Turning the tables on a cycle of degradation in Haiti

In 2023, the U.S. Agency for International Development awarded DAI the?Projet Paysages Résilients-Nord?(Resilient Environment North) Activity, known as PPR-Nord. PPR-Nord is designed to reverse environmental degradation in three watersheds in northern Haiti—and it’s off to a good start.

Employing a community-led forest landscape restoration approach, the project aims to engage more than 50,000 farmers in environmentally restorative and economically productive activities. Together, we will bring improved forest landscape restoration practices or land management technologies to 11,000 hectares of land, thereby contributing to climate resilience and sustainable natural resource management.

As a first order of business, PPR-Nord promotes incorporating physical and biological structures along contours in the hilly landscapes to reverse topsoil loss and improve dwindling soil fertility. At best practice demonstration sites, farmers are encouraged to incorporate plants along the contour bunds to hold the soil in place. Multipurpose species such as pineapple and fruit trees, which serve this function while also yielding economically valuable products, are proving particularly attractive to farmers.

In other degraded hillside areas, the project is demonstrating the addition of hardy, multipurpose woody perennials, such as pigeon pea—a leguminous species that adds nitrogen to the soil and produces edible seeds or peas—and cashew, whose nuts can be sold.

Free-range animals—particularly goats and cattle—are a challenge across the project watersheds because their over-grazing and browsing damages vegetative cover and land productivity. To address this issue, PPR-Nord is seeking to encourage a system of penned livestock and forage crops. The project promotes the establishment of forage production blocks using species such as Guatemala grass, which is then harvested to feed the penned animals. This approach enables the easy collection of manure—nearly impossible with free-range animals—which can then be recycled into fields or added to compost production piles.

To scale these and other eco-friendly best practices, such as beekeeping and honey production, PPR-Nord has identified exemplary local fields and homegardens to serve as training sites and platforms for farmer-to-farmer exchanges. The project intends to replicate and scale these initiatives through empowered local watershed committees and other community-based organizations (CBOs), who are working alongside project staff and positioning themselves to carry on PPR-Nord’s work after the project ends. PPR-Nord has committed to include at least 30 percent women and 50 percent youth in its watershed management governance and leadership activities.

These strengthened committees and CBOs, together with the improved techniques that are slowly taking root across the degraded watersheds, are at the heart of PPR-Nord’s hopes for restored, thriving, and productive landscapes in the very near future.

This article was written by @Tom Erdmann, Senior Lead Specialist for our Environment Team. For more information about the project: Haiti—Projet Paysages Résilients-Nord (PPR-Nord) · DAI: International Development