Sustainability in Haiti - Reforestation

We equip Haitians with the knowledge and techniques needed to grow trees and reclaim their environment.

Love A Child’s reforestation program is conducted through the Agricultural Training Center (ATC) and is one of six interrelated sustainability initiatives.

Our Haitian agronomist teaches and demonstrates the LAC sustainability model in the ATC nursery by propagating beneficial plant stock such as:

Moringa
Neem
Leucaena
Fruit trees
Bamboo
Vetiver grass

Each of the plants listed play a role in sustainable reforestation projects. They benefit Haitian families by either providing a nutritional supplement for consumption, feed for animals, or acting as an agent to stabilize and improve the soil. With donor support, we are able to educate families on how to plant, grow and harvest the trees, as well as improve the overall food security for the people of Fond Parisien.

Planting Trees in Haiti…
The Fond Parisien Reforestation Initiative is underway.

Each tree planted has the potential to cause a ripple effect of improvement in reestablishing the forests that once blanketed the Haitian landscape. In the last year, a team of ATC students planted more than 5,000 nutritious trees thanks to project sponsors. This program is critical for providing long-term solutions to breaking the cycle of poverty for Haitian families.

The Benefits of Moringa…
A key to Haiti’s reforestation efforts.

Love A Child’s aggressive approach to helping Haitians improve their environment includes the planting of at least 25,000 Moringa trees each year. Moringa Oleifera is an important species. Here are three top reasons why Moringa is the “star” of our reforestation initiative:

The Moringa tree grows 16 feet from a seed in one year.
Moringa planted as a row crop can be harvested every 45 days by cutting off the top half of the tree.
It will produce more nutritious food for humans and animals than corn, rice or wheat planted in the same space.

Using Vetiver Grass in Multiple Ways…
Nourishing degraded soil, curbing erosion and combatting deforestation.

Vetiver is a plant currently being used by Love A Child’s agronomist to help solve Haiti’s soil erosion problems that were caused by decades of deforestation. It is a perennial grass that can grow up to five feet high, with roots that grow downward – six to thirteen feet in depth. Vetiver grass helps stabilize fragile soils, while conserving moisture and nutrients.

Solutions…
Read more about our approach

For more on Love A Child’s work with reforestation in Haiti, download the full project summary here.

In a land left barren due to deforestation and pockmarked with erosion and landslides, we knew we needed to do something to reforest the land. With less than two percent of the trees remaining in this island nation, Haiti needed a solution – we must provide other ways for people to make income and cook their food that allows trees to grow again to protect their land.

In this region, plants and trees need to start in shadehouses, where they can be started in soil fortified with biochar, worm compost and other organic materials to enrich the soil and make it hold scarce moisture for growing vegetables, trees, and grasses to improve the soil. Your donations go toward establishing plant stock material – Moringa, Neem, Leucaena, fruit trees, bamboo and Vetiver grass—that gives the greatest opportunity for growth and stabilizing the environment in Haiti.

Wilner, the trainer/instructor at the Agricultural Training Center (ATC), checks the young Moringa tree seedlings that will be planted soon. Over the past 4 years, we have planted over 50,000 Moringa trees. This “miracle tree” is very drought-tolerant and hardy, and its high nutritional properties (high in protein and many vitamins) are essential in improving poor diets. It is also very useful as animal feed and for making high-value soil nutrients and compost.

We started our reforestation projects with Moringa trees because they are easy to grow in Haiti and they have multiple benefits for both humans and the soil. Here is our first “forest” of Moringa trees. These trees now provide the leaves for a Moringa powder business that supplies life-saving nutrition to our medical clinics. The leaves of this extraordinary tree contain seven times the vitamin C found in oranges, four times the calcium in milk, four times the vitamin A in carrots, two times the protein of yogurt, 25 times the iron in spinach, and three times the potassium in bananas. Promoting the ongoing planting of Moringa trees was the first step to a solution that would stop erosion and develop an edible product that has so many benefits.

Madamn Sonja is now processing the leaves into a fine powder that can be used in soup, tea, baked goods and so many other edible combinations. Realizing the great benefits of these trees, Madamn Sonja helped us lead other locals on our Tree Planting Day to give a hand in planting more trees to help repair their land.

Here local volunteers are eagerly helping to plant Vetiver grass among the Cassia trees along a drainage way at Gwo Maché Mirak for beautification, and to improve the soil and to stop destructive erosion. The people are excited to play a role in improving their environment. We need more trees and more Vetiver grass, and some rain!

Plantings of Moringa trees, Cassia trees and Vetiver grass around Gwo Maché Mirak help improve the soil, stabilize it, provide cooling shade and promote the return of reliable rainfall, all while looking like a beautiful oasis in the otherwise desert-like area.

Elisant and students at the ATC school are proud to show their neighbors what they have learned about the benefits of planting beneficial trees and cover plants. Elisant is setting in the new varieties of “grafted” mango trees that will extend their local mango season from two months to more than a six months harvest.

Vetiver is a plant currently being used by Love A Child’s agronomist to help solve Haiti’s soil erosion problems caused by decades of deforestation. It is a perennial grass that can grow up to five feet high, with roots that grow downward – six to thirteen feet in depth. Vetiver grass helps stabilize fragile soils, while conserving moisture and nutrients.

Wilner is preparing these young coconut trees for their role in Planting Day. The local Haitians are excited to participate in our reforestation and agricultural training programs and show their neighbors how important it is to plant trees like these coconut trees. In just a few years these will bear delicious coconuts while they improve the environment.

A happy mother received a new baby tree at the ATC on Planting Day which she will plant in her yard and raise as carefully as she raises her children. She knows how important these trees are to restoring their environment in Haiti. Thanks to your donations, these people have access to things like the ATC and trees for their neighborhoods.

Happy local Haitians came to pick up plants from the ATC nursery to plant around their homes and surrounding areas of Fond Parisien. The challenge now is to deliver these “hands-on” solutions to areas where they are most needed: extremely poor and remote villages in Haiti where people have little access to agroforestry resources. Despite the challenges in logistics, efforts to educate locals in Fond Parisien on reforestation have been greatly successful within the last year, helping to generate hope and enthusiasm from the community to work towards long-term solutions.

This young agro-ecology student at the ATC is so grateful for her opportunity to learn how she and her neighbors can take responsibility for improving their own environment. From an improved environment comes an improved life.

Even the children were excited to participate in Planting Day. Keeping the children involved and teaching them about the benefits of planting trees and how it will improve their land and their lives will bring improvements for generations to come, not just for today.

The young children don’t need any education nor encouragement to “play in the dirt” planting beneficial trees.

One key component to reforesting the land in Haiti is educating communities on the benefits of replanting and how easy it is to address the effects of deforestation through cooperative agricultural production. Improved agricultural production begins with reforestation so the soil will be stabilized, improved nutritionally and reliable rains will return.

These fruitful demonstration gardens at the ATC were barren desert just a year ago, but see now how quickly the land responds to proper care and attention. There is so much that can be done… with your help.

Wilner, our director of the ATC, is tending to some acacia trees planted at the marketplace to control erosion and provide shade, as well as a windbreak.

How you can help become a sustainable outreach champion

With your help, we can continue to implement our reforestation efforts so that Haitian families can improve their way of life in a sustainable manner. Every penny counts!

To learn about all of our programs, please visit our Sustainability Initiatives web pages.

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Reforestation

We equip Haitians with the knowledge and techniques needed to grow trees and reclaim their environment.

Planting Trees in Haiti…
The Fond Parisien Reforestation Initiative is underway.

The Benefits of Moringa…
A key to Haiti’s reforestation efforts.

Using Vetiver Grass in Multiple Ways…
Nourishing degraded soil, curbing erosion and combatting deforestation.

Solutions…
Read more about our approach

How you can help become a sustainable outreach champion

Agricultural Training Center Appropriate Technologies Chicken Co-op Edible Plant Nursery MarketplaceReforestation

Reforestation

We equip Haitians with the knowledge and techniques needed to grow trees and reclaim their environment.

Planting Trees in Haiti… The Fond Parisien Reforestation Initiative is underway.

The Benefits of Moringa… A key to Haiti’s reforestation efforts.

Using Vetiver Grass in Multiple Ways… Nourishing degraded soil, curbing erosion and combatting deforestation.

Solutions… Read more about our approach

How you can help become a sustainable outreach champion

Agricultural Training CenterAppropriate TechnologiesChicken Co-opEdible Plant NurseryMarketplaceReforestation

Planting Trees in Haiti…
The Fond Parisien Reforestation Initiative is underway.

The Benefits of Moringa…
A key to Haiti’s reforestation efforts.

Using Vetiver Grass in Multiple Ways…
Nourishing degraded soil, curbing erosion and combatting deforestation.

Solutions…
Read more about our approach

Agricultural Training Center Appropriate Technologies Chicken Co-op Edible Plant Nursery MarketplaceReforestation