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> /** headlines: 126.0 **/
> ** Topic: Report On Haiti Says Environmental Degradation Deepens **
> ** Written 11:28 AM Jul 8, 1996 by econet in cdp:headlines **
>
> /* Written 11:27 PM Jul 5, 1996 by theearthtime in earthtimes */
> /* ---------- "Haiti: Environmental degradation deepens" ---------- */
>
> Title: Haiti: Environmental degradation deepens
> By Elizabeth Bryant
>
> Earth Times News Service
> BUTEAU, Haiti--The scrubby green mountains welcoming a visitor to Haiti
> tell it all.
>
> >From the ground, they throw cool shadows over the Caribbean and cities
> like Port-au-Prince, a mirage of lushness. But from an airplane, the
> green gives way to deep, sand-colored gouges of erosion and a
> mediterranean sparseness unsuited to this tropical island.
>
> Less obvious are the dozens of environmental projects that have sprung up
> in recent years. Some, like a four-year, $30 million natural resource
> project sponsored by the United States Agency for International
> Development, are massive. Others, like the tiny tree nurseries sprouting
> atop the mountainside community of Buteau, about 60 miles south of Port-
> au-Prince, are minuscule.
>
> But increasingly, environmentalists are looking at grassroots
> conservation, rather than government-sponsored efforts, as the key to
> Haiti's future. They criticize the Haitian government and the
> international community for not doing enough, and for pegging
> environmental issues to political self interest.
>
> "We're only in the beginning of the environmental fight,'' said Emile
> Eyma, Head of IRATAM, a private environmental and development think-tank
> based in Port-au-Prince. "And that doesn't mean that millions haven't
> already been spent on the environment and erosion control--especially by
> international organizations.''
>
> Each year, the country's 7 million inhabitants burn the equivalent of 30
> million trees--20 million more than the country grows annually. Forests
> have shrunk from covering 80 percent of Haiti's lands several hundred
> years ago, to only 3 percent today.
>
> Deforestation stepped up during the international trade embargo, between
> 1991-1994, as people burned trees for the fuel they could no longer
> import. Haiti's exploding population growth hasn't helped either.
> Strapped for cash and burdened by innumerable needs, the government has
> not placed a major emphasis on conservation. Only $300,000 has been
> earmarked for the environment in Haiti's 1995-1996 budget--only about .17
> percent of the government's overall budget.
>
> "The government has a lot of priorities and the environment isn't one of
> them,'' Eyma said.
>
> For their part, large-scale international efforts have ebbed and flowed
> with the tides of Haitian politics. During the trade embargo, many
> environmental programs ground to a halt.
>
> If change is to come, Eyma and other experts say, it will come through
> efforts of Haitians like Marcel Kercelin, whose nine-year toil to reforest
> his hillside farm have yielded small green groves of fruit and hardwood
> trees and two neat tree nurseries of potted mango, eucalyptus and palm.
> "This is desolate ground,'' Kercelin said, surveying the steep hills
> climbing skyward and crisscrossed with small farms. "That's why I started
> planting.''
>
> Kercelin is a member of Solidarity Forest, a newly-established grassroots
> organization that has captured the attention of the Haitian government and
> international donors. Formed last year by members of a local farmers
> cooperative, the fledgling environmental group aims to reforest southern
> Haiti's desolate hills.
>
> So far, membership has been limited to the environs of the small Buteau
> community in southern Haiti, with funds coming from Episcopal churches in
> Haiti and the US, along with other private donations. But eventually, its
> members hope, the project will spread to other parts of Haiti as well.
>
> At a recent meeting, a handful of forestry leaders gathered on the
> mountaintop church in the Buteau community to report their successes to
> Stephen Davenport, an Episcopal priest visiting from the US, armed with
> fresh funding from American churches.
>
> "You have enough money for 3,000 trees,'' said Davenport, who has been
> visiting the community for over two decades. "The budget, the type of
> trees are your decision."
>
> Davenport is among a number of development experts with faint praise for
> top-down environmental projects. "People would say 'oui, oui, oui'--which
> doesn't mean yes, it just means I hear you,'' he said of the general
> response to these efforts. "Then the money goes away and the projects get
> covered by weeds.''
>
> Solidarity Forest is not the only project up and running in Buteau. The
> village has also set up a revolving loan fund for women's businesses, again
> fueled by church dollars.
>
> The mix of income-generation and environmental conservation is critical,
> many experts say. It is a link, they say, that many development workers
> fail to make.
>
> "Many organizations just haven't addressed poverty concerns,'' said Lydia
> Williams of Oxfam America. "Peasants know they shouldn't cut down a
> tree, but if they need to cook food they'll do it. They know they shouldn't
> farm on mountains, but if they need to eat they'll do it.''
>
>
> ** End of text from cdp:headlines **
>
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