HTRIP - Haiti Timber Re-Introduction Program
Happy new year to you all, readers, and HTRIP contributors,
As the beginning of the new year makes way for a fresh start and new opportunities, I am very delighted to announce my most recent initiative as HTRIP's Program Manager: the publication of monthly e-blasts about the different tree species that are traditionally grown in Haiti as well as cultivated by farmers in the Artibonite with the help of the Haiti Timber Reintroduction Project.
The Haiti Timber Reintroduction Project, in partnership with Hospital Albert Schweitzer in the Artibonite Valley since 2006, has begun an educational Agroforestry and tree planting program to help mountainous farmers restore tree cover on highly eroded lands in the Artibonite. HTRIP has been encouraging the planting of various tree species that are used for multiple purposes, including fodder, fuel wood, and nitrogen fixation. For instance, Moringa is a tree that is widely appreciated in Haiti for its countless ecological and nutritional advantages of being able to fight malnutrition to fixing nitrogen into the soil.
Moringa Oleifera, usually referred to as the Miracle Tree or The Tree of Life, is native to India and well-known in Latin America and Africa for all its nutritional value and effectiveness in curing malnutrition. Almost all parts of the moringa tree are edible, but people in Haiti mostly eat the leaves and make cooking oil with the seeds. Besides its nutritional benefits, moringacan also help environmentally-vulnerable countries like Haiti to fight erosion and deforestation – Haiti’s biggest ecological problems. It can be propagated via seeds or cuttings and is also able to develop easily and rapidly in very poor soil conditions.
In order to help address deforestation in Haiti, HTRIP continues with assisting mountainous farmers in their sustainable tree planting efforts, and this year HTRIP is directly touching the lives of more than 1,300 farmers in the Artibonite with its monthly trainings on different environmental topics such as composting, soil conservation, and seedling production. It also aims to plant more than 400,000 trees including 20,000 moringa trees during the coming summer.
Peace and Trees,
Melissa Sanon
HTRIP program Manager
Thanks to supporters like you, the HTRIP staff and farmers will plant the two millionth tree in Haiti this summer. Below is a breakdown of the 400,000 trees lined up for this year's planting season.
