Let's Plant Trees in Haiti, Together!

Let’s Plant Trees Together

The situation of environmental degradation in Haiti is critical. The issue of climate change continues to be a problem for the environment. Many places in the rural areas of the country have not gotten rain for more than a year. The peasants, even when they plant crops, cannot get enough yield. Investments made in agricultural expansion are lost, which is why the economic situation is also getting, too.

One of the alternatives that people do in desperation is cut down trees to make charcoal to sell and earn some money so they can provide for their families. Lambi Fund, as part of its support work with local peasants, seeks to address this problem by helping them conduct  small economic projects (agriculture, women’s micro-credit, food storage, agro-transformation). 

We also conduct training programs to sensitize them on environmental degradation, to take action to reforest the mountains, and to cultivate  agro-forestry fields as well.

For more than a dozen years, the Lambi Fund has always suggested its project beneficiary organizations include a reforestation project along with their primary economic development project. This approach is beginning to yield results and peasants are becoming more aware of the problem of environmental degradation.

 It is in this context that Lambi Fund has agreed to seek funding for a large reforestation project for 8 organizations in the Latibonite Department and in the south of the country. This project is being carried out in three stages where the organizations will produce in each stage 160,000 seedlings.

The first stage was carried out in the period 2021-2022, the report for which has already been presented. All the organizations managed to produce approximately 150,590 seedlings which were distributed to 2000 farmers of the organizations’ members.

The second stage started in late 2022, and will last one year like the first stage. For this phase Lambi Fund added two new organizations to the program.

Lambi Fund made available to these organizations 178,000 gourds each to buy the materials and seeds needed to grow the tree nurseries. This small update we are presenting now will cover the activities of these 10 organizations in order to produce the 200,000 plants expected in this phase.

Main activities achieved

In the framework of this project, the 10 beneficiary organizations set up the following activities in order to be able to accomplish the project plan:

• Training: All organizations have completed the first phase of training on nursery techniques and sustainable agriculture. As part of the launch of this second phase, the managers of Lambi Fund led a discussion session to see how they conducted the first phase, discuss the problems they encountered, and take measures so that the mistakes are not repeated.

• Form a purchasing committee to buy the agricultural inputs they need in the local market and in the nearest cities

• Select members to be part of the project management committee

• Hiring nursery technicians to help them set up tree nurseries, take care of the seedlings as they grow, and accompany beneficiaries to follow the evolution of seedlings after they are planted in their gardens

* Choose together with the nursery technicians the most suitable space to place the nursery (generally they choose a space where there is water)

• Raise awareness to build up teams that will work together in nurseries to mix the compost, fill the bags with the soil/compost mix and bag the seeds.

During these forestry production seasons, the beneficiary organizations produced much fruit and forest trees.  Here are some of the species:

Forest trees: cedar, poplar, can, white wood, cashew, acacia, olive, spear

Fruit trees: cherries, tamarind, mango, coriander, orange, grapefruit, papaya, coffee, avocado, cocoa, cannabis, carambola, nuts.

The second group of organizations must produce the same 180,000 seedlings for a year. Lambi Fund has already provided them with the necessary tools to launch all project activities. All site work such as committee training, material purchases, pergola construction, seed purchases, nursery plots, etc.) have been completed. Currently the organizations are doing seeding (putting the seeds in soil filled bags). This phase will last 5-6 months.

As we always say, trees help prevent flooding and destruction of agriculture caused by weather related catastrophes (primarily hurricanes and tropical storms). So the program continues to make a big difference and more is expected.