Poor countries face the direst environmental threats, says environmental analyst H. Sterling Burnett of the National Center for Policy Analysis. Unlike wealthy nations, these countries don't have the resources or institutions necessary to improve their environmental situation.

Burnett reports that Haiti's ecosystem may be dying. In addition to its extreme poverty:

• Sewage treatment is largely nonexistent and safe drinking water rare -- but deadly forms of water-related diseases and parasitic infestations are widespread.

• At the turn of the century more than 60 percent of Haiti was forested; but less than 2 percent of the trees remain and are rapidly being cut.

• Due to deforestation and poor agricultural practices, over 6 percent of Haitian land is completely stripped of arable soil and more than a third has seriously eroded in the last 15 years.

Another example is the island of Madagascar, where 75 percent to 90 percent of the country's rain forests have been cut and more than half its mammalian species face near-term extinction.

In former Soviet-bloc countries, says Burnett, the disastrous environmental results of Soviet rule have only recently become fully apparent. In Kazakhstan, he reports:

• The Aral Sea, once the world's fourth largest lake, has lost more than two-thirds of its volume due to diversion of the rivers that feed it.

• The salinity of the remaining water more than tripled, wiping out entire fish species, and wind-blown salt has made 60 percent to 70 percent of irrigated land highly saline.

• Salinization has made much of Kazakhstan's water unsafe for drinking.

In a populated area of eastern Kazakhstan, at least 467 nuclear weapons were detonated, of which 167 were exploded above ground. Observers say that at least one person in every family is seriously ill with some form of radiation-related cancer and they suffer abnormally high rates of birth defects.

Burnett concludes it may be too late to save the environment in some of these countries.

Source: H. Sterling Burnett (environmental analyst, National Center for Policy Analysis), "Five Eco-despoiled Nations," World & I, January 1997.