by Aly Lewis
Location: Caribbean, eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of Haiti
Population: 9,650,054
Total area: 48,320 sq km (more than twice the size of New Hampshire)
Population below poverty line: 42.2%
Religion: The Dominican Republic is 95.2% Christian, including 88.6% Roman Catholic and 4.2% Protestant.
Pollution: Bajos de Haina, 12 miles (19 km) west of Santo Domingo, was included on the Blacksmith Institute's list of the world's 10 most polluted places, due to lead poisoning by a battery recycling center closed in 1999.
The rural sector in the Dominican Republic is affected by high unemployment and poverty rates. Lack of economic opportunities is one of the many causes of poverty and migration to the cities. Adding to social and economic difficulties is environmental devastation, especially deforestation. Subsistence farmers rely heavily on revenues from cutting forest trees, but as mature trees run out, the farmers’ source of living also diminishes. They attempt to raise crops on the cleared land, but soil fertility has been compromised, and the land does not produce for long. As farmers find it increasingly difficult to generate revenues from the forests and the farms, they move to densely populated shantytowns on the outskirts of cities.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment