Human impacts on carrying capacity in Haiti

May 6, 2021 By Kayleigh

In Haiti, charcoal production is important and a huge production. In order for this Haitians need one special resource. Wood. They continue to cut more down until there is none left and soil below has eroded until is no longer useable.

This can be said that it affects humans as many rely on farming for their money, but this is their fault. Ultimately it is the humans who are doing the cutting of the trees.

When we think about deforestation we tend to think about just trees being cut down. However when we think about what else is living in this ecosystem, trees are not only the organism being wiped away.

Studies say that due to deforestation Haiti is in risk of losing more of half of its species. It is said that Haiti will lose this by 2035.Currently they are already experiencing a mass extinction.

Now that all the trees have been wiped away, animals have no habitat to live in. They are used to having trees and more canopied places to live, but now that this is gone, they no longer have a habitat. This is so important because having a habitat is one of the most important resources to sustain life. Without this they are most likely to die off and decrease the carrying capacity of an ecosystem.

They also are losing all the producers of that ecosystem which is what majority of the animals eat. These producers are trees, bushes and grasses. All of which are wiped out and cannot regrow due to infertile soil.

With all of the producers and habitats being wiped out, other animals who can not live without them will die off and eventually become extinct. This limits the amount of biodiversity an ecosystem can sustain.