A Flamboyant tree in Bony, Haiti.Wangari Maathai, from Kenya won the Nobel Peace Prize for her vision of the Green Belt Movement, reforestation project in Africa. Our goal is to educate our little corner of Haiti, using her model.
Reforestation
The best time to plant a tree
was yesterday, the next best time is NOW!
Reforestation has begun, see
homepage for details!
This ongoing project will begin in 2006 through the schools in the Thiotte parish. Father Gaston wants to teach the students about the importance of reforestation in Haiti and how to plant trees. He plans to buy the tree seedlings, then pay the students in the schools to plant and care for the trees. The trees will be inspected twice in the period of their first year of growth. The student will earn a small reward for each tree that survives its first year.
A Flamboyant tree in Bony, Haiti.
Wangari Maathai, from Kenya won
the Nobel Peace Prize for her vision of the Green Belt Movement, reforestation
project in Africa. Our goal is to educate our little corner of Haiti,
using her model.
We began raising money for this project in 2004 with the help of Spring Hill Middle School 8th grade class of 2005, and the French Club at Madison East High School, 2005. Thanks also to Judy McGettigan of Madison.
"Cut down the trees and the downward spiral begins - the soil erodes, the water goes deep, the children starve.....(the Greenbelt Movement will increase) awareness of the relationship between environmental degradation, poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, mismanagement of natural resources, and the political and economic impact of these" --Wangari Maathai
March, 2004 - "The Gros Morne reforestation
project, in northwestern Haiti, was started by villagers who realized that
unless they stopped erosion in the mountains upstream, they would lose their
main street, and maybe their village to the River Marcelle, which had already
cut a dangerous cliff.
"Today, the Father Jean Marie Vincent Memorial Forest, named
for a courageous priest who was killed for his work with peasants, is growing
tall with 180,000 trees, in stark contrast to the denuded mountains surrounding
it. The main streets of the village of Gros Morne are now lined with
seedlings, and neighborhood committees are responsible for their protection.
And a food security program, inspired by the Kenyan Green Belt movement, is
allowing poor families who have no land to grow vegetables to feed themselves.
"Since 1999 Melinda Miles has coordinated the
Haiti Reborn program of the Quixote Center,
which supports the Gros Morne reforestation project."
From "Dreaming of Trees" by: Melinda Miles
"...It has been four hundred years since Haiti officially
became a French colony and the foundations for environmental degradation were
first laid. Whole areas of forest were cleared to provide space for large,
rolling plantations. The land was used to exhaustion, as were slaves
brought from West Africa. Land and labor were both treated as expendable
and limitless.
"... through subsistence farming...the land has come to a
point where it seems almost beyond repair. Year after year crops are
planted, and no time is allowed for the land to lay fallow and renew its
nutrients. As trees continue to be cleared rich topsoil washes away and
the land cannot retain any moisture. Whole areas of desert are created
where once there was tropical rain forest, and the missing trees alter weather
patterns creating long and dangerous droughts.
"Another aspect of the environmental problem is what is
termed the charcoal cycle. Rural families who are struggling to survive on
land that doesn't produce much often head into the countryside in search of
trees. Charcoal can be considered one of Haiti's most successful cash
crops, but the result of its boom (most of which took place in the last half of
this century) is clearly illustrated by the naked mountains and large expanses
of dusty desert.......Haiti now has only 2% dense forest cover, and loses
topsoil at a rate of about 37 million tons per year.
"....but Haiti Reborn is working with community leaders to
come up with new strategies for making this land green again. Tree
nurseries are preparing seedlings to be shipped to areas where they will be
planted and cared for by peasants who are trained in reforestation techniques.
With loving care and protection from roaming animals these trees can renew
forests and create a whole new ecosystem. Their roots retain soil and
water allowing all kinds of plants to take hold and thrive, and the return of
trees in areas which are now deserts can help restore normal weather patterns."
From ABC News Online 5/29/04
Deforestation to blame for Haiti floods: PM -
"Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue attributes
the country's deadly flash floods to the Caribbean country's massive
deforestation.
"'The deep cause of this situation is the deforestation of
Haiti, ' Mr. Latortue said. 'We have lost more than 80 per cent of forest
because people like to use wood charcoal as a source of energy.'
"Mr. Latortue says....,'The number of deaths is difficult to
determine because of the conditions under which the floods took place, with the
electricity out at night. We can't go on like this,' he said of the
deforestation issue.
"'When I return I have plans to speak with the Government to
invite students in a re-forestation project.'"