For a marine biologist, Haitian gangsters make work very risky

In the blue bay that straddles the borders of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, fishermen from both countries recently voiced their grievances in a rare face-to-face encounter thanks to the efforts of marine biologist Jan Weiner.

The meeting, overseen by rifle-armed Dominican Navy officers, was no small feat for Wiener, who has been forced to work to preserve this biologically sensitive area from afar — his home in Bethesda, Maryland — due to outbreaks of violence in Haiti, his home. Now, an award-winning biologist has stood in the surging Caribbean heat at the mouth of an ominous spot called the Carnage River, trying to bring the two sides together and find a solution that not only saves their livelihoods but also vital marine resources in the region under severe pressure from climate change.

“Continuous hunting, or overfishing, in these areas has destroyed an entire ecosystem,” said Rodolfo Jiménez, director of an agricultural frontier project in the Dominican Republic. The Haitian fishermen, who stood on the other side of Jimenez on the shore, agreed. But they also said they were not responsible for the damage to Monte Cristi National Park in the northwest of the Dominican Republic.

Wiener’s work has grown in importance over the years in large part because of Haitian coal sellers who cut trees for cooking fuel and, more recently, they tucked into the country’s mangroves, the tropical vegetation that forms a natural barrier against increasingly destructive Caribbean hurricanes.

As ocean storms intensify, Haiti’s coast and its biodiversity are becoming more vulnerable.

This was the first trip for Weiner, president of the Foundation for the Conservation of Marine Biodiversity, since November 2021, and his absence is largely due to the violent gangs that have swept the Haitian capital in recent years and reached parts of the countryside. The already nominally in place government that was further undermined with the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise in his bedroom, has done little to wrest control from impudent gangs.

For years, Wiener used to visit Haiti every month or so, but now he’s limiting his trips to just a few times a year while having to work remotely and delegating more responsibility to staff scattered across the country. If not, then Haiti is very dangerous. So when he comes, as he did for three weeks in March, he zips across the country by puddle-jumping plane; Traveling by road is very risky, with gangs full of extortion blocking the main roads. Many passengers hide in their cars by lying on the back seat.

It’s a mystery that confuses Jan and others like him around the world. As climate change plays a larger role in contributing to conflicts, this in turn makes it difficult to conduct scientific research and work on environmental projects that seek to offset the effects of climate change. Environmental group Global Witness released a report last year indicating that 2020 saw a record number of environmental activists killed worldwide; The death toll of 227 was the highest recorded for the second year in a row, with Colombia with the most recorded attacks, 65, and second Mexico with 30.

G9 gang members ride a motorcycle through Jeremy’s Wharf Street Market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

(AFP)

“The extent to which failed states make it difficult for scientists and the international scientific community to work on these issues simply means that these problems will be difficult to solve,” said Peter Gleick, President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Pacific Institute. An Auckland-based research group focused on water issues around the world.

“If the temperatures keep rising and you don’t have essential jobs because you don’t have a functioning government, climate is kind of exacerbating all of those threats,” said Jessica Olcott-Yelmo, senior fellow in climate security at the American Security Project, a nonpartisan group in Washington, D.C. and various risks.

In several reports released in October, the United States indicated that climate change will occupy a central role in security strategy, a shift in policy that underscores how climate change exacerbates chronic problems. One study identified 11 countries that had “the greatest concern,” because they were particularly vulnerable to climate change and unable to deal with the attendant problems. Haiti was among them.

The Caribbean nation has the highest-ranking travel advisory – “Level 4: Do Not Travel” – from the US State Department for kidnapping, crime, and civil unrest. The State Department says kidnappings are “widespread and victims regularly include US citizens”. In a newsletter in March, the US Embassy provided US citizens in Haiti with an information sheet on ways to avoid kidnappings, kidnappings have continued for years, and increased significantly after the departure of a UN peacekeeping mission in 2017. In October, 16 US citizens, including five Children and one Canadian, part of a group of missionaries who have been kidnapped by the feared Mawozo Gang of 400 and held for ransom for two months. Countless Haitian Americans have also been kidnapped.

A man holds his infant child at a shelter for families displaced by gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

(AFP)

Last week’s fighting, north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, between 400 Mozo and a rival gang, displaced thousands of people and killed at least 20 people, including six children. Officials warned that major roads to Haiti’s northern region could be cut off as a result of the fighting, as has already happened on a road heading south.

The Wiener meeting took place in March on the shore of an estuary that should have been easily accessible to both parties, only a few steps from the Dominican side of the border. It was Thursday morning, and the white mangrove forests provided shade for wieners, fishermen and their associations, a few environmental officials from the two countries and Dominican Navy officers. On the shore behind them, there were a series of wooden poles that were used to hold fishing nets for catching snakes. Much of the discussion between the two sides was over the exact location of the boundary above Hispaniola, the island’s common name for Haiti and the Dominicans. Republic.

“The maritime boundary is not entirely north, it is northwest,” the commander said. Irving Cabrera of the Dominican Navy said at the meeting.

The meeting took place at the mouth of a river with a name that goes back to a bloody incident on the island of Hispaniola: the river of massacre, also the river Dagabon. Although named after an earlier massacre, it is mostly known when Dominican soldiers, by order of dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1937, executed thousands of Haitian families and Dominicans of Haitian descent. The weapon of choice was the scythe.

“I don’t think it’s lost on both sides of the border,” said Frederic Payton, of AgroFrontera, the Dominican environmental group that worked with Wiener to organize the March meeting. Payton also helped lead the meeting. “The Rio massacre represents a kind of tension and integration of economies in the border region.”

Hatred toward Haitians continues today, not least with Dominican President Luis Abenader’s recently launched plan to build a multi-million dollar wall 118 miles (190 kilometers) along the border. Construction has already begun.

Deprived of the usual tension, not to mention hostility, the beach meeting lasted a few hours, as both sides were able to voice their concerns as Payton and Weiner served as peacekeepers of sorts in the absence of a strong frontier state. Both stressed the importance of looking for solutions rather than delving into problems.

“We were trying to frame the meeting not just as a complaint and finger pointing session, but to try and find some possible solutions that would take time,” Payton said. “But it will give every side hope and expectation that something will be done in the future.”

From the meeting came the idea of ​​creating a boat registration and fisheries licence, so that Haitian and Dominican authorities would know who’s in the waters and where they’re going.

Perhaps Wiener’s biggest achievement was the creation of Haiti’s first marine protected areas, including Three Bays National Park known for its mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrass beds, but he admits that his work is becoming more and more difficult working remotely. Jose Silescar, director of field operations for the Wiener Foundation and a graduate student in agricultural engineering, says the same, noting the inevitable delays that accompany projects.

“When you are the manager, when you are present, you do the project,” Sileskar said. “When you are not there, you stay with the assistant. It will not be the same.”

Agricultural engineer and horticulturist Frederic Payton, right, and marine biologist Jan Weiner, center left, cross the River Massacre in order to attend a rare face-to-face encounter between fishermen from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, at Fort Liberty

(AFP)

In recent years, Wiener has witnessed his aide’s brother being kidnapped and later released, and he spends a great deal of time making sure his staff are safe.

Weiner was born in Haiti and his family fled the regime of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier when he was six months old in Queens, New York. He returned to Haiti at six while Duvalier’s son and successor, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc”, was in power and left again for university, where he studied biology at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. Haiti came again, Wiener returned at the age of 23, and in 1992 he started his foundation. Weiner, 57, is married and the father of two children, a boy and a girl.

In the end, March’s trip to Haiti proved to be an event-free one – although the danger wasn’t far off.

When Wiener visited the southwestern part of the country, in the coastal town of Les Cayes, his driver got wind of the protesters’ plans to storm the local airport. The attack didn’t happen until after Wiener exited, a few days later: people ran down the tarmac and set fire to a small plane owned by an American missionary group. One person was killed and five others were injured, including four police officers, according to a police official working at the airport.

One day during his recent visit to northern Haiti, Weiner brought ashore a group of game rangers and environmentally conscious college students. The idea was to get them into the water, make them feel comfortable and learn the basics of snorkeling.

Standing on the sand, Wiener gave a brief lesson on how to use snorkel, showing how to expel water from a breathing apparatus. Minutes later they wade into the waves. The puffer fish roared toward them, and a man picked up the puffer fish and studied it. Wiener told him to put the fish back in the water, which he did. Swollen like a ball as it swayed lying flat, the sprayer seemed to be playing dead.

Wiener slashed knee-deep through the clear waters of the shore, gently picking up the sticky fish with both hands. He then walked a few steps toward the northern horizon, sending the puffer fish into the ocean.

“We really know there’s a part, you know, where you can be in the classroom,” Wiener said later from the hotel, where a few security guards patrolled the grounds with guns. “But it’s so important that people actually get out and touch and feel the environment.”

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