Dear readers and supporters,
During the month of October, HTRIP technicians, with the help of the community leaders, led a set of kombits to clean and evaluate all HTRIP demonstration plots. Over the last 8 years, HTRIP has helped communities in the Artibonite to install more than 4,000 tree plots of local species of timber and fruit trees. These tree plots are divided into 3 categories, namely demonstration plots, experimental plots, and filial plots.
Each HTRIP community has only one demonstration plot that has about 100-120 trees or more. The planting of these plots are conducted by the HTRIP technicians prior to the start of the training cycle with the community, and they are used as teaching tools to show different examples of soil conservation, tree planting, and agroforestry technicians. Most HTRIP demonstration plots are planted in a visible and high traffic location, so that community members that walk by can see the benefits of reforesting treeless areas.
Experimental plots are used for testing different tree planting techniques. For example, HTRIP scientific consultant Starry Sprenkle conducted a research in several HTRIP communities, examining which trees grow best in which locations; whether trees grow differently depending on what other species they are mixed with; whether existing trees help seedlings grow; and how much farmers can expect to make from different tree cropping systems.
Filial plots are the majority of the HTRIP plots, and they are planted by the HTRIP participants after completing the 10 months training in agroforestry and soil conservation. The number of filial plots increases continuously as HTRIP reaches new communities and enrolls other community members into the program, and it doesn’t always match the number of graduates because participants who are related often collaborate on planting a larger collective/family plot. HTRIP staff believes that the family approach is one of the strategies that contribute highly to the success of the tree planting efforts of HTRIP.
Besides monitoring the HTRIP demonstration plots, the technicians also conducted visits and trainings and offered technical assistance to 46 HTRIP communities, and reached out to more than 1,000 farmers. Recycling, composting, and seedling production were among the subjects that the technicians discussed with the farmers. We also purchased a large amount of agricultural tools to distribute to the communities to facilitate soil conservation and tree planting work. All of this is in preparation of assisting each community in the development of its own nursery for further plantings. HTRIP plans on producing another round of 400,000 seedlings for the 2014-2015 production cycle.
We thank you for your direct or indirect contribution in making Haiti greener!
Thank you,
The HTRIP staff, including Melissa Sanon, Dawn Johnson and Starry Sprenkle