Grand Bois National Park, Mountain national park in Sud, Haiti
Grand Bois National Park is a mountain forest reserve in southern Haiti protecting rainforest on an isolated peak rising to approximately 1,262 meters (4,140 feet). The park covers more than 200 hectares of dense vegetation in higher elevations, forming an important forest area with many plant species.
Grand Bois National Park was created by presidential decree on 23 September 2015 under Michel Martelly. On 18 January 2019 the land was sold to the NGO Haiti National Trust, working with Société Audubon Haïti, which bought over 400 hectares at Morne-Grand-Bois with donations from Global Wildlife Conservation and Rainforest Trust. In April 2021 the German organisation Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund began supporting reforestation above 1,000 metres.
The forest above 1,000 metres is the source of streams feeding the Tiburon river, and the Haitian National Trust works with the village of Sevré on its banks, where reforestation since 2021 has used endemic species to reinforce the ecosystem. The park's Creole name, Gran Bwa, simply means "big wood".
The park covers all terrain on Morne Grand Bois above 900 m, with the summit at 1,262 m; roughly half of the area above 1,000 m (207 hectares) still carries forest. Access is on foot from the Les Anglais side, northwest of the town, and the mountain straddles the Sud and Grand'Anse border. Since 2019 the land has been owned and managed by Haiti National Trust, so visits should be arranged with the managing foundation rather than attempted independently.
A frog species long thought extinct was rediscovered living in the park alongside several newly identified frog species found nowhere else. This discovery showed how important this isolated mountain is for rare amphibians.
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