In Haiti, Reforestation Is Key to Recovery In Rural Lands

Under the project, millions of mango, citrus, and avocado trees have been planted to give farmers a new source of income, increase local food production, as well as to expand tree cover. The strategy includes planting large numbers of fast-growing indigenous trees that can be used for lumber and posts.

The project ''intensifies land use on a portion of people's land, so that they don't have to use it all for agriculture and so they leave some of it for trees,'' says Andy White, a Haiti-based forestry expert for the World Bank.

International agencies came to the realization several years ago that reforestation efforts in Haiti would be futile unless, at the same time, they removed the financial incentive to cut down trees for fuel.

And now, an economic windfall has helped to promote the project. Kerosene has recently become cheaper than charcoal in Haiti, which should spare more trees from the hands of rural residents.

But because the Haitian landscape is now almost entirely carved into farms of myriad shapes and sizes, it will be an uphill struggle to restore anything but a fraction of the ''closed canopy'' forest that once covered Haiti. What is possible over the next 50 years is that by planting trees in ''degraded forests'' that have undergone extensive cutting, 30 percent of Haiti's mountainous terrain could return to forest cover, from the current 3 percent, Mr. White says.

In addition to the economic realities, reforestation in Haiti must be also carried out on the slippery slope of Haitian politics. Parliamentary debate over a new budget has delayed funding for Haiti's environment and agriculture ministries. Many lawmakers oppose conditions placed on the 40 percent of the budget that comes from foreign lenders - including the United States government, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund - who insist that Haiti privatize its state-owned industries.

A fluid political situation could further bog down reforestation efforts. The new prime minister, Claudette Werleigh, was sworn in earlier this month, replacing Smarck Michel, who resigned after Aristide refused to publicly back privatization plans.

These obstacles are one reason the organizers of another major initiative called Foret Solidarite, or Solidarity Forest Project, decided to rely on grass-roots support and independent funding. The project's goal is to designate and preserve a national forest in each of Haiti's nine provinces. Currently, only three small national forests are in the country.

''What's become clear in the dire circumstances here in Haiti is that multiple efforts on many fronts are needed,'' says the Rev. Tracy Bruce, an Episcopalian priest from Cincinnati, who is one of the directors of Solidarity Forest Project.

The project, officially launched in a pine-forest ceremony outside Port-au Prince today, is modeled after a successful reforestation effort in Israel earlier this century, which attracted contributions from millions of Jews living outside Israel. Similarly, Mr. Bruce is hoping to enlist many Haitian emigres in a sponsor-a-tree program here. It is estimated that as many Haitians reside outside Haiti as within the country.

The Solidarity Forest Project also involves a plan to teach schoolchildren about conservation.

''The whole idea of forests is still in the memory of those who are oldest here in Haiti and they ... lament that the young people don't even know what a forest is because there are so few now,'' says Bruce. ''So it's almost like reinventing the dream and bringing back the possibility.''

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