VOL. X, NO. 2
SUMMER, 2003
Working Together in Haiti A call came to us early last January from Sam Lee of the New Jersey chapter of Partners of the Americas. Sam asked if we would be interested in working with them to develop an agro-forestry program in Haiti. Our immediate response was YES! Certainly! Any way we can help. Over the years we have continued to assist village projects there. The results are successful, but now came an opportunity to work with others to develop a long-term, highly visible, project with the potential to help a great many people and to have an important beneficial impact on the most environmentally-devastated land in this hemisphere. Through a "Farmer-to-Farmer" grant made possible by the U.S. Farm Bill, Dave Deppner was able to return to Haiti in February. There he met with Partners' program director, Benito Jasmin, who works from his office in the northern city of Cap-Haitian. Benito was well prepared. That morning, program leaders from eight communities arrived for an initial meeting. Others came by through the day, with concerns and ideas to present. In the evening, we were joined by 14 Peace Corps volunteers and field workers from the UN and other organizations. It was soon apparent we had not brought nearly enough seeds and training materials. Over the following days we traveled over roads that are by far the worst maintained anywhere in this part of the world: that itself is a very limiting factor for rural development - technology is being transferred in the mountains of Haiti at a top speed of maybe ten miles an hour. In the many villages we visited, the welcome was warm and the problems presented were serious. The land could not meet even the barest essential needs of the community. People were facing hunger to the point
Benito Jasmin, coordinator of the Partners of the Americas program in Haiti, shows off the Leucaena Trees he planted abut six months earlier as seeds.
of starvation. As we moved farther up into the mountains, the land became ever more barren. Now roads and bridges were washed out. It was no longer a matter of soil erosion. Now landslides were forcing people away. Despite crushing poverty, the people we met wanted to do something about it...if we would help them. The need for seeds was quickly resolved. The first weekend we headed for the beach - in this case Labadee Beach, a park built on the north coast for the tourists - who no longer come. In the park we found that at least some of the seeds we had earlier provided
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had been put to good use. On the surrounding hills were hundreds of trees of species that would fit well in an agro-forestry program. Because these trees self pollinate, the genetic quality remains just as high. Also, because the seeds are produced at the site, they are well acclimated. No need to ship seeds: local farmers harvested all they would need, with extra to send to other groups. Thanks to this find, in this first planting season we were able to distribute over a half-million tree seeds to local groups in 38 villages. Can Haiti's deforestation problem be solved? We believe it's possible - and that it can be done much sooner than might be imagined. But how massive is the problem? Let's put it this way: we worked extensively in one village in the southern town of Petite Guave: a place called "Vallue". The village has about 600 families and the total land area is about 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres). The village has special importance because of it's highly successful cooperative, APV, which has been actively demonstrating to its members how they can benefit by working together. The cooperative asked
Trees planted earlier at the Labadee Beach Park in northern Haiti are providing hundreds of thousands of seeds. Here village leaders select the best trees for continuing harvest.
TREES and Partners to help restore these severely eroded lands by planting trees. These uplands are subjected to high winds off the ocean. For lack of trees the soil is blowing away. On this visit, we saw mangoes and oranges blown off the trees, ruined by the high winds. The obvious answer is to plant a combination of tree species as windbreaks. To make this work would require the village to plant about 40% of the total land with trees. That's about 5 million trees! The members of APV believe they can do this in three years. That would mean each family would contribute 100+ hours of work each year for the benefit of their neighbors and the village. Estimating the cost of the program at ten cents per tree, it would be a half million dollar project - to restore just one village. There are hundreds of such villages in Haiti's uplands. This may give you, our members, some idea of what the unsustainable logging, the failure to teach people about sustainable development, has cost all of us. While the cost is staggering, the important fact is that it can be done! These two organizations, helping the people of these communities, intend to continue this project with all the resources we can apply, hoping others will see the potential benefit and join us.
High in the mountains of the village of Vallue, Benito looks out over the barren mountains. To save the soils of this one community from wind erosion will require planting about five million trees. Page 2 Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. X, No. 2 Summer, 2003
About Working Together
Dear members and Friends, Your program moves ahead because we are in daily contact with community leaders and others concerned with human development and the environment, both here and in the world’s developing communities. By e-mail, fax and letters, we are presented with a continuing parade of problems, ideas and possible answers. From this we note two unmistakable trends. The first is a growing realization that world agriculture, the world’s food security if you prefer, and the environment are more closely linked than ever before. Certainly environmental problems impact agricultural production and, more and more, existing agricultural practices are giving the environment a real beating. Secondly, we are increasingly caught up in an energy crisis. We see the price at the gas pump, the fuel bill from this past cold winter, and begin to understand the bite energy takes from our pockets. Our staff technicians and community leaders add other woes: the need for energy leaves the mountains of Haiti barren, pollutes the air we breathe, changes weather patterns and causes crop failures. When there is no wood, people burn animal dung for heat and lose the value of the organic fertilizer. We sometimes speculate about the effect on the rest of us if these people, more than half the world’s population, had enough money to compete with the other half for fossil-based energy. These trends, with the events of these past several months, have convinced leaders of nonprofit organizations to listen to what their supporters have long been suggesting: “why don’t you find more ways to meet and cooperate with each other?” TREES and other groups are doing this and, increasingly, we find it’s actually working! We now work with about 120 local partner organizations in these developing communities. This has greatly expanded our ability to reach even the most remote communities, to help them design even more beneficial projects, to combine a wider range of appropriate technology, making projects increasingly sustainable and cost-effective. Closer to home, our recent decision to collaborate with Partners of the Americas is just the latest success in combining important resources and skills. The benefits came quickly: more than 30 new projects, planting nearly a half-million trees, in this first season; the availability of “Farmer-toFarmer” (FtF) grants to cut our field expenses almost in half while bringing us to more people who need our help. This is only the latest success in combining more resources. Before this year is out, your program will help people plant more than five million trees on the world’s most barren lands. Your program is leading the way. The work represents many people sharing their concerns, their energies and talents. You’re one of those people and we thank you. Please keep helping. Sincerely,
John R. Moore Page 3 Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. X, No. 2 Summer, 2003
Introducing Our New Sustainable Energy Department With all of the environmental problems that we face today, a new call is being sounded to switch to renewable energies. TREES is getting involved in this movement toward a more responsible use of energy. We are opening an Energy Department, headed by Bedru Sultan, to research alternative energies, to disseminate information about them, and to help people make the switch. What is renewable energy? Unlike nonrenewable energies such as oil, coal and natural gas, which exist in limited quantities, renewable energies can be continuously replenished by harvesting various perpetual powers in the universe. Solar, wind, and geothermal, are all examples of renewable energies, each with its particular benefits. But one of the most versatile, user-friendly, and most inexpensive renewable energies is sometimes forgotten: wood. A tree is essentially a form of solar energy. A tree grows when carbon dioxide and sunlight combine in photosynthesis to create energy (as well as oxygen for us to breathe). When we burn the wood to heat our houses and cook our food, some carbon dioxide is released into the air, but it is carbon dioxide that had been absorbed by the tree while it was growing. There is no net pollution. Furthermore, we can create a pollution bank by simply planting more trees than we burn. If I plant ten trees each year and use five, I am absorbing twice the pollution that I am creating and I will have double the trees that I need. I am using a sustainable, environmentally friendly fuel and soaking up some of the world’s pollution while I’m at it. This is in contrast to the nonrenewable fossil fuels, which introduce new carbon into the atmosphere from deep in the earth. The drawback to sustainable wood energy, as anyone who has a fireplace knows, is hauling and storing the wood. This is compounded by the fact that typically only 30% of the wood’s potential energy is harnessed. In poor, rural areas cooking is often done over a fire in the open, which is only 4-8% efficient. Inefficient wood burning means lots of hauling and puts an unnecessary burden on the trees.
A horribly inefficient cooking stove in Haiti, a place where fuel- and trees- cannot be wasted.
One of the many goals of Bedru’s energy department will be to increase the efficiency of wood fuel at all of our project sites. The first step in his project is the introduction of new, efficient stoves in Ethiopian cities and villages to take the burden of demand off the few remaining resources left.
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EFFICIENT USE OF FUELWOOD
Bedru Sultan, the new head of our Energy Department
There are several types of alternative, efficient stoves being introduced today. The Ethiopian “Mirte” and Kenyan Jiko are both improved designs of previously inefficient and dangerous metal stoves. Some new Western-designed “producer gas” stoves can be constructed out of widely available materials for under $10 and can be fueled by agricultural waste products in addition to wood. These are options that can make real, positive differences in the environment and in people’s pockets. With this message, Bedru will visit villages and distribute the new stoves for a small price— the villagers must plant 10 trees for each stove.
Ethiopian “Mirte” Stove • • • • • • •
40-50% saving of fuel wood Cleaner homes and indoor air (especially important for AIDS sufferers) Safer- less burn potential Increased cooking speed Improves income potential (investment pays for itself) Creates jobs through production Stove cost < $6 Fuel savings > $30/yr/household
Kenyan Ceramic Jiko • • • • • •
Uses ceramic for insulation Durable and Portable Safer than Traditional Metal Stoves Cost ~ $5 70% fuel savings (~$50/yr/household) Payback time = 1.2 months
Producer gas can carry even greater potential for fuel efficiency, and have even been used to power automobile engines. They operate on a simple principle, where some type of organic material, often agricultural residues that would otherwise be wasted, is burnt in a container. The vapors given off, CO and H2 are then ignited to create a cooking flame. The energy used is a vastly improved 50-60%, and demand for firewood can be decreased by 80%. This “biomass” stove can boil 4L of water in 20 minutes, is smokeless, and costs only 7-10 dollars. Page 5 Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. X, No. 2 Summer, 2003
FAO Assists Our Educational Program We are pleased to announce that we recently received a generous donation from the United Nations Food & Agriculture Program (FAO) in Rome. FAO has provided hundreds of posters and thousands of comic books about forests including “Future Forests”, “Fabulous Forest Factories” “Our Trees and Forests”, and I’m So Hungry I Could Eat A Tree!”. These training materials are intended to give young people a better appreciation of the important values of forests—and why all of us must work together to protect them. These materials are being sent along with tree seeds, technical books and papers and video tapes, as part of training packages to our new projects worldwide. The posters will be displayed in community centers and the comic books distributed to local schools and libraries. These materials will encourage other community groups to start more projects to save and restore forested lands.
Paul Lamberth Joins TREES Staff Paul Lamberth has joined our staff as coordinator for community development, bringing us important international business and management skills. He comes to TREES from Pennsylvania, where he was CEO of J&J Agri-Products, developing and marketing products for sustainable agriculture. An important part of Paul’s work will be improving and maintaining communications with our members so we can better respond to your concerns and suggestions. He will also present our program to environmentally concerned foundations and businesses, developing grant proposals to expand our worldwide program. Paul’s career began as an officer in the Marine Corps. Then he was an FBI agent and Department of Agriculture manager. He later founded two Maryland-based consulting companies and this kicked off new areas of interest for international commerce and humanitarian projects. He led Western and Russian government and business development teams in the post-Soviet era. With widespread concern by the public and by USbased energy companies about the growing threat of global climate change, Paul’s experience should help TREES to bring investors into our program of restoring an environmental balance to the world’s most degraded lands. Page 6 Johnny Ipil-Seed News Vol. X, No. 2 Summer, 2003
Opinion:
Only 500 Miles to Miami Beach by Dave Deppner What would convince a family- mother, father, and small children- to set out in a leaky fishing boat across hundreds of miles of open sea to a place they know little about, where they would surely be turned away if discovered? The Haitians call it their "diaspora". More than half the people of Haiti live somewhere else. They keep their citizenship and, thanks to their newly found employment opportunities, they manage to send some money home each month to their less fortunate kin. Which is quite possibly the main thing that keeps that nation's economy afloat. Haiti is, by far, the poorest country in this hemisphere. And it's not by coincidence that Haiti is also the hemisphere's environmental basket case. In this country of high mountains, surrounded by a narrow coastal plain, virtually all the forest cover has been destroyed. It's often stated that, when flying over the island of Hispaniola, you can clearly see the boundary between Haiti and the Dominican Republic because there are no trees on the Haiti side (to which we add there are not all that many on the DR side either). Our own past experience in Haiti shows the trees we plant grow better there than almost any other place we work. Why then is it that there has been no natural return of trees to those barren uplands? The reason is the continuing pressure on the land. That pressure is human desperation. To survive, to feed their families, Haitians must produce something they can sell. For those living in upland rural areas, it's no longer possible to produce a crop on the degraded and eroded land. Charcoal is the one product they know they can always sell. The result has become entire upland communities moving back and forth across the denuded watersheds, cutting any tree or bush they spot, convert-
ing it into charcoal. Every town has its charcoal markets. Seemingly every household cooks its food over a charcoal fire. In this way all of Haiti's rich resources, especially human resources, are being systematically plundered. Because the land can no longer support food production, people destroy that one resource-trees- that could bring their land back to sustainable productivity. That's how the cycle of poverty, of desperation, deepens ever faster in the land that was once so green as to be called "the Pearl of the Antilles". We could say that Haiti, even more than the rest of the world, is being brought down by an energy crisis. Carrying that even farther, since Haiti is only 500 miles from Florida, it has serious implications for us as well. This is not an argument against the use of wood products, in this case charcoal, as a source of energy. In fact, the rest of us would face an even deeper crisis if the Developing World had the money to switch to petroleum products. Instead, we point out that whatever energy source we use must be sustainable. Otherwise, the future for every one of us will be extremely bleak. With the help you so generously provide, we are at work in Haiti, and elsewhere, showing people how they can have that sustainable future. They're listening, and responding, but this year especially we see a need to work even faster.
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Loret Miller Ruppe Center P.O. Box 7027 Silver Spring, Maryland 20907
Address change ? Duplicate Mailing? Change as shown Remove from List Mail Changes or Call 800-643-0001
A NOTICE TO THE WAYFARER Ye who would pass by And would raise your hand against me, Harken ere you harm me! I am the heat of your hearth On the cold winter nights. The friendly shade screening you From the summer sun. My fruits are refreshing droughts Quenching your thirst as you journey on. I am the beam that holds your house, The board at your table, The bed on which you lie, And the timber that builds your boat. I am the handle of your hoe, The door of your homestead, The wood of your cradle, And the shell of your coffin. I am the bread of kindness, And the flower of beauty. Ye who pass by, Listen to my prayer; Harm me not. (A notice found nailed to a tree in a park in Seville, Spain, many years agoâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; passed along to us by our friends, The Whitewater Valley Land Trust in Indiana)
Johnny Ipil-Seed News is a quarterly newsletter of TREES FOR THE FUTURE, Inc., a
nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people of developing countries begin environmentally beneficial, self-help projects. This newsletter is sent to all supporting members to inform them of recent events, plans, financial matters and how their support is helping people. If you wish to receive this newsletter, or would like more information, please contact:
TREES FOR THE FUTURE The Loret Miller Ruppe Center for Sustainable Development 9000 16th Street, P.O. Box 7027 Silver Spring, MD 20907 Toll Free: 1.800.643.0001 Ph: 301.565.0630 Fax: 1.301.565.5012
info@treesftf.org, www.treesftf.org Dr. John R. Moore, Chairman Dave and Grace Deppner, Founders Bedru Sultan, East Africa Program Paul Lamberth, Community Development Director Chris Wells, Development Technician Gabriel Mondragon, Asia/Pacific Program Jaime Bustillo, Central America Program Thara G. Blanco, Belize Program Kelela Mizanekristos, Administrative Asst.
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