Location, Location, Location - A Natural History of the New World - page 64

Figure 2.29 Political boundary between Haiti, nearly denuded of vegetation (left), and the
more forested Dominican Republic (right), 25 September 2002. Scientifi c Visualization Stu-
dio, Landsat-5,Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA.
The fl oods of 24 May 2004 and the tragic loss of thousands of lives in southeast-
ern Haiti and Jimaní, Dominican Republic, provide important lessons for scientists,
conservationists, and politicians. The same storm did not have such a devastating
ef ect in neighbouring Puerto Rico or in other regions of the Dominican Republic,
mainly because the highlands are forested.
—T. MITCHELL AIDE and H. RICARDO GRAU, Globalization,
Migration, and Latin American Ecosystems , 2004
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
And it's a hard rain that's gonna fall.
—BOB DYLAN, “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall,” 1962
(chosen as background music for the Jardín Botánic de la
Universitat de Valéncia's 2008 display on the environment)
The most widespread plant formation in the Antilles is the shrubland/
chaparral-woodland-savanna that grows to the lee of mountains, on south-