained exclusive control of mines, railroads, the larger cane, coffee, cacao, fig, and banana plantations, breweries, and other consumer products as well as the production of electricity and port construction’.154 This process of ‘extractivism’ continued even after the end 148 Jeremy Hance, ‘Amid Conflict and Chaos, a Reforestation Project Surges Ahead in Haiti’ Mongabay (online, 10 November 2022) <https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/amidconflict-and-chaos-a-reforestation-project-surges-ahead-in-haiti/>, archived at <perma.cc/PN2J-XKWF>. 149 Mezdour, Veronis and McLeman (n 104) 107. 150 Belton (n 38) 917 (emphasis in original). 151 Mezdour, Veronis and McLeman (n 104) 108. 152 Rasmus Christensen, ‘Review: Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812–1907 by Oscar Webber’ (2025) 99(1–2) New West Indian Guide 167. 153 Oscar Webber, ‘An Intolerance of Idleness: British Disaster “Relief” in the Caribbean 1831– 1907’ (2019) 93(3–4) New West Indian Guide 201, 206. 154 Castor (n 20) 261. 148