Haiti tree programs under way, but reforestation is necessary

Soon after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, I wrote that the hundreds of millions of dollars pledged by the international community to rebuild the country would be a waste of money unless accompanied by a massive reforestation effort.

I said each of us should donate one tree for Haiti.

Nearly two months later, we're beginning to see the first — admittedly limited — steps in that direction.

On Friday, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations launched "A tree for a child in Haiti" campaign.

The FAO, which at the time applauded my column, is calling on people to donate at least $5 to plant a fruit tree in a Haitian school garden.

"Your donation pays for an avocado, mango or other fruit tree seedling, its planting, a small amount of fertilizer and watering and weeding for the first year," the campaign goes.

It will help schools teach children how to care for the environment, and at the same time provide food for the students, it says.

Simultaneously, several other international institutions and nongovernmental groups are studying other approaches, such as urging Haiti's diaspora or foreign visitors to the country to each donate one tree for Haiti.

Deforestation has long been one of the main reasons behind Haiti's chronic poverty. For more than a century, people have cut down about 98 percent of Haiti's trees to use as firewood or charcoal for cooking. That has left the ground almost useless for agriculture. It also dried up water supplies.

At the same time, deforestation causes devastating floods. When it storms in Haiti's mountains, the water flows down into nearby villages with nothing to absorb it, or stop it. Thousands die.

Why aren't you more ambitious and go beyond trees for school yards, I asked three senior FAO officials in a telephone conference.

They said schools will be the first step of the reforestation campaign, while experts figure out how to overcome legal problems with land ownership in Haiti.

Unless people own the land and own the trees, they will cut them down sooner or later, they said. There have been massive international tree planting campaigns in Haiti in the past and most have failed because people ended up cutting more trees than were planted.

FAO forestry experts Walter Kollert said it would take 220 million trees just to raise Haiti's forested areas from the current 2 percent to 10 percent.

"If you calculate realistic planting activities by year, if they had a good forestry department, it would take 44 years to reach a forest cover of 10 percent of the country," Kollert said. "That tells you something about the magnitude of the problem."