A History of Landscape-level Land Public Disclosure Authorized Management Efforts in Haiti Lessons Learned from Case Studies Spanning Eight Decades

September, 2016 Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized

A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti Lessons Learned from Case Studies Spanning Eight Decades

Andrew Tarter, Katie Kennedy Freeman, Klas Sander

September, 2016 Acknowledgements

The report A History of Landscape-level Land institutions. The authors would like to thank the Management Efforts in Haiti is a product of the peer Reviewers - Peter Jipp, Julian Lee, Ademola Agriculture Global Practice of the World Bank. Braimoh, Gerhard Dieterle, and Holger Kray - The initial draft of the report was prepared for their review and feedback. In addition, the under an activity led by Pierre Olivier Colleye team would like to thank the Haiti Country and was intended as background information Management Unit – Mary Barton-Dock, Pierre for government consultations conducted in Xavier Bonneau and Michelle Keane – for their May, 2015. The authors would like to thank support and Practice Manager Laurent Msellati the participants of this workshop, including for his guidance. The team acknowledges and the Ministry of Agriculture (MARNDR), for thanks the Program on Forests (PROFOR) for their valuable inputs. The final report considers supporting the publication of this report. feedback from this workshop, as well as comments from multiple experts across various Overall there is immense ecological diversity in Haiti, which results from the peculiarities of a landscape where most of the land area is in mountain. Agriculture is affected by the extreme variations in rainfall, variable soil types, differences in temperature according to altitude, and a mix of rugged highlands, fertile river bottom-lands and coastal pains. When the effects of these ecological variations are mediated through the prevailing social structure, they have a bearing on development potential and an understanding of production relations in Haitian economy.

-Anthropologist Glenn Smucker, 1982. A watershed is formed by all those lands that shed water into a stream; it can be a few acres that shed water into a ravine or creek; or it can be millions of acres that drain into rivers, such as the Nile and Mississippi. Watershed management is the management of the lands, animals and people of a watershed so as to achieve the maximum benefits to man, while conserving the soil, forests, range and the water itself.

-Département de l’Agriculture, des Resources Naturelles et du Développement Rural (DARNDR), Gouvernement de la République d’Haïti, 1962. 5

Table of contents

LIST OF PROJECT ACRONYMS 8 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9 BACKGROUND 13 Ecological Vulnerabilities 13 Human Vulnerabilities 13 BOX 1. Conceptual Definitions of ‘Landscape-level Land Management’ and ‘Watershed Management’ 15 Outline of the Report 15

SECTION I: THE HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY ENVIRONMENT OF HAITI 16 Looking Back to Move Forward 17 The Historical Deforestation of Haiti 17 The Colonial Period 17 The Post-Independence Period 18 Deforestation in the 20th Century 19 The Current Condition of the Rural Environment of Haiti 21 FIGURE 1. The Current Extent of Tree and Shrub Cover in Haiti in 2010 25 FIGURE 2. The Current Extent of Tree and Shrub Cover on the Island of La Gonâve, Haiti: 1990 and 2010 25 Land Inheritance, Land Tenure and Land Security 26 Land Inheritance 26 Land Tenure 27 Land Security 27 Soil Conditions in Haiti 28 Soil and the Relationship to Ecological Zones of Haiti 28 Livestock in Rural Haiti 29 TABLE 1. Principal Watersheds of Haiti 30 Hydrology in Haiti 30 FIGURE 3. Principal and Secondary Rivers, Haiti 31

SECTION II: LANDSCAPE-LEVEL MANAGEMENT PROJECTS IN HAITI 33 The Logic of Watersheds as a Landscape of Intervention 34 The Geospatial Distribution of Rivers in Haiti 34 FIGURE 4. An Early Delineation of Haitian Watersheds, Aggregated into 30 Areas 35 6 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

FIGURE 5. An Early Grouping of Watersheds Adapted by Arrondissements and Divided into Seven Principal Areas 36 FIGURE 6. Watershed Prioritization Map for Project Interventions, Haiti 37 FIGURE 7. Watersheds of Haiti, According to the Ministère de l’Environnement 38 FIGURE 8. Current MdE Map (Right) Ostensibly Based on 1972 OAS Grouping (Left) 39 Case Studies on Landscape-level Land Management Projects in Haiti 40 Case 1: The Haiti Pilot Project (HPP) 40 Case 2: Organisation de Développement de la Vallée de l’Artibonite (ODVA) 41 Case 3: Développement Rural Intégré Petit-Goâve-Petit Trou de Nippes (DRIPP) 42 TABLE 2. Case Studies of Landscape Projects in Haiti, 1948-2014 43 Case 4: L’Organisme de développement du Nord (ODN) 44 Case 5: The Agroforestry Outreach Project (AOP) 45 Case 6: Secretariat Technique á l’Aménagemen des Bassins Versants (STABV) 46 Case 7: Agroforestry II (AFII) 46 Case 8: Productive Land Use Systems (PLUS) 47 Case 9: The Targeted Watershed Management Project (TWMP) 48 Case 10: Forest and Parks Protection Technical Assistance Project (FPPTP) 48 Case 11: Agriculturally Sustainable Systems and Environmental Transformation (ASSET) 49 Case 12: Hillside Agricultural Program (HAP) 49 Case 13: Le Développement Economique pour un Environnement Durable/ The Durable Economic and Environmental Development (DEED) 50 Case 14: Watershed Initiatives for Natural Environmental Resources (WINNER) 50 Case 15: Appui à la Valorisation du potentiel Agricole du Nord, pour la Sécurité Économique et environnementale (AVANSE) / Feed the Future (FTF) 51 Summary of Section II 51

SECTION III: CHANGES TO MODELS OF LANDSCAPE-LEVEL LAND MANAGEMENT IN HAITI, LESSONS LEARNED, AND CONCLUSIONS 52 Changes to Models of Landscape-Level Land Management in Haiti 53 FIGURE 9. Differing Approaches to Watershed Management 54 ‘Micro-level’ or ‘Plot-based’ Models 55 ‘Macro-level’ or Entire Watershed Models 56 Haitian Government Models 56 Haitian Government Policies on Watershed Management 57 Lessons Learned 57 Issues of Appropriate Administrative Oversight and Perimeters of Project Delineation 57 Ecological (protective) versus Social (productive) Approaches 57 Participatory Approaches versus Command-and-Control Approaches 58 Macro-level Approaches versus Plot-based Approaches 58 Land Inheritance, Land Tenure, and Land Security 59 Conclusion 60 7

FIGURE 10. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Gap Analysis 60 Strengths 61 Weaknesses 61 Opportunities 62 Threats 63 Recommendations 63

SECTION IV: SOURCES CONSULTED 65

SECTION V: APPENDICES 72 APPENDIX A: Challenges to this Literature Review 73 APPENDIX B: Landscape Level Management Schemes in Haiti 73 APPENDIX C: Watershed Management Principals of the Ministries of Environment and Agriculture 75 Ministry of Environment 75 Ministry of Agriculture 76 8 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

List of Project Acronyms

Agroforestry II AFII Agroforestry Outreach Project AOP Agriculturally Sustainable Systems and Environmental ASSET Transformation The Artibonite Project ATP Appui à la Valorisation du potentiel Agricole du Nord, AVANSE/FTF pour la Sécurité Économique et environnementale/ Feed the Future Le Développement Economique pour un Environnement DEED Durable/The Durable Economic and Environmental Development Développement Rural Intégré Petit-Goâve-Petit Trou DRIPP de Nippes Forest and Parks Protection Technical Assistance Project FPPTP Hillside Agricultural Program HAP The Haiti Pilot Project HPP Macaya Biosphere Reserve MBR L’Organisme de Développement du Nord ODN Organisation de Développement de la Vallée ODVA de l’Artibonite Productive Land Use Systems PLUS Pwojè Sove Tè PST Secretariat Technique á l’Aménagemen STABV des Bassins Versants Targeted Watershed Management Project TWMP Watershed Initiatives for Natural WINNER Environmental Resources 9

Executive Summary

A variety of public and private institutions have After providing a brief ecological history, the initiated landscape-level land management1 report then shifts to examine fifteen different projects in Haiti since the first multilateral landscape-level land management projects development project of the United Nations was executed in Haiti between 1948 and 2014, implemented there in 1948. The rubrics guiding detailed in the form of brief but summative case these projects have been diverse: sustainable rural studies that highlight salient project features, development; integrated landscape management; and differences in approaches and policies. The agro-ecosystem management; agroforestry; ecosystem primary findings presented below emerge from stewardship; and watershed management—to name these fifteen case studies, the preceding ecological just a few. Despite a vast nomenclature that history, and a review of many documents reflects real differences in landscape-level land presented in the bibliography of this report. The management approaches and policies, most such bibliography serves as a point of reference for projects implemented in Haiti have moved along further inquiries, guided by citations throughout a temporal trajectory toward the following set of this report. shared, complementary objectives: The primary findings from the review of i) Natural resource conservation, management, literature and case studies suggest: and/or restoration; • There is wide consensus on the need for ii) Improving and/or increasing agricultural landscape-level land management in Haiti, productivity; and and increasing consensus on watersheds2 iii) Improving the lives of project beneficiaries as the appropriate location for effective by increasing economic activities. project implementation. The majority The success or failure of landscape-level land of Haiti’s population is embedded in an management projects in Haiti has not been agrarian landscape that relies on agricultural determined by these complementary objectives, production as their primary livelihood strategy. but by the differential emphasis of overall project Agricultural possibilities will continue to approaches and policies toward achieving these decline without effective landscape-level objectives. land management strategies. Centuries of The present report opens with a brief history deforestation and climatic drying have made of ecological degradation in Haiti—a necessary access to water a major determiner of on- exercise for two reasons: (1) understanding going agricultural production. Since rainfall how ecological degradation has proceeded is increasingly variable and unreliable in many historically in Haiti is required for mitigating of the denuded locations in Haiti, watersheds future degradation; and (2) as the rural landscape represent one of the most effective locations has been altered significantly since the earliest for landscape improvement efforts. landscape-level projects were implemented, a • There have been two common approaches grasp of current ecological conditions in Haiti is or models to landscape-level land also necessary. management projects that have been enacted in Haiti. Both require trade-offs. The ‘macro-level’ approach favors complete 1 Here and throughout this report, landscape-level land management is conceptualized as an overarching category that refers to varied large-scale efforts at land 2 Watershed management indicates efforts at landscape- management, including but not limited to ‘watershed level land management that are delineated by varied management’. conceptual and operational definitions of a watershed. 10 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

landscape coverage at the expense of social • ‘Plot-based’ approaches to landscape-level land and ecological heterogeneity. The ‘plot-based’ management are frequently marked by the approach favors highly adaptive, plot-specific following features: policies at the expense of full landscape ——Plot-based approaches tend to account for coverage. The former has tended to emphasize the inter- and intra-heterogeneity of land, ecological outputs through command-and- society, markets, roads, etc., of landscapes; control models, while the latter has tended to ——Plot-based models frequently rely on prior emphasize both social and ecological outputs, and ongoing research to assess and address developed through beneficiary participation in these levels of heterogeneity; all levels of project identification, formation, implementation, and ownership. ——Plot-based approaches have tended to adapt project objectives in an iterative, farmer- • ‘Macro-level’ approaches to landscape-level driven process; land management are frequently marked by the following features: ——Plot-based approaches necessarily involve local participation at all stages of project ——Macro-level approaches tend to target entire identification, implementation, ownership, watersheds, but still often fail to achieve management, and continuity; 100% coverage; ——Plot-based approaches rarely achieve 100% ——Macro-level approaches tend to come with project coverage within a given watershed; a priori assumptions and solutions developed and by experts, which frequently rely on a complete restructuring of local agricultural ——Plot-based approaches have proved the most or land management practices, rather than successful in terms of project adoption by building on existing structures. This trend beneficiaries and continuity after the end of frequently results in less-than-enthusiastic the project cycle. participation or in resistance to participation • Case studies show a clear, diachronic trend from project beneficiaries; away from ‘macro-level’ approaches, toward ——‘Participation,’ from the perspective of ‘plot-based’ approaches. macro-model project implementers, is The 15 case studies presented in this report, frequently viewed as beneficiaries’ initial and other cases reported on in the literature adoption of technologies or practices, and review, indicate that ‘plot-based’ approaches the contribution of time or labor toward tend not only to be more effective, but are this initial adoption; increasingly embraced in Haiti over ‘macro- level’ models. This is especially true of arable ——One of major reasons for the failed efforts land holdings, which are highly fragmented of many macro-level landscape management across most landscapes in Haiti. projects in Haiti has been the adoption of a In certain cases, such as instances of large tracts laundry list of project objectives meant to of government-owned land, uninhabitable address the complexities of the problem— areas, or large plots of collectively-owned an emphasis on breadth over depth, but an land held by networks of kin, the case for emphasis applied indiscriminatingly across ‘macro-level’ approaches may still be made. all lands and inhabitants within a landscape. However, the long-term success of landscape- The attempt to implement wide-ranging level land management approaches with these objectives through a top-down manner former two land categories—characterized by frequently results in project funds and a lack of local land ownership and thus low personnel stretched thin, with fewer project investment—has historically proved untenable. objectives ever fully realized. 11

• Despite a historical trend away from ‘macro- • Land tenure does not appear to be an level’ models toward ‘plot-based’ models, impediment to beneficiary participation. both approaches have failed to achieve their Haitians utilize both informal and formal objectives at different times for some of the systems of land tenure, which permit the following reasons: inheritance, management, leasing, sale, and ——One historical determinant of landscape- purchase of land. While these tenure systems level land management project success or are complex, and thusly can appear insecure, failure has been the differential emphasis experience demonstrates that they are highly placed on varied project objectives. Project functional and commonly do not represent objectives selected for emphasis often an impediment to the implementation of appear to be driven by the a priori demands landscape-level land management projects in of donors or implementing agencies, rural Haiti. As the leasing of land is a common, often emphasizing a particular technology, established practice in rural Haiti, access to land approach, or model that ultimately proves appears to be a larger determiner of investment incompatible in the Haiti context. The incentives to farmers than informal or formal results have been low adoption rates or low tenure status. continuity after project timeframes expire; • Land security is a potentially volatile issue that ——Unsuccessful projects were frequently deserves reflection. weighted down by multiple competing Considering historical and contemporaneous objectives that aimed to recognize the land grabs and forced displacements, land interrelated complexity of landscape-level insecurity from external forces represents a land management, but simultaneously real concern, particularly with projects that stretched project resources thin in an effort target large parcels of arable land. However, to address this complexity; the vast majority of arable plots in rural Haiti have been divided into fragments that are ——Successful programs limited the scope of discontinuously dispersed across landscapes, what might be accomplished within the serving as a de facto protective measure against confines of the project timeframe, and external threats to land security. Larger plots of focused on a few clearly defined policies land are collectively owned by kin groups, but tied to even fewer and more-clearly defined typically agriculturally unproductive, which objectives; may also serve to protect them against external ——Successful programs frequently took a forces. substantial period of preparation to align the • Participatory models have demonstrated more visions and goals of donors, varied project success than other more command-and- partners, stakeholders, and beneficiaries; control approaches. ——Successful programs involved local The historical command-and-control participation at all levels, including approaches to landscape-level land management, project identification, preparation, and including watershed management, have been implementation; and met with skepticism and suspicion on the part ——Allowing processes of stakeholder alignment of local project beneficiaries in Haiti. Within and multi-tiered collective participation these projects, levels of participation have been permitted successful programs to identify low, as have levels of adoption. Experience meta-objectives and policies that addressed suggests that participatory approaches are a multitude of concerns important to all crucial to long-term project success. Since project stakeholders, leading to higher local farmers occupy watersheds and are the levels of project adoption, participation, direct project beneficiaries, their inclusion in ownership, and achievement of objectives. all aspects of project identification, preparation, 12 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

and implementation is crucial to project it is unclear in most cases if the internal rate success and sustainability. Successful project of return of project investments make them approaches included multiple stakeholders, viable without sustained donor support. such as members of local government, and Nearly seventy years after the first landscape- local governing groups, community groups, level land management project of the United church groups, and other solidarity structures. Nations was executed in Haiti, similar projects • Frequently effective government participation continue to be implemented, and many continue is limited by overlap between project and to suffer avoidable historical shortcomings. The political administrative delineations and broader development community and project ecological zones. beneficiaries in Haiti have much to learn from Many watershed management projects in the past in order to most effectively design Haiti wrestle with the fact that rivers and and implement successful landscape-level land their tributaries do not adhere to either the management projects in the future. This meta- political boundaries of Haiti’s departments analysis has been crafted for this very audience, as a or subsequent administrative units, or to the point-of-departure for future efforts at landscape distribution of ecological zones in the country management in Haiti. The key findings listed (Delatour et al. 1984). The differences between above summarize a review of the literature and ecological zones have been greatly diminished the fifteen case studies subsequently presented (Ehrlich 1985), adding doubt to models in this report. The reader interested in a more that delineate watersheds and policies based nuanced, in-depth understanding of how these exclusively on ecological life zones. individual cases unfolded in Haiti is encouraged • Project continuity to consult the extensive bibliography of sources As of yet, all documented examples of at the end of this report. landscape-level land management schemes in Haiti have suffered from issues of funding and project sustainability after donor cycles have concluded. In Haiti, virtually all support has been through non-governmental donors and 13

Background

Centuries of deforestation in Haiti have played • Increased climatic drying; out on an overwhelmingly mountainous The decline of a protective vegetative terrain that receives seasonal rains and torrential layer subjects Haiti’s land to increased downpours from frequent tropical storms and evapotranspiration—the drying of soil through hurricanes. The standard of living for many rural direct exposure to sun and wind, which work Haitians has been negatively impacted as a result together to wick away surface moisture. The of deforestation and removal of the vegetative heat rising from arid land drives away higher cover. Some of these impacts, such as the loss of moisture air, in many cases reducing the valuable topsoil, have been directly observable, likelihood of rainfall, and causing the pseudo- but other impacts of deforestation in Haiti have drought phenomena experienced throughout been less visable. much of rural Haiti for the last several decades. The social science literature is replete with Ecological Vulnerabilities well-documented testimonies of Haitian farmers who contribute drought and pseudo- From a strictly ecologically standpoint, drought conditions directly to the over-cutting deforestation in Haiti has caused or contributed of trees. to: • Increased terrestrial vulnerability to the • Damage to Haiti’s riparian systems and effects of tropical storms and hurricanes; the soil-silting of lakes and unique coral Without complex root systems to hold reefs; Haiti’s mountainous terrain in place, entire The lack of a protective vegetative cover has mountainsides frequently wash out during led to an increase in the rapidity of surface tropical storms and hurricanes. Streams and water runoff out of watersheds, reducing the rivers swell from immense groundwater ability of rainwater to recharge the aquifers. runoff, causing flooding, increased erosion and Since Haiti’s rivers are aquifer-fed, river water widening of riparian systems, and the soil silting levels have been lowered, and in many cases of lakes and ocean habitats. Individual trees permanent rivers have become seasonal. Soil- and remaining tree stands are subject to higher silting of lakes is raising water levels, changing exposure from wind than trees aggregated in water salination levels, and destroying or forests, resulting in the widespread downing of threatening fresh-water, brackish water, and remaining arboreal stands. The effects of tropical ocean fish habitats (Hotz and Christian 2015). storms and hurricanes are not only exacerbated • A decline and loss of Haiti’s diversity of due to Haiti’s deteriorating ecosystems, they endemic flora and fauna; also contribute to that deterioration in an Haiti is home to some of the highest levels of iterative, degenerative terrestrial cycle. biological diversity in the Caribbean (Swartly and Touissant 2006). The disappearance of potentially rare, endemic flora and fauna Human Vulnerabilities represents a loss of unknown proportions. Since most rural Haitians are embedded in an The erosion of specific soil profiles results in a agrarian landscape and rely on agricultural decreased ability of native flora to regenerate, production as their primary livelihood strategy, paving the way for exotic or invasive species the ecological and landscape degradation noted that lower overall biological diversity due to above directly contributes to: an increasingly homogenized habitat for both flora and fauna. 14 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

• Nationwide declines in agricultural represented only 43% of the entire Haitian productivity; diaspora abroad (Wah 2013: 59). The production of soil takes thousands of years • Increased exposure to environmental but major losses of topsoil in Haiti may transpire hazards; in a single storm. As the majority of Haiti’s Regrettably, the crowded and marginalized population is understood to be dependent urban spaces where many rural Haitian migrate on agricultural production as a primary frequently present more environmental health livelihood strategy, and some 80% of rural hazards than those found in the deteriorating households rely on agriculture (World Bank ecological conditions of rural areas. The rapid 2015: 27), the loss of valuable topsoil has an spread of cholera and the chikungunya virus, insidious and deleterious long-term effect on and the high mortality levels of the 2010 agricultural productivity. Haiti’s GDP per capita earthquake, are testament to the fragile living fell by an average of 0.7% between 1971 and conditions of many urban areas in Haiti. 2013 (World Bank 2015: 1), weather-related • Increases in hunger, malnutrition and damages and losses caused an average decline under-nutrition. of 2% of GDP per year in Haiti from 1975 to Those Haitians that abandon rural areas 2012, and approximately 50% of tropical storm lose access to year-round and seasonal related losses in Haiti’s productive sector have supplementary sources of nutrition from fallen in the agricultural domain (World Bank rivers, streams, woodlands, orchards, communal 2015: 14). The silting of freshwater, brackish courtyards, and gardens, which may otherwise water, and reef habitats have caused a dramatic augment their diets. Instead, many urban- decrease in viable fish and aquatic resources, dwelling Haitians are forced to rely on which has adversely affected the livelihoods of purchased foodstuffs, frequently imported and those rural residents dependent on fishing as of low nutritional value. Imports in Haiti have their major livelihood strategy. increased from approximately 30% of GDP in • A resultant widespread rural out- the early 1980s to some 50% of GDP in the migration; early 2010s, with food imports representing Decreased agricultural productivity in many approximately 35% of total imports over the areas of Haiti has increased rural out-migration, last ten years (World Bank 2015: 17) as few other economic opportunities currently The traditional rural breakfast of corn or exist in rural areas (World Bank 2015: 35). sorghum porridge is increasingly replaced by While many Haitians would rather stay in the imported spaghetti, topped with mayonnaise countryside, a complex set of environmental, and ketchup. The traditional rice varieties of social, technical and economic factors the Artibonite valley are increasingly replaced incentivizes the trend to leave the countryside with lower-cost but less nutritious, imported that started in the 1930s and accelerated in white rice exported from the United States3. the early 1980s (ibid.). Rural Haitians have Citrus and other natural fruit juices that are migrated to larger towns and cities, the capital available in rural areas of Haiti are increasingly city of Port-au-Prince, or have become replaced with high-sugar energy drinks, and members of the expansive Haitian diaspora rurally-produced bread is frequently replaced abroad. Port-au-Prince, initially constructed to with high-sugar biscuits and crackers. hold tens of thousands of people, had swelled Those Haitians that elect to remain in rural to a greater metropolitan area of approximately areas also suffer from increasing levels of three million people by the time of the 2010 hunger, malnutrition, and under-nutrition. The earthquake. According to the US Census of the same year, approximately one million Haitians 3 Known in Haiti as ‘Miami rice,’ due to the common lived in the United States, and this figure location of exportation. 15

BOX 1. Conceptual Definitions of ‘Landscape-level Land Management’ and ‘Watershed Management’ Here and throughout this report we define landscape-level land management approaches in Haiti as attempts to address the interrelated human and ecological vulnerabilities noted above, in the context of large land management projects executed at the landscape level, which focus on improving or introducing new livelihood strategies that ostensibly improve the lives of project beneficiaries. This report distinguishes watershed management as a variant of landscape-level land management approaches— increasingly embraced in the case of Haiti as the appropriate locus of project execution—and delineated by varied conceptual and operational definitions of what constitutes a watershed.

deterioration of natural resources has decreased Outline of the Report the availability of many traditional sources of dietary supplementation. One traditional This report reviews the available literature as an strategy of mitigating crop failure—reducing initial point-of-departure, providing a diachronic the number of meals consumed a day—is fast overview of sixty years of landscape management becoming the new norm of rural Haiti, as rains research and integrated landscape project come less-frequently and soil fertility declines. activities in Haiti, spanning eight decades. The reporting period extends from the early efforts • Increased human vulnerabilities to of the first integrated development program of tropical storms, hurricanes, and extreme the United Nations in Haiti in 1948, through climatic events. the 2014 consummation of project activities Despite large increases in rural-out migration, associated with the USAID-funded Watershed the majority of the Haitian population Initiative for National Natural Environmental continues to reside in rural areas. Rural Haitian Resources (WINNER). populations often encounter tropical storms Section I of this report opens with a brief and hurricanes that may cause landslides. environmental history of Haiti, followed by an Landslides also block important road systems, analysis of the current state of environmental preventing access to hospitals, and to important conditions, and closes with an examination transportation routes for farmers dependent on of contemporary human and landscape marketing their agricultural goods at regional vulnerabilities to acute and chronic environmental and national markets. A World Bank report degradation and extreme climatic events. Section noted that Haiti has a higher number of II of the report provides a brief summary of disasters per km2 than the average of Caribbean 15 regional or national landscape-level land countries, and estimates that in 2008 alone, 15% management projects enacted in Haiti since the of GDP was lost due to hurricanes and tropical middle of the 20th century. Section III concludes storms (World Bank 2015: xi). Typically there the report with a summary of important themes is little governmental support for rehabilitation and applicable lessons that crosscut the history of damaged infrastructure, and local residents of landscape-level management projects in Haiti. must mobilize with hand tools to clear the Section IV provides a bibliography of important roads that are crucial to the economy of their documents related to the issues examined in this internal market systems. report. This bibliography is intended to serve as An increased awareness and acknowledgement a resource for future researchers, policy-makers, of these historical and contemporaneous trends program administrators, project implementers, in human and ecological vulnerabilities has given and project beneficiaries working on landscape- rise to an emphasis on landscape-level approaches level land management projects in Haiti. to land management in Haiti, and increasingly a shift toward targeted watershed management. 16 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

SECTION I: The Historical and Contemporary Environment of Haiti 17

LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD

Proceeding from the logic that development initiatives seek to improve the lives of project beneficiaries, an understanding of the drivers of ecological degradation in Haiti is paramount and should be a first step for future research or landscape-level management project identification, preparation, and implementation.

environment of the island began to change The Historical Deforestation rapidly with the renewed human presence of of Haiti French emigrants and enslaved people from West and Central Africa. The gradual removal of the original forests of Anthropogenic influences on the environment Haiti is a complex process that spans five centuries of Haiti began to register a visibly notable and continues today. Popular accounts frequently change during the agricultural intensification rely on a gross simplification of this process, activities promoted by 18th century colonial framing deforestation in Haiti as the result of powers (Moya Pons 2007). Cultivation of the an ecologically-disconnected peasantry, with initial colonial export crops—sugar, tobacco, little forethought to the consequences of their indigo and cotton—saw the clearing of lowland environmentally deleterious actions. To illustrate, plains (ibid.). The colonial plantation strategy of deforestation in Haiti is frequently contributed cultivating lowland agricultural production was to the production of charcoal, though the vast pursued on several grounds: (1) lowland areas are majority of Haiti’s original forests fell far before more accessible by roads; (2) plains in Haiti are the charcoal trade roared to life in the early predominantly coastal and in closer proximity to decades of the 20th century. The brief history maritime vessels; (3) uniform plains had higher of deforestation provided here corrects some of levels of moisture or were otherwise irrigable; these misconceptions, offering a pragmatically and (4) many of the lowlands of Haiti contain abbreviated chronology with particular focus on rich, alluvial soil deposits. acute events and chronic trends that are likely to The initial low-elevation locus of agricultural have a direct bearing on the success or failure production in Haiti did spare the removal of of future landscape-level management plans for trees and vegetative cover from surrounding Haiti. mountain ranges. The booming colony required wood for a variety of purposes, but principally for construction and fuel-wood used in sugar The Colonial Period refinement for the increasing number of plantations (Catanese 1999). Later, trees were The ecology of the island of Hispaniola remained cleared from higher elevations to cultivate fairly unexploited for most of the 16th century, as coffee—a lucrative export crop (ibid.). Records Spanish colonial interests were focused on the from the early colony and the new Republic procurement of gold rather than the extraction are replete with mention of the felling of large of natural resources or agricultural production hardwood trees, and the encroachment of less (Lindskog 1998). In the late 17th century the desirable tree species (Tarter 2015b). 18 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

In particular, the colonial period saw the did not commence on a large scale in Haiti commencement of a wood-extraction based until the early decades of the 20th century. Two economy. French ships carrying enslaved people principal forces drove tree removal in newly- from the African continent returned to Europe independent Haiti: (1) Haitian government with hulls loaded with valuable timber (Diamond payments on a war indemnity to France, financed 2005). While the more easily accessible areas of by timber concessions to private companies; Haiti suffered arboreal denudation during this and (2) the clearing of land for agricultural period, many remote forest stands remained production, enacted by hundreds of thousands protected by their relative isolation due to the of farm families spread throughout the rural lack of accessible inroads. countryside (Tarter 2015b). In 1825 Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed that Haiti would pay France a post-war The Post-Independence Period indemnity of 150 million francs—a paralyzing amount for the new Republic—as reparations to Toward the end of the 13-year Haitian French slave and plantation owners for income revolutionary period, lowland colonial lost after the world’s first successful slave revolt. plantations were burned and equipment The indemnity agreement, ostensibly established destroyed. After the 1804 declaration of to ensure that France would not reinvade Haiti, independence, the vast majority of Haitians is a historically curious concession, considering fanned out throughout the mountainous areas France’s multiple, failed attempts to retake the of the country, establishing the traditional lakou former colony. (collective kinship habitations) of rural Haiti. The Haitian government supported indemnity Through the lakou system, Haitian farmers payments to France largely by selling forest successfully resisted multiple attempts by early concessions to foreign timber corporations. In leaders of the fledgling Republic to reinstate 1838, the indemnity was renegotiated to nearly the plantation model of agricultural production half of the original amount, with the requirement (Moral 1961). that the remaining amount be paid in full in 30 The historical dispersal of humans from years (Moya Pons 2007; Bulmer-Thomas 2012). lowland plains and their subsequent resettlement Four years later, legal mahogany exports doubled, in mountainous areas resulted in an unusual and in 1842 exceeded 4.0 million cubic feet occurrence: the reestablishment of the lowland (Moya Pons 2007). forests of Haiti. Analyses of tree pollen from a Despite this surge in timber exportation, sediment core extracted from Lake Miragoâne in hardwood trees were still abundant in Haiti late southern Haiti noted a large arboreal expansion into the 19th century. As one observer noted after 1804 (Brenner and Binford 1988). This in 1878, ‘the variety of [hardwood] production regenerative arboreal expansion has direct bearing seems to be almost infinite, and the supply on the current state of Haiti’s ecology—a point inexhaustible’ (Stuart 1878: 267). that will be revisited subsequently, and which has After many of the easily accessible lowland policy programming implications for landscape- areas of Haiti had been exploited for wood, the level land management in the current era. principal means of extracting timber shifted to While the lowland areas of Haiti temporarily dragging felled trees into the small mountain reestablished with trees after the destruction of the streambeds that form the many tributaries of colonial plantation system and a decentralizing Haiti’s multiple watersheds (Chandler 1842). nationwide migration, it was only a temporary With the arrival of annual torrential rainfall, these reversal of the predominant trend—an on-going seasonally dry or low-flowing streambeds would removal of arboreal and vegetative covers. swell, carrying the felled trees into increasingly Deforestation during the post-colonial era was larger rivers and eventually toward deltas where not caused by the production of charcoal, which 19

they could be prepared for export by maritime accessible by roads. As existing roads were limited vessels (ibid.). Despite this shift deeper into the to the national highways and lesser roads of interior of Haiti, the mountainous nature of the poor condition, deforestation on a national level country and the difficulty of accessing remoter continued in a geospatially differential manner. areas protected many remaining hardwood Once previously forested or brush-covered areas stands. gave away to agricultural production, charcoal production shifted again. From east of Port- au-Prince, charcoal production shifted offshore, Deforestation in the 20th Century to the island of La Gonâve; from La Gonâve, charcoal production moved to the northwest The first three decades of the 20th century saw peninsula; from the northwest peninsula, the removal of most remaining hardwood forest charcoal production swung to the more remote stands in Haiti, the overexploitation of secondary southern peninsula, and to a lesser extent to the arboreal growth, and the continued encroachment central plateau (Smucker 1981; Conway 1979; of former forestland by exotic tree species. The Voltaire 1979). The result of the extension of the early decades of this century are marked by the agricultural frontier was the near-to-complete US Marine occupation (1915-1934) and their arboreal denudation of easily accessible areas, establishment of a network of new roads and largely following in a sequential order based the improvement of earlier roads constructed on geographical proximity to the ever-swelling by French colonialists (Leyburn 1941). The new capital city and smaller urban agglomerations. network of improved roads in Haiti facilitated Today, the lack of access to arable land is an on- increased travel between rural and urban areas. going frustration expressed by younger members While these new roads also encouraged urban of society. migration, the increased urbanization during The latter half of the 20th century saw the this period was not unique to Haiti—it was a establishment of hundreds of kilometers of new phenomenon experienced globally. As Haiti roads, which opened up the vast remainder of increasingly urbanized—like many countries of previously inaccessible areas the country. The the Caribbean—the demand for agricultural and community-based organization Harmonisation wood products increased to meet urban needs. de l’Action des Communautés Haïtiennes The changing Haitian landscape was the result Organisées (HACHO), operating in the of a complex interaction between immediate northwest of Haiti, shifted to focus on road drivers and underlying causes of land-use construction in 1968. By 1982 HACHO had change. Rapidly increasing population coupled constructed a network of over 600 kilometers of with a decrease in agricultural productivity, unpaved roads (Brinkerhoff et al. 1983). In the spatial extensification of agricultural production mid-1970s, USAID financed the Agricultural and the reduction of previously fallow periods, Feeder Roads Project, constructed over 300 urbanization and increasing demand for food and kilometers of new roads by December 1982 fuel, the expansion of road networks connecting (USAID 1983). Multiple road projects in Haiti the previously isolated hinterland to growing also originated at the hands of local community markets, and complementary though parallel councils and were spurred by the initiative of land and tree tenure regimes all played their role local churches or foreign missionary groups in the evolution towards the highly dispersed and (Smucker et al. 1979). decentralized food and wood production system Considering just the USAID and HACHO observed in Haiti today. projects, more than 900 kilometers of new As Haitians in areas of close proximity to urban roads were established in Haiti from around the centers intensified their agricultural production, 1970s through to the early 1980s. Nine hundred charcoal production was shifted to the next kilometers of new roads is a remarkable addition geographically proximate location that was 20 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

to a country that does not exceed 300 kilometers at its lengthiest continuous extent (Tarter 2015b). Since new roads were constructed off of existing arterial highways, their construction opened up many of the more remote locations in Haiti. These new roads reversed the historical phenomenon of just a few accessible areas targeted for agriculture and charcoal production, and original charcoal producing areas experienced significantly less pressure than in former decades. Toward the end of the 20th century, almost all land area of Haiti had been dedicated to agricultural production (crops and livestock). Today, there is hardly any parcel of land that is not being dedicated to some kind of productive use, profoundly influencing the current state of the environment of Haiti (Tarter 2015b), with agricultural production commonly being the primary objective with sizable integration of trees and woody vegetation. 21

THE CURRENT CONDITION OF THE RURAL ENVIRONMENT OF HAITI

Centuries of deforestation in Haiti have played out on an overwhelmingly mountainous terrain that receives seasonal rains and torrential downpours from frequent tropical storms and hurricanes. Exacerbated and accelerated by the exposed agricultural fields of a densely populated rural countryside, deforestation and alluvial soil erosion have produced predictable environmental consequences: the loss of topsoil, decreasing soil fertility, overall agricultural decline, and rural out-migration. A less-predictable consequence of deforestation was the widespread encroachment of exotic tree and shrub species, to collectively cover approximately 3/4ths of Haiti’s land surface by approximately 2010 (Tarter 2015b; Churches et al. 2014; White et al. 2013).

As early as 1830, the space created by the absence dominated approximately 1/10th of Haiti’s land of original hardwood forests was rapidly filled surface (World Bank 1991). by at least two exotic tree species: mesquite4 In a recent nation-level remote-sensing analysis (Prosopis juliflora), and to a lesser extent, logwood5 of high-resolution satellite imagery from 2010 (Haematoxylum campechianum) (Tarter 2015b). and 2011, trees were found to cover approximately By 1930, the former tree species was the most 1/3rd of the surface of Haiti, and trees and woody common tree in the dry forests that dominate shrubs combined to cover 3/4ths of the surface the majority of Haiti’s varied ecosystems, of Haiti (Churches et al. 2014). A similar ratio and the most utilized tree species for charcoal of tree and shrub coverage was reported in an production (Gill 1931). By the 1940s, Prosopis analogous study of the large offshore island of juliflora was the most common tree in some 80 La Gonâve, based on high-resolution satellite different forest-transect surveys conducted in photos from 1990 and 2010 (White et al. 2013). an area north of Port-au-Prince (Curtis 1947). And finally, in a broader study of land changes In 1976, the author of the first in a series of within the Greater Antilles between 2001 and preliminary reports, which would eventually 2010, researchers discovered that 26 different lead to the largest tree-planting project in the Haitian municipalities underwent significant history of Haiti, concluded that managed Prosopis changes to woody vegetation (8 decreased and plantations could meet all of Haiti’s domestic 18 increased) and 48 municipalities experienced wood needs (Earl 1976). Multiple authors of the significant changes in mixed-woody plantations widely-cited 1985 Haiti Environmental Profile (9 decreased and 39 increased) (Álvarez-Berríos Report noted the widespread extent of Prosopis et al. 2013: 88-91). In overall land percentages for trees and the long tradition of Haitian farmers the entire country, woody vegetation experienced managing the species for wood and for charcoal a 1% increase while mixed-woody/plantations production (Ehrlich et al. 1985). By 1991, the increased by 4%, or 368 km2 (89). These studies World Bank reported that natural Prosopis stands combined point to an arboreal phenomenon that stands in stark contrast to popular conceptions of 4 Bayawonn or bayahonn, in Haitian Creole. tree-cover in Haiti (Tarter 2016), and demands 5 Kanpèch, in Haitian Creole. further elucidation. 22 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

In 2012, geographers from Virginia Tech with Forest/DV (White et al. 2013: 499). The undertook a land-use/land-change analysis researchers’ observations support the hypothesis of Haiti’s largest offshore island of La Gonâve, of an arboreal shift in Haiti: using two high-resolution Landsat satellite There is strong evidence on La Gonâve images, twenty years apart, from 1990 and 2010 indicating that previously cleared areas in (White et al. 2013). Both images in this analysis the lowlands (regions of poor soil nutrients were selected from late January—in Haiti’s derived from limestone regolith and limited dry season—to control for seasonal variability soil horizons) are beginning to revegetate in vegetation and to diminish cloud cover. In initially with xerophytic species as agricultural this classification, researchers considered five land is abandoned after soil exhaustion. This different land-cover types that were mutually process was discussed as a common experience exclusive and exhaustive of all other land types in informal interviews with farmers on La in the area. Several complementary and higher- Gonâve. resolution (30 cm/pixel) satellite photographs (...) were consulted in the accuracy assessment of Revegetation on La Gonâve is primarily the image classification, in combination with illustrated by the increase in shrub cover. the analysts’ knowledge of the area, and a two- Though shrub was the second largest land month field excursion to visit a stratified6 cover type in 2010, field observations indicate random sample of validation points to ground- that the majority of the Shrub class cover varied truth the classifications. The team averaged along the scrub-dense vegetation gradient. 61 points of verification for each of the five Revegetated areas are composed of secondary land-use categories (n=301 total), locating the succession forest, predominantly Acacia species random geospatial coordinates with hand-held [bayawonn8] maturing from shrub to grove. GPS units. The overall accuracy of their 2010 Woody shrubs are regularly harvested for classification was 87%, with a Kappa coefficient charcoal production and for export roughly of 0.84 (White et al. 2013: 498). The results show at the pole stage (...) A large portion of the that the percentage change in land area on La residents’ financial income on La Gonâve Gonâve from 1990 to 2010 for Agricultural land, is supported by the charcoal export to the Forest/DV7, Shrub, and Barren/Eroded land mainland. The shrub cover may be caught in classes, were −39.73%, −22.69%, +87.37%, and a perpetual cycle of harvest and revegetation −7.04%, respectively (White et al. 2013: 499). rarely reaching early succession or the pole While the overall percentage of the ‘Forest/ stage in growth (White et al. 2013: 503). DV’ land-cover decreased over 20 years by While forest cover on La Gonâve has decreased, 22.7%, the ‘majority of 1990 agricultural lands it has been replaced by woody shrubs, largely in were converted to shrub (45.01%) and forest the form of Prosopis, which appear to be managed lands (34.23%),’ and ‘56.2% of the barren/eroded land area in 1990 has been revegetated’ (White et al. 2013: 499-500). Thus, the entire land 8 White et al. (2013) now believe that the acacia species surface of La Gonâve in 2010 (excluding water noted in this passage is in fact bayawonn, and have and masking the < 2% cloud cover) was 40.4% made this correction in a subsequent manuscript they covered with woody shrubs and 46% covered are preparing from the same data (White et al., email communication, 3/23/2015). The authors indicate that bayawonn on La Gonâve is cut at the ground level, 6 The random sample strata were fifteen 52-meter with some coppice limited to a few stems rather than elevation increments, to look for elevation-based multiple stems (ibid.). In other words, as in the colonial influences (White et al. 2014: 498). era, barren and abandoned agricultural lands were 7 According to their classification, the latter category encroached by bayawonn from lowland areas, and these (Forest/DV) ‘is composed of all vegetation growth trees are now ‘harvested on a regular basis for charcoal levels beyond the shrub stage’ (White et al. 2013: 496). production’ (White et al. 2013: 503). 23

for charcoal production9. Overall, the ‘shrub’ category,13 and used a single category for ‘tree coverage on La Gonâve increased by 87.4% from cover’14 (Churches et al. 2014). This aggregation is 1990 to 2010 (White et al. 2013: 503). a setback for establishing nationwide percentages In a similar study, a geographer, geologist, of managed charcoal woodlots, which would and a natural resource management specialist be best inferred through the woody vegetation collaborated to determine forest cover for the that may have been split in both studies between entire country of Haiti (Churches et al. 2014). tree and non-tree categories. Nevertheless, both The authors used five Landsat satellite images the La Gonâve and the nationwide study use a (2010-2011) from Haiti’s dry season, which single category that operationalizes trees in the provided coverage of the entire country. After a same way, and similarly restricts smaller shrubs, series of standard renderings and corrections, the and all other land uses. In the La Gonâve study, authors reclassified their satellite images using approximately 46% of the island’s land surface is FAO’s forest class definition, thereby creating a covered with forest and dense vegetation beyond low (FAO) to high (authors’) range of percentage- shrubs (White et al. 2013: 499), while the nation- tree-cover. These image classifications were wide study found approximately a third of Haiti’s verified through the application of a stratified10 land surface is tree-covered (Churches et al. sample of 1,525 random reference points to 2014). higher resolution satellite imagery. Their ‘tree In a broader study of land changes within cover’ class had a users’ accuracy of 86% and a the Greater Antilles between 2001 and 2010, 0.81 Kappa coefficient, and the overall 26 different Haitian municipalities (sections classification accuracy ranged from 78% communales) underwent significant changes (reference point counts) to 83% (class to woody vegetation15 (8 decreased and 18 proportions) (Churches et al. 2014: 211). The increased); 36 municipalities underwent results of the nationwide analyses showed that significant changes in agriculture/herbaceous16 in 2010-2011, trees covered between 29.4% and (25 decreased and 11 increased); and 48 32.3% of Haiti’s land surface,11 and that ‘shrub/ municipalities experiences significant changes in herbaceous’ areas covered between 45.7% and mixed-woody/plantations17 (9 decreased and 39 48.6% of the land surface. Rather than a thinly increased) (Álvarez-Berríos et al. 2013: 88-91). dispersed arboreal covering, trees are aggregated Across municipalities of significant change, there in fragments and patches (Churches et al. 2014). was an 8% loss of woody vegetation, a 114% loss It should be noted that both studies used of agriculture/herbaceous, and a 133% increase in slightly different land-use classifications: in mixed-woody/plantation (Álvarez-Berríos et al. the island of La Gonâve study, researchers combined ‘forest’ and ‘dense vegetation’ into one 12 13 ‘Vegetation less than 5 m in height or lacking definite category, and classified woody ‘shrub cover’ as structure such as stems or shoots. Woody vegetation separate category (White et al. 2013); in contrast, included if crown cover is <10% and height <5 m. the nation-wide study aggregated ‘shrub,’ Includes all agriculture’ (Churches et al. 2014: 207). ‘herbaceous,’ and ‘agricultural’ land-uses into one 14 ‘Vegetation greater than 5 m in height with a canopy cover of ≥10%. Includes mangroves. Does not include fruit-tree plantations’ (Churches et al 2014: 207). 15 “Woody vegetation was trees and shrubs with >80% 9 White, personal communication (3/23/2015). cover” (Álvarez-Berríos et al. 2013: 86). 10 Strata were based on the land use distributions from 16 ‘Agriculture/herbaceous vegetation was annual crops, their initial classification (Churches et al. 2014: 209). grasslands, and pastures with >80% cover’ (Álvarez- 11 Includes ‘water’, ‘wetlands’, ‘bare/non-vegetated’ and Berríos et al. 2013: 86). ‘cloud’ categories. 17 “Mixed-woody/plantations was woody vegetation with 12 ‘Forest/Dense Vegetation class is composed of all a 20 to 80% cover, including agriculture/herbaceous vegetation growth levels beyond the shrub stage. Forest vegetation or bare soil as background, as well as all lands were considered to have a tree-crown areal density forms of plantations and perennial agriculture” Álvarez- of ~10% or more’ (White et al. 2013: 498). Berríos et al. 2013: (86). 24 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

2013: 88). Conversely, in overall land percentages and divided equally amongst all siblings, male for the entire country, woody vegetation and female. While certain unproductive familial increased from 1%, agriculture decreased from land is considered sacred, inalienable, and is never 4%, and mixed-woody/plantations increased divided (Herskovits 1937), in contrast, arable from 4% (Álvarez-Berríos et al. 2013: 89). plots become smaller every successive generation Municipalities that experienced losses or gains at every new cycle of inheritance (Murray 1977). were widely geographically distributed. The inheritance of land plots that may be The sum of these three remote-sensing analyses prohibitively small for agricultural production suggests that the arboreal expansions that occurred was initially met by an adaptive strategy on in the post-independence period may be in the part of Haitian farmers, which aligns with swing again. Figures 1 and 2 represent the most the theory of economist Ester Boserup (1965): recent and most empirically grounded estimates the agricultural fallow period was shortened of arboreal coverage in Haiti. While most of or eliminated (Murray 1977). While the land Haiti’s original hardwood forests are gone, much fallow-shortening strategy worked for a time, the of the land is now covered by a combination of associated agricultural intensification ultimately trees and woody shrubs (see Figures 1 and 2). accelerated processes of declining soil fertility, This current reality stands in stark contrast to climatic drying, and erosion. depictions of Haiti as a lunar landscape devoid of The exotic tree species (Prosopis juliflora and trees. Ultimately this difference depends on how Haematoxylum campechianum) that now dominate terms like ‘forest’ and ‘tree cover’ are understood. much of the rural landscape of Haiti are The phenomenon begs at least three important highly adapted to poor soils, low moisture, and questions: (1) how did this arboreal encroachment prolonged drought (Tarter 2015b). Much of the occur; (2) how has it gone largely unnoted; and land that was eventually rendered agriculturally (3) what implications does this new landscape, useless in Haiti became covered by these tree which dominates much of contemporary rural species, which are prolific seeders, propagate in Haiti, have on efforts to initiate landscape-level a variety of novel ways, rapidly encroach into management schemes in Haiti? new territory, and are protected from foraging The arboreal landscape that currently animals by thorny trunks and branches (ibid.). characterizes the Haitian countryside is the result The predominance of these trees provides of several phenomena and their interactions in some ecosystem services, such as nitrogen an iterative cycle (Tarter 2015b). The historical fixation and the protection of the soil from deforestation of Haiti simultaneously removed chronic weathering by the elements and original hardwoods and depleted many of the by acute weather from tropical storms and soil profiles necessary for the regeneration of hurricanes. The deep taproots and lateral rooting original hardwood species. Deforestation also of these species help break apart the limestone exacerbated a drying trend on Hispaniola that substrate that underlies much of Haiti’s topsoil, began as early as the middle of the Holocene permitting a more rapid regeneration of soil in epoch (Higuera-Gundy et al. 1999). Climatic areas of extreme degradation, and a more rapid drying led to further cutting of original trees percolation of surface water into the aquifer. for wood and charcoal, as a necessary reaction to In some cases, fast growing-trees in Haitian declining agricultural possibilities. farmer-managed woodlots have served as de facto Another permissive influence in the spread nurseries, providing the necessary conditions for of these tree species can be indirectly traced the regeneration of indigenous hardwoods, other from the Haitian land succession system, trees and plants, and as habitat for animal species which is based on the Napoleonic Code of the (Smucker and Timyan 1995). colonial period. In this system, all agriculturally Yet the most-immediate benefit of Haiti’s productive land in Haiti is inherited bilaterally current arboreal expansion is not in the form of 25

FIGURE 1. The Current Extent of Tree and Shrub Cover in Haiti in 2010.

(Churches et al. 2014: 212)

FIGURE 2. The Current Extent of Tree and Shrub Cover on the Island of La Gonâve, Haiti: 1990 and 2010.

(White et al. 2013: 500) 26 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

ecosystem services, but as an economic input to much evidence exists that the charcoal trade in the farmers who manage these species sustainably Haiti occurred after much of the deforestation for continued charcoal production (Tarter 2015b). of original forests and that charcoal practices are Prosopis juliflora and Haematoxylum campechianum currently meeting urban energy needs, decades coppice aggressively from the stump; where beyond the dire warnings of analysts during the original hardwoods disappeared when cut, these wood crises years of the 1970s and 1980s. rapidly spreading exotic plants continue to return after multiple cuts, making them ideal species for charcoal production (ibid.). Charcoal production Land Inheritance, Land Tenure is not easy - it is labor intensive and often pays less than agricultural food crops. But charcoal and, Land Security production using managed woodlots of coppiced Many common misconceptions repeatedly find trees is nevertheless a welcome possibility in their way into the development literature on rural Haiti in the light of declining harvests and Haiti, regarding land inheritance, land tenure, increasingly chronic crop failures. and land security. An illustrative example of The trees and woody shrubs that populate such misconceptions is the notion that Haitian much of rural Haiti in the form of managed farmers do not have secure tenure of their land. woodlots failed to spread at the national level in However, numerous studies have taken up the th the first part of the 20 century because charcoal issue and all have reached the same conclusion: production was centralized in a few accessible land tenure in rural Haiti is secure and not an locations: not only were original forests rapidly obstacle to landscape-level land management depleted of original trees, but overexploitation (Murray 1977, 1978b, 1987; White and Runge of wood resources also prevented a notable 1994, 1995; White 1992; White and Jickling establishment of these subsequent exotics. But 1995; Smucker et al. 2005, 2007). the advent of 900 kilometers of new roads Several general features pertaining to land took pressure off these few original locations, inheritance, tenure, and security, which may decentralizing charcoal production at a national inform landscape-level land management level and permitting the spread and reproduction processes, hold true across much of rural Haiti: of exotic species at a rate that eventually contributed, in part,18 to their current extend in Land Inheritance the rural Haitian landscape (see Figures 1 and 2). This brief history together with our • All land is inherited bilaterally and equally understanding of current levels of tree coverage between siblings, male and female; in Haiti challenge at least one misguided narrative • While all inherited land is capable of division, that pertains to landscape-level development and all inheritors may claim an equal share projects in Haiti: that charcoal production is of land, not all inherited land is immediately responsible for the denudation of Haiti’s forests divided; and that the key to successful reforestation is the • Arable land is usually divided immediately, elimination of the charcoal trade. On the contrary, rendering land suitable for cropping into successively smaller and more fragmented plots each generation; 18 It is undeniable that the current arboreal expansion in Haiti may be partially contributable to other causes, such • Manly arable plots of land are frequently too as the nationwide tree-planting efforts of the 1980s and small to meet the needs of a single farm family; 1990s. However, rural out-migration, the abandonment the phenomenon of fragmented arable plots of formerly productive land, and an increase in pseudo- is circumvented by the strategy of most farm drought conditions all provide the necessary conditions for the spread of the species thought to dominate much families to acquire several such parcels through of the rural countryside at this time in history. purchase; as a result, arable plots are not only 27

fragmented and small, but typically distributed Haitian Government, and has higher levels of in a discontinuous pattern across the landscape; external validity than the informal system; most arable land plots are alienable, and • Both the formal and informal tenure systems the selling and purchasing of such plots is are secure in different ways, and Haitians rely widespread and common. on both systems for different needs; and • In many areas of Haiti, farmers also have access • Rural Haitians also benefit from a land leasing to land collectively held by kin members. Such system, which may be an informal agreement land is typically much larger in size because between the land-owner and lessee, or may be it has been neither informally nor formally formalized by the use of a local notary. divided, frequently owing to the land’s lower A basic understanding of land tenure is capacity for agricultural crop productivity. important for any effort to promote or institute Such lands typically have steeper slopes, a less landscape-level management projects in rural preferential aspect (rain and sun exposure), Haiti. The current land tenure systems are poorer soils, and are generally less desirable complex but generally not an impediment to than flatter, frequently lower-elevation, arable project participation, investment, and ownership. lands. These lands are typically used for the The Haitian land tenure system is complex, but production of charcoal, as a location to tether functional. foraging animals, and sometimes as fruit By using the informal tenure system, rural orchards and coffee groves. These collectively Haitians avoid the fees and taxes associated with owned lands also meet other needs, including dividing land formally (Murray 1977, 1978b, non-material needs, such as a location for the 1987; White and Runge 1994, 1995; White 1992; veneration of the ancestors and other spirits of White and Jickling 1995; Smucker et al. 2005, the Vodou (voodoo) pantheon (Tarter 2015a). 2007). Rural Haitians utilize the formal land The utilization of such land functions through tenure system when land sales and purchases are a complex internal system that permits kin undertaken outside of the kinship network or members to enter and equitably access available outside of the village context (ibid.). resources. However, due to reluctance or a The vast majority of rural Haitian farmers are lack of impetus to divide such lands, several content with their current land tenure systems, generations of kin members may claim access which are not only functional, but are also to the land, complicating the management historically adaptive (Murray 1977). Land tenure of the land’s resources, and increasing the reform is rarely listed in the litany of needs likelihood that the land will remain undivided. expressed by Haitian peasants themselves, though access to land arable is an on-going frustration Land Tenure expressed by younger members of society, at least • Rural Haiti operates on two complimentary historically (Murray 1977, 1981). systems of land tenure - one is informal and the other is formal (Murray 1977); Land Security • The informal tenure system has high internal The situation in Haiti is different in regards to security: it is widely recognized and respected land security. Haiti has a long history of urban within communities and often functions on elites and rural gran don (a wealthy rural middle agreements between neighbors or kin, in the class) attempting to control the peasantry through presence of neighbors or kin, and therefore opportunistic land purchases, ‘legal’ maneuvering, may a traceable material record of use and and varied strategies of displacement (Trouillot access; 1990; Steckley and Shamsie 2015). A subsequent • The formal land tenure system functions and is case study on the Péligre Dam provides an legitimized through the legal apparatus of the illustrative example of this well-documented 28 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

historical trend. It is entirely possible that aspects tropical and subtropical areas was developed by of the land tenure system in place in rural Haiti forester L.R. Holdridge in the early 1940s, but has developed in part as a strategy to mitigate land since been adapted and applied on a global scale. insecurity. Given that the vast majority of arable Because Holdridge’s system was developed in land in Haiti is represented as a patchwork of Haiti, it continues to be the primary classificatory discontinuously dispersed and privately owned schemes used in much of the literature related fragmented plots of land, the issue of land to the ecological aspects of landscape-level land security is perhaps less than in earlier historical management in Haiti. The system delineates nine periods when the aggregation of arable land in different zones based principally on the metrics the hands a fewer land-owners might engender of annual precipitation, mean annual temperature, a higher tendency to land grabs and predatory the potential evapotranspiration ratio (PET), and land acquisition. considerations of elevation (Holdridge 1947, History suggests that while land security, land 1967). inheritance practices, and land tenure systems in Four of the Holdridge Life Zones (HLZ) cover rural Haiti are complex, they are fully functional less than 1% of Haiti’s land, while the remaining and in no way impede the ‘plot-based’ approaches five constitute notable percentages (Delatour et to landscape-level improvement projects. al. 1984). The largest zone, Subtropical Moist Forest, However, given the fragmented nature of most representing approximately half the entire land land plot holdings, ‘macro-level’ approaches to area of Haiti, is found at an elevation of ~800 landscapes are unlikely to meet much success at meters. It receives 1,200-1,800 mm of annual this point in the history of rural Haiti. rainfall, and supports the largest percentage of small-holding peasant farms (Delatour et al. 1984; Ehrlich 1985). The Subtropical Moist Forest Soil Conditions in Haiti zone was traditionally home to large stands The loss of soil is the most immediate and of mahogany and tropical oak, now replaced observable effect from the initial deforestation of principally with avocado and mango trees (ibid.). Haiti. The UNESCO Haiti Pilot Project noted The second largest HLZ is Subtropical Dry degrading soil conditions as an issue of concern Forest, constituting 19% of Haiti’s land, falls as early as the mid-20th century. The decline of under 400 meters of elevation, receives an agricultural productivity due to soil degradation annual mean rainfall between 800-1,000 mm, has since been systematically documented in experiences seasonal droughts, but has deep, Haiti (Zuvekas 1978; Pierre-Louis 1985; Bargout irrigable soils, and is highly agriculturally and Raizada 2013). productive (Delatour et al. 1984). Common The effects of erosion, declining soil fertility, trees in the Subtropical Dry Forest zone include and decreasing arable plot sizes have led to a Phyllostylon brasiliensis, Prosopis juliflora and nationwide agricultural decline. Despite this Guaiacum officinalis. Viable crops include trend, the majority of the rural-dwelling Haitians mangoes, limes, tobacco, cotton, plantains, sugar continue to pursue agriculturally based livelihood cane, and sisal. strategies, supplemented heavily by remittances While these two HLZs constitute sent from Port-au-Prince and diaspora abroad. approximately 70% of Haiti’s land surface, they and the other zones are unevenly distributed across Haiti’s landscape. Thus, it remains a Soil and the Relationship to challenge to incorporate ‘one-size-fits-all’ program policies at the landscape level. A Ecological Zones of Haiti private consulting firm consolidated and adapted One of the most commonly employed systems Holdridge’s ecological zones for Haiti in order for the classification of ecological zones in to incorporate population density levels and 29

more detailed crop production profiles (Capital donkeys) for transporting goods and animals Consult 1982, as noted in Delatour et al. 1984). raised for milk or for meat consumption (cows, This improved classification system nevertheless pigs, and goats). For many Haitian families, still fails to account for the uneven distribution livestock serves as a type of savings, allowing of ecological zones across Haiti (ibid.). people to sell or eat the animals in times of Another phenomenon affecting ecological increased financial pressure. classificatory schemes for rural Haiti concerns Appropriate measures to contain livestock are the fact that the rural landscape has been so an important consideration for the preservation drastically altered that few zones currently of plants and trees within a landscape, and represent the original characteristics outlined by Haitian farmers, whose livelihoods depend on Holdridge (Ehrlich et al. 1985). This is largely this protection, are particularly cognizant of this. due to the removal of arboreal and vegetative In considering reforestation efforts, we must cover, and subsequent loss of flora and fauna consider livestock and their role in rural Haiti. defining topsoil. Here we will briefly discuss the role of cows, Curtis noted that in one area of Haiti with pigs, pack animals and goats on landscapes. evenly distributed rainfall, the plant communities Cattle ownership in Haiti has been on a that demarcated varied ecological zones were consistent national decline in Haiti since the peak determined by soil texture and topography time before the French presence on the island, (Curtis 1947). The loss of topsoil and the when buccaneers drove cattle along the southern subsequent exposure of underlying and more peninsula from Les Cayes toward the slaughter uniform soil profiles, coupled with on-going houses of Port-au-Prince. Today, due to the steep climatic drying and less predictable season rains, slopes that cover 85% of Haiti’s mountainous has made moisture the new de facto determinant terrain, in many locations the raising of cattle is of ecological zones in Haiti. This is most evident simply not feasible. In the places where cattle in the spread of Prosopis juliflora well beyond ownership is common practice, cows are herded the lower elevation zones where it initially together and rarely left to graze freely. established; on-going climatic drying increased Pig ownership has declined over past decades. the habitat of this and other drought-tolerant While the Creole pig was traditionally the invasive tree species. Recognition of this leveling most-commonly raised livestock in Haiti, mass of ecological featured in traditionally dissimilar eradication campaigns of the early 1980s have ecological zones suggests that strictly ecological reduced their prominence significantly. Many approaches to watershed management in Haiti rural Haitians still own and care for pigs, but the are increasingly less important—a crucial point vast majority of swine in Haiti are tethered in the that will be returned to subsequently. shade of courtyards and not permitted to forage As moisture increasingly dictates the ecological freely. Similarly, pack animals (horses, donkeys, and agriculturally productive capacities of the mules), in part due to their value, are tethered current Haitian countryside, many landscape- and not permitted to range freely. level land improvement projects have shifted The situation with goats, however, is much increased focus toward watersheds as the more complex, and Haitians in different areas appropriate unit of intervention in meeting the have developed a series of systems that permit three complementary goals mentioned at the the ranging of goats in different circumstances onset of this report. and at different times of the year, including tethering, yoking or free ranging. • In areas where goats are tethered, the purpose Livestock in Rural Haiti of tethering is always the same: to prevent the Livestock is prolific across rural Haiti and many animal from wandering into one’s own or Haitians keep pack animals (horses, mules, and another’s garden. Typically goats are tethered 30 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

TABLE 1. Principal Watersheds of Haiti. on a farmers privately owned land, but may occasionally be tethered by agreement on Catchment another farmer’s land. In virtually all instances, River/hydrological basin/zone 2 area/km goats are tethered on agriculturally marginal Artibonite 9500 land and are never tethered on agriculturally Cul-de-Sac 1580 productive land with actively growing crops. • In other areas, such as the Plaine du Cul-de- Cayes-Jacmel-Anse à Pitres 1219 Sac, farmers place a wooden yoke, consisting Bombardopolis-Gonaïves 1147 of three individual pieces of wood, around the St Marc-Cabaret 1090 neck of their goats. This prevents goats from entering private gardens and saves crops within. Limonade-Ouanaminthe 1065 • In many areas in Haiti, after all members of a Côte de Fer-Baînet 1060 given village have harvested their crops, past Môle St Nicolas-Moustique 987 the end of the rainy season, goats are seasonally permitted to roam freely, eating the parts of Trois Rivières 897 plants that have no commercial or any other Corail-Anse à Veau 877 value. Estère 834 In all cases, livestock is a consideration for St Louis du Sud-Aquin 706 landscape level restoration and specifically reforestation efforts. Given the practices of Grande Rivière du Nord 699 restraining livestock, reforestation efforts on La Quinte 690 any public land will see the greatest impact of livestock. Ile de la Gonâve 680 Petite Rivière de Nippes-Grand Goâve 661 Tiburon-St Jean 660 Hydrology in Haiti Léogane-Carrefour 651 There are approximately 160 major rivers and hydrological basins in Haiti (see Figure 3), Cayes 634 representing around 30 principal rain catchment Grande Anse 556 areas19 (Ehrlich et al. 1985) (see Table 1). Only Port de Paix-Port Margot 543 a small percentage of watersheds in Haiti fall principally within nationally recognized Roseaux-Voldrogue 540 conservation areas: Fonds Verettes, Grande Anse, Grande Rivière de Jacmel 535 Cul-de-Sac, Roseaux-Voldrogue, Ravine du Sud, Grande Rivière de Nippes 459 Rivière l’Acul, Rivière Port-à-Piment, Rivière les Anglais, Rivière Cavaillon, Rivière Glace, Rivière Cavaillon 380 Roseaux and Grande Rivière de Jacmel Basins Jérémie-Les Irois 364 (Swartely and Toussaint 2006: 18). The vast majority of watersheds in Haiti fan out across Limbé 312 governmental administrative boundaries, Cap Haïtien 312 ecological zones, and the privately and securely Fonds Verettes 190 Île de la Tortue 179 19 Swartley and Toussaint 2006 suggested 33 major Sources: OAS – Mission d’Assitance Technique Intégrée 1972: 491 (as reported in Delatour et al. 1984: 33; Swartley and Toussaint watersheds, while Smucker et al. 2007 suggested there 2006: 14-15) are 54 major watersheds. 31 FIGURE 3. Principal and Secondary Rivers, Haiti. Principal and Secondary Rivers, FIGURE 3. 32 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

owned plots20 of millions of small family farms (ibid.). While the permanent rivers and streams of Haiti are spring-fed through a vast network of aquifers, it must be recognized that the aquifers themselves are recharged by rainfall capture (Swartley and Toussaint 2006). Rain falls variably in Haiti, with precipitation driven by the north- eastern trade winds. With the exception of the slowly flowing Artibonite—the country’s largest river—many rivers in Haiti are both short and swiftly flowing. Vegetative cover and arboreal root systems in some watersheds prevent rapid runoff, and allow the rainfall to percolate through the limestone substratum that represents some 80% of Haiti’s underlying land formation (Swartley and Toussaint 2006). In contrast, rain in denuded watersheds rapidly descends into streams and rivers and ultimately leaves the watershed with a reduced rate of percolation into aquifers. This trend is reflected in the 15% of the country that is composed of plains and valleys but which contains approximately 85% of Haiti’s available groundwater (Knowles et al. 1999: 14). The remaining 15% of groundwater is found in mountainous areas and comes from springs that originate from multiple aquifer types, including karstic, fractured, low permeability, and indigenous aquifers (Knowles et al. 1999: 15-17). By 1978, 12 of the 30 major watersheds in Haiti were completely deforested, and by 1985, the most forested watershed supported only 37% arboreal coverage, and was expected to be entirely deforested by 2042 if trends continued (Ehrlich 1985: 28-31). Overall the ability of aquifers to recharge has decreased with deforestation to the point where the water table now fluctuates seasonally by up to 15 meters in many parts of the country (Knowles et al. 1999). Freshwater is nevertheless still available locally from varied aquifers, including fractured limestones, sandstones, conglomerates, and schist aquifers (Knowles et al. 1999: 17).

20 The average plot size in Haiti is approximately 1.4 hectares (Zuvekas), though most Haitian farmers own several different plots of land. 33

SECTION II: Landscape-level Management Projects in Haiti 34 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

Figure 4 displays this early watershed delineation The Logic of Watersheds as a map. A further effort was made to divide the Landscape of Intervention aggregated 30 watershed areas into seven regions, and is displayed in Figure 5 (Wolf 1975, as cited in Recall that Haiti has a predominantly agrarian Delatour et al 1984: 31-37). Despite the explicit society with increasingly less access to water due to acknowledgement of grouping 100 watersheds on-going climatic drying, droughts, and a decline into 30 geographical areas for pragmatic reasons, in the predictability of seasonal rainfall. Access to the aggregation from the OAS report has led water is the most-pressing concern for most rural some researchers to mistakenly report that Haiti Haitian farmers, as it represents the determining has only 30 major watersheds. factor for the success or failure of agriculture The 2007 USAID Environmental Vulnerability production. The reduced recharge capacity of Report (EVR) noted that watershed areas aquifers in Haiti—due largely to the rapid runoff in Haiti have never been systematically and and departure of rainfall from watersheds—is quantitatively compared (Smucker et al. 2007: v). one of the most-pressing long-term human and The EVR team developed a thematic map that ecological vulnerabilities facing the country. categorizes watersheds in Haiti into four areas of Efforts to prevent or slow groundwater runoff varying priority, based on the following criteria: in Haiti’s watersheds represent one way of (1) soil potential; (2) population vulnerability; (3) mitigating dropping aquifers. All of these human market vulnerability; (4) road vulnerability; and and ecological concerns combine to explain the (5) irrigation vulnerability (Smucker et al. 2007: common rationale behind integrating landscape- v-vii). Figure 6 displays the map of watershed level management projects in Haiti within vulnerability based on these criteria (Smucker et watersheds. al. 2007: vi). The Ministry of Environment (MdE) has also released a map (see Figure 7) that The Geospatial Distribution of delineates watersheds in Haiti (Ministère de l’Environnement N.D.: 23). The MdE map Rivers in Haiti is likely based on the 1972 OAS map, which Water takes the path of least resistance en route grouped some 100 watersheds together for to the lowest possible elevation (sea level). The policy reasons (see Figure 8). mountainous terrain of Haiti has resulted in the The difficulties associated with conceptualizing, fairly even distribution of rivers and riparian operationalizing, and delineating watersheds— systems throughout the country (see Figure 3). and subsequent difficulties concerning the Early efforts at identifying critical watersheds in overlap of political administrative boundaries— Haiti for project interventions struggled with present a major watershed governance challenge reconciling the overlap in distribution between in Haiti. To illustrate, a given watershed may watersheds and government administrative overlap administrative units with notably different boundaries (Delatour et al. 1984). priorities and resources. Rivers do not adhere to An early attempt at consolidating watershed man-made political boundaries, and attempts to and administrative boundaries involved grouping involve local and regional government in the more than 100 watersheds into 30 regions (1972 management of entire watersheds will continue OAS study cited in Delatour et al 1984: 31-37). to grapple with this reality. 35 (1972 OAS study cited in Delatour et al 1984: 31-37). study cited in Delatour et al 1984: (1972 OAS FIGURE 4. An Early Delineation of Haitian Watersheds, Aggregated into 30 Areas. Areas. Aggregated into 30 Watersheds, An Early Delineation of Haitian FIGURE 4. 36 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti (Wolf 1975, as cited in Delatour et al 1984: 31-37). as cited in Delatour et al 1984: 1975, (Wolf and Divided into Seven Principal Areas. Areas. Principal Arrondissements into Seven and Divided Adapted by Watersheds of An Early Grouping FIGURE 5. 37 (Smucker et al. 2007: vi) 2007: et al. (Smucker FIGURE 6. Watershed Prioritization Map for Project Interventions, Haiti. Haiti. Prioritization Interventions, Map for Project Watershed FIGURE 6. 38 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti (Ministère de l’Environnement N.D.: 23) N.D.: de l’Environnement (Ministère FIGURE 7. Watersheds of Haiti, According to the Ministère de l’Environnement. to the Ministère According of Haiti, Watersheds FIGURE 7. 39 Note: The dotted lines in the OAS map (left) delineate aggregated watersheds The dotted lines in the OAS Note: FIGURE 8. Current MdE Map (Right) Ostensibly Based on 1972 OAS Grouping (Left). Grouping Current Based on 1972 OAS MdE Map (Right) Ostensibly FIGURE 8. (Left: 1972 OAS study cited in Delatour et al 1984: 31-37; Right: Ministère de l’Environnement N.D.: 23) N.D.: de l’Environnement Ministère Right: 31-37; study cited in Delatour et al 1984: 1972 OAS (Left: 40 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

evaluations, often conducted by the very Case Studies on Landscape-level projects’ implementing agencies. Such reports Land Management Projects in cannot be assumed as independent or objective evaluations of individual project success or failure Haiti (see APPENDIX A for a further elucidation of challenges regarding the literature). Instead, The success of future landscape-level land the case study summaries provide a sampling management efforts in Haiti rests on a solid of varied landscape-level land management understanding of approaches and policies project models, approaches, and shifts in policies leading to previous project successes and over time. Table 2 provides a list of the 15 cases failures. The inherent complexities in human summarized below. and environmental vulnerabilities, issues of land inheritance, land tenure, and land security, an Case 1 historical leveling of ecological heterogeneity in some parts of Haiti, the degradation of Haiti’s hydrological systems, and the difficulties facing The Haiti Pilot Project (HPP) the delineation of watersheds and their adherence On November 26th, 1949, the Haitian Minister of to established internal political boundaries have Education and the head of UNESCO’s Division all been highlighted as common challenges faced of Fundamental Education met in Paris to sign by previous project planners and implementers. an accord that would create the world’s first The following 15 summaries of landscape- multinational development initiative. The first level land management efforts in Haiti attempt clause of the first UN-Haiti agreement stated that to highlight some of the internal challenges the perimeter of the Marbial Valley intervention faced by a variety of different project approaches area ‘shall be interpreted to mean the watershed and policy choices. On one hand, the selection of the River Gosseline’ (UNESCO 1949: 3). of theses case studies presented was pragmatic— Two years earlier, the Haitian Director of Adult many were included because of present Education in Port-au-Prince had presented the accessibility to the reports. To illustrate, one Marbial Valley of Haiti to the second General survey identified over 115 different watershed Conference of UNESCO as an ideal location management projects in progress in the year for a UN development pilot project. The project 1987 alone (Pierce 1988), yet individual reports location was framed as ideal not only because on these projects are either nonexistent or the area exemplified the poverty that was were unavailable at the time of writing of this characteristic of some areas of Haiti, but also report. Therefore, an implicit assumption of this because conditions in Marbial were compounded report is that an absence of evidence regarding by the iterative influences of overpopulation, a particular landscape-level project or approach deforestation, erosion of agricultural soils, and should not be considered as evidence of absence overall challenging agricultural conditions regarding the applicability, success, or failure of (Verna 2015: 7-8). such approaches. However, an examination of Launched in 1950, the Haiti Pilot Project the case studies makes it clear that important (HPP) was based on an extensive research lessons in landscape-level land management have survey undertaken by Swiss anthropologist gradually surfaced and been incorporated over Alfred Métraux21. Métraux noted, refined, and time as policy. In this sense, the case studies are illustrative of important lessons learned over time, in the Haiti context of land management. 21 Métraux worked with the support of new graduates from It should also be noted that the case studies the recently created Faculté d’Ethnologie (Department presented here are derived from project of Ethnology/Anthropology) at L’Université d’État d’Haïti (The State University of Haiti), and seasoned 41

added causal direction to earlier associations raised at the General Conference, noting that Case 2 soil erosion was the result of rapid deforestation, overpopulation had exerted additional pressures Organisation de Développement de la Vallée on agriculturally productive land, and small land-holdings prevented the implementation de l’Artibonite (ODVA) of agricultural intensification measures such as Another attempt at integrated development the use of the plough (Watras 2015: 225). The within a Haitian watershed occurred around goals of the HPP were integrative in the sense the same time, with the Haitian government’s that they aspired to improve health, improve creation of the Organisation de Développement de agriculture, develop natural resources, develop la Vallée de l’Artibonite (ODVA). The first phase of small-scale industries, and promote cooperative ODVA was financed by a 4 million US dollar loan associations. The particular approach that guided from Eximbank, later expanded to 40 million the above objectives was based in the theory of (Delatour et al. 1984). The Inter-American ‘fundamental education’ (FE). Development Bank financed the second phase Despite the project’s delineation by the local of the project (ibid.). watershed, the acknowledgement of interplay ODVA originally focused on the construction between complex socio-environmental of the Péligre dam, an associated irrigation challenges, and an integrative approach, the HPP network, and mechanisms for flood control and is widely acknowledged to have failed. When drainage (ibid.). The generation of electricity Métraux revisited the Marbial valley in 1956, was the primary goal of the project. If evaluated he later reported in a private correspondence based on this goal, the ODVA may be considered that the project “had virtually no effect. The a failure. While the engineering aspects of the conditions of life of the Valley have hardly dam were completed by the late 1950s, it was altered and the project itself is virtually defunct” another decade before the generators were (Métraux, as quoted in Verna 2015: 26). installed (Delatour et al. 1984). The construction of the dam itself had several Lessons Learned unexpected and disastrous results. In particular, • The project employed a lengthy list of roads built to construct and service the dam objectives to tackle the inherently complex opened up vast areas of the upper watershed that nature of rural development. By employing had previously remained protected by isolation several different projects to target a host of (Howard 1997: 7). Forests of the upper watershed interrelated dimensions, it emphasized breadth were rapidly felled after the dam’s construction. over depth, failing to achieve any single goal. The newly exposed soil began to erode and rapidly • The project had a misguided primary emphasis built up at the bottom of the dam, significantly on an en vogue educational model. Without deceasing its energy productivity (Howard 1997: including direct project beneficiaries like local 7). The original engineers that designed the dam farmers in problem identification, management based their sedimentation estimates on studies and implementation, the project failed to from the 1920s, and predicted the dam would produce any notable difference to the land. have a 180-year lifetime (Howard 1997: 8). However, some 25 years after the construction, the sedimentation rate was three times what

Haitian ethnographers such as Remy Bastien and Suzanne Sylvain (Verna 2015: 19). 42 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

engineers had estimated (ibid.). By 1997, the dam’s capacity was at 50% (ibid.). Case 3 Howard outlined how some wealthier Haitians with advanced knowledge of the Développement Rural Intégré Petit-Goâve- project purchased lowland areas that would later become irrigated, resulting in a major Petit Trou de Nippes (DRIPP) displacement of rural families (Howard 1997). A bilateral agreement signed in 1973 between The area also experienced a boom in population the governments of Canada and Haiti created in anticipation of the dam. the Développement Rural Intégré Petit-Goâve-Petit Despite the bad press for a protracted execution, Trou de Nippes (DRIPP) project. Like the Haiti Delatour et al. (1984) noted that rice production Pilot Project, DRIPP was clearly integrative in the area boomed in conjunction with the in theory, with goals to initiate a regional project, though they suggest the rice boom may development program that focused on “pedology, have been in large the result of increased food hydrology, erosion, culture, animal husbandry, prices since 1971 (ibid.). From the 1970s onward, fisheries, health, education, transportation, rice had been the most profitable agricultural industry, commercialization, credit, cooperatives, crop in Haiti (ibid.). The increase in food prices, enterprise, communication, arts and crafts, and the high value of rice, and the sudden availability land tenure” (DRIPP 1978: 3, as quoted in of water for irrigation provided the incentive for Delatour et al. 1984: 47). farmers to increase their production (ibid.). Rice Canadian partners attributed the failure of production eventually declined when US policy DRIPP to the need to work through multiple severely reduced the economic profitability of government departments and ministries Haiti’s domestic rice market. (Delatour et al. 1984). Other suggested that the project’s well-intentioned focus on involving Lessons Learned and empowering local grass-root organizations, • This ‘macro-level’ approach to watershed channeling credit through farmer associations, management did not adequately involve all utilizing collective storage facilities, and members of society equitably and resulted in promoting all of these activities through “pilot land grabs and opportunistic land purchases [demonstration] parcels” all ignored several to the benefit of some wealthy Haitians and important factors (ibid.). First, all of these at the expense of supposed local beneficiaries suggested activities did not take into account the (Howard 1997). realities of local land tenure or the geography • By not incorporating the beneficial aspects of of production in Haiti. Second, rather than a ‘plot-based’ approach alongside their ‘macro- acknowledging the reality of an entrenched, level’ approach, project participants mono- traditional social system in the area, the project cropped rice and consequently farmers across assumed that social structures could be ignored the regions suffered collectively when the local or bypassed. As Delatour et al. rhetorically rice marketed collapsed with the importation inquired, “Is it reasonable to assume that in 4 or of US-government subsidized ‘Miami rice’ 5 years one [project] may overturn two centuries from farmers in the United States. of social practice?” (Delatour et al. 1984: 47). The same analysts suggested the project failure was ultimately the result of “conceptual ambiguity and of the failure to precisely define a coherent strategy that would encompass the whole area in its physical heterogeneity” (Delatour et al. 1984: 51). 43

TABLE 2. Case Studies of Landscape Projects in Haiti, 1948-2014.

Implementing # Year Project Name Acronym Funder/Donor Agency/Partners

UNESCO, ACLS, 1 1948-1953 The Haiti Pilot Project HPP UNESCO Rockefeller Foundation

1949- Organisation de Développement IDB, Haitian American 2 The Artibonite Project ODVA 1963;1972-? de la Vallée de l’Artibonite Dev. Org.

Développement Rural Intégré Agence Canadienne pour le 3 1973-? DRIPP Petit-Goâve-Petit Trou de Nippes Développement International

L’Organisme de développement du Nord: Soient Développement Rural du Nord I (DRN I) 1977- L’Organisme de développement 4 1976-1991+ ODN World Bank 1982; Soient Développement du Nord Rural du Nord II (DRN II) 1983-1989

PADF and CARE at program Agroforestry Outreach Project 5 1981-1989 AOP level; hundreds of NGOs at USAID (Pwojè Pyebwa) project level

MARNDR, USAID, FAO, World Secretariat Technique á l’Aména- 6 1987-1988 STAB Bank, a representative of NGOs, USAID gemen des Bassins Versants and 2 agronomists

7 1987-1991 Agroforestry II AFII PADF, CARE USAID

CARE, PADF, SECID / Auburn 8 1989-1994 Productive Land Use Systems PLUS USAID Univ., NGOs, farmers

NGOs, Associates in Rural Targeted Watershed Management TWMP: Development, Union des Co- USAID, MacArthur 9 1987-1994 Project: Pwojè Sove Tè (PST); Ma- PST and operatives de la Region du Sud Foundation, UNDP caya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) MBR (UNICORS), U. of FL.

Forest and Parks Protection Tech- GOH Ministries of Environment 10 1996-? FPPTP World Bank nical Assistance Project and Agriculture

Agriculturally Sustainable Systems Féderation de Groupements des 11 1997-2002 ASSET USAID and Environmental Transformation Planteurs de Belle Fontaine

Hillside Agricultural Programupper water- Middle-men producers and 12 2001-2005 HAP USAID sheds of:Rivière Grise; andRivière exporters Blanche

Le Développement Economique pour un Environnement Durable /The Durable Economic and Development Alternatives Inc. 13 2008-2012 DEED USAID Environmental Development: (DAI) Montrouis (W. Department); Limbé in (N. Department)

Watershed Initiatives for Natural WINN- 14 2009-2011 Chemonics USAID Environmental Resources ER

Appui à la Valorisation du po- tentiel Agricole du Nord, pour la Sécurité Économique et AVANSE/ Development Alternatives, Inc. 15 2011-2015 USAID environnementale / Feed the FTF (DAI) Future: FTF/North (201318); FTF-West/WINNER (2009-11) 44 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

Lessons Learned indicating that their failure to uphold their roles and responsibilities would result in the ODN • Project objectives did not take into account reassuming these responsibilities (Delatour et al. land tenure, ecological heterogeneity, and the 1984). nature of the entrenched local social system. Approximately a decade and a half and 45 • Rather than focus on a few achievable million US dollars later, the targeted area failed objectives, the project attempted to address to reach any of the espoused goals (La Tortue a myriad of sub-objectives that recognized 1993). An independent assessment of the social and ecological heterogeneity. This program concluded that the ODN suffered from heterogeneity was addressed in a voluminous a lack of strong management, too many unrelated and unmanageable number of diverse and goals that did not reflect the needs of the project unlinked projects that stretched staff and recipients, ineffective project coordination and resources thin. management, a dependence on external funding, • The project suffered from issues of inappropriate and the ceding of project implementation to the administrative oversight and unknown institutionally weak Ministries of Agriculture, delineation of project roles and responsibilities Public Works, BCA and SNEP (Delatour et at the highest levels of oversight. al. 1985, La Tortue 1993). In short, the ODN suffered from the same broad focus and lack of clearly defined objectives as the ODVA project, Case 4 coupled with reliance on an historically weak public sector for project implementation (ibid.). L’Organisme de développement du Nord Lessons Learned (ODN) • Despite that the project later refined its overly- L’Organisme de Développement du Nord (ODN) broad objectives, they focused exclusively on a was initially established by presidential decree ‘macro-level’ approach by pushing a one-size- in 1976 (La Tortue 1993) as a four-year fits-all solution—technical inputs in the form project that would “rehabilitate and expand of improved varieties of local crops. irrigation systems, provide credit to mostly small • Despite having later narrowed it’s objectives, farmers, carry out agricultural trials and seed the project suffered from a weak administration multiplication, improve technical assistance, set that didn’t have well-defined goals and up an animal health service, rehabilitate two responsibilities for all those involved in project municipal markets and an abattoir, repair and implementation. construct feeder and access roads and improve [the] rural water supply” (World Bank 1976: d, as • The project relied entirely on rain-fed reported in Delatour et al. 1984: 55). irrigation, which made beneficiaries unlikely Despite the fact that project goals were later to become adopters of the technical solutions refined and narrowed, the second phase of the of the project, which they viewed as inherently project relied almost entirely on farmers’ adoption more risky than their time-tested methods of of technical inputs that amounted primarily to production. improved varieties of traditional crops, supported • Ultimately, by excluding local participation in by research and extension promoted by the the decision-making process, the project failed aforementioned government entities (Delatour to: (1) recognize the ecological heterogeneity et al. 1984). of the land, thereby, failing to address the The World Bank funded the second phase of the different ecological approaches needed across project, but not before mandating that involved the land; and (2) recognize the potential failure government agencies sign bilateral agreements of introducing new and improved varieties 45

of crop that were already part of traditional to 2000 (see subsequent case studies on AFT II, crops used by farmers. Farmers’ resistance PLUS, ASSET). to the use of technology for crops that were Using a purely ‘numbers served’ evaluative already part of their traditional system could metric, the AOP involved 1/3rd of rural farm have been foreseen had the project used local families in Haiti, and saw the planting of beneficiaries in the decision-making process. approximately 68 million trees. An estimated 1/3rd of trees planted ten years prior were still standing in 1995 (Smucker and Timyan 1995). Case 5 An interesting and unexpected side effect of the project was that trees planted in woodlots created The Agroforestry Outreach Project (AOP) conditions favorable to the germination of local tree species that had been assumed unlikely to The Agroforestry Outreach Project (AOP; Pwojè regenerate (ibid.). Pyebwa) was a tree-planting project funded by USAID. At higher levels of management the Lessons Learned project was implemented through two large NGOs already involved in related development • The project proceeded from an overarching work at the national level in Haiti: (1) the Pan policy that emphasized social benefits over American Development Organization (PADF); ecological benefits (economically productive and (2) CARE. These large NGOs oversaw activities over ecologically protective). the project through numerous small private Ecological improvements were considered a volunteer organizations and nongovernmental beneficial consequence of the targeted focus organizations working locally throughout the on improving farmer incomes. country (Murray and Bannister 2004). • The project implementers acknowledged The AOP approach was tailored to a series of realities of the local land tenure systems and conditions thought to positively affect project promoted an agroforestry approach (plot-based) success, including: (1) adapting the project over traditional reforestation (macro-level) to the pre-existing Haitian land tenure, tree approaches. tenure, and market systems; (2) an elevation of • The AOP project achieved nationwide micro-economic over macro-ecological themes; coverage by establishing a highly-effective (3) a decision to initially bypass the Haitian organizational structure based on several larger government and operate exclusively through regional NGOs overseeing the activities of the two overseeing NGOs and hundreds of hundreds of smaller NGOs, private volunteer local implementing NGOs; (4) a joint-venture organizations, community groups, churches, model in which smallholders supplied the land and famer associations. and labor and the project supplied capital inputs • Farmers were encouraged to deviate from in the form of free tree seedlings; (5) the use project objectives and encouraged to cut their of small container seedling technology rather trees when they wanted (participatory over than backyard nurseries; and (6) a management command-and-control). policy that openly encouraged farmer-induced deviations from the project on decisions of tree- • Despite higher levels of beneficiary participation planting and harvesting schedules (Murray and than previous projects, assumptions in the Bannister 2004: 384). form of appropriate technical inputs—fast- The AOP was the largest tree-planting project growing exotics—overlooked autochthonous in Haiti’s history and spanned a decade from Haitian wood and charcoal woodlots instead 1981-1991. Important tenets and lessons learned of working within these established systems. from the AOP continued to inform PADF projects through a second decade, from 1992 46 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

off: STABV became the most knowledgeable Case 6 institution on watershed management in Haiti, assembled a large database of all existing Secretariat Technique à l’Aménagement des research and knowledge, and developed essential connections with all key players (ibid.). STABV Bassins Versants (STABV) conducted an impressive inventory of watersheds The minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, and related projects and identified 116 projects Natural Resources, and Development operating in Haiti during 1987. The STABV (MARNDR) initiated a plan to develop and program was ended prematurely after one year, implement a coordinated and integrated national when funding was revoked by USAID due to watershed program with the overarching political instability (ibid.). objective to reverse hillside degradation in Haiti (Pierce 1988). An initial planning group was Lessons Learned formed with advisors from USAID, FAO, the • This program serves as an exemplar of World Bank, a representative of NGOs, and two the efficacy of a plot-based, participatory Haitian agronomists (ibid.). This group produced approach to project oversight. By being truly a document entitled ‘Guidelines for Watershed participatory in every stage and by involving Management’, which gave birth to STABV. multiple stakeholders from local government In 1987 a 4-year project supporting STABV was to individuals from the community (Smucker launched with funding from USAID (ibid.). The et al. 2007), it ensured diversity of opinions Secretariat was designed as a national planning that gave way to a more comprehensive water- and coordinating mechanism for all partners shed management plan that addressed locally involved in watershed management in Haiti identified problems. (ibid.). STABV had two secondary objectives that • This project adapted its approaches and met the overarching program objective: (1) to objectives through an iterative, farmer-driven develop a clear national watershed management process thereby not only ensuring higher rates program; and (2) to improve existing projects’ of participation and adoption (White 1992; effectiveness and long-term independence (ibid.). White and Runge 1995; White and Jickling Rather than participating in project 1995; Smucker et al. 2005; Smucker et al. implementation, STABV was a program that 2007), but also ensuring that the goals were dealt principally with long-term strategies, directly related to project beneficiaries. information exchange, project designs, project evaluations, and conflict resolution (Pierce 1988). The project was entirely dependent on outside A major obstacle that was effectively overcome funding and ended when access to funding was was to align a diversity of viewpoints concerning prematurely cut short. appropriate watershed approaches and to resolve conflict between competing partners. For Case 7 example, the initial STABV effort to determine who was doing what, and where, was met by Agroforestry II (AFII) impatience and resistance from partners that felt that acting immediately was the best strategy The Agroforestry II (AFII) project was essentially (ibid.). In other cases, competing objectives and an extension of the AOP, with a shift in focus ideas threatened to derail cooperation. toward increasing soil conservation activities. Ultimately, a strategy of proceeding slowly, The refined project objectives included: (1) acknowledging differing viewpoints, directly sustainable increases in farmer productivity and addressing conflict, and aligning objectives and income; through (2) soil conservation measures; visions through consensus and compromise paid introduced by (3) planting trees and other plants; 47

with (4) oversight to institutionalize farmer- could have benefited from a more methodical led demands for interventions, materials and participation between farmers and project staff extension services (Bannister and Josiah 1993: to work within existing agroforestry systems 242). and practices. Like the AOP before it, AFII was a nationwide project executed through a hierarchical structure of NGOs. The project design was informed by Case 8 socio-economic background studies conducted before the commencement of the project. A Productive Land Use Systems (PLUS) noteworthy approach used in this project was Initiated in 1989, Productive Land Use Systems the inclusion of a vast NGO network that (PLUS) continued many of the policies, practices made participation of various stakeholders and projects that developed under AOP and possible (Bannister and Josiah, 1993: 248 ). Agroforestry II. However, the project shifted Socio-cultural analyses were also conducted exclusively from tree planting to four primary to identify locally defined values and attitudes objectives: (1) increasing food production; and to tree planting (Murray, 1981). Despite the (2) increasing farm family income; through focus on collaboration and local participation, (3) sustainable agricultural practices; that (4) the introduction of agroforestry techniques protect natural resources and the environment. to farmers was not truly driven by traditional The project was supported by USAID with an knowledge of such practices. Existing knowledge investment of approximately 30 million USD. of farming systems was largely ignored in the PLUS activities included promoting and development of agroforestry techniques. increasing fruit tree production, farm system Lessons Learned improvements, and the establishment of stable marketing systems. The project used a farmer- • The use of socio-economic studies was crucial driven approach in its extension services. Local to the success of this project. Insights from organizations were used to identify traditional the aforementioned study pointed to the forms of agricultural systems. The program importance of incorporating local opinions continued in the implementation model of and farmer participation (Murray, 1979, 1981). AOP, AFII, and PLUS. The application of PLUS • The project used a plot-based approach by technologies continued even after the end using socio-cultural analyses to identify local of the project. Severely eroded sites gained a sensibilities of tree planting (Murray, 1981) so considerable amount of soil depth, land values that project goals could be oriented towards increased up to 3 times its original value and locally identified farmer interests (Murray, traditional crops were turned into cash crops 1981, Conway, 1984). (Smucker 2001) to name a few of the project • Collaboration with a network of NGOs was accomplishments. central to the project’s success. It not only allowed access to a large number of farmers Lessons Learned but also provided opportunities to make the • A farmer driven approach allowed for an project planning an iterative process (Bannister integration of traditional knowledge systems and Josiah 1993: 249). and greater enthusiastic participation by • Although the project had made a conscious the farmers that resulted in the continued effort to employ a truly participatory approach, adoption of introduced technologies well after certain aspects of participation had a macro- the project ended. level, command-and-control approach • The initial adoption and eventual sustenance (Bannister and Josiah 1993: 250). The project of introduced technologies owes itself to 48 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

approaches that: (1) built on existing agricultural agricultural work within the park perimeter systems; (2) used simultaneous ecological and rather than focus on improving existing social incentives; (3) involved farmers in market income generating strategies of farmers living negotiations (Smucker 2001); and involved (4) within the park (command-and-control versus collaboration with multiple stakeholders. participatory approaches). • Ecological improvements resulted in a three- fold increase in some property values. Case 10

Case 9 Forest and Parks Protection Technical Assistance Project (FPPTP) The Targeted Watershed Management Project In 1996, the World Bank funded the Forest and (TWMP) Parks Protection Technical Assistance Project (FPPTP), The overarching goal of the Targeted Watershed which was implemented by GOH Ministries of Management Program (TWMP) was to slow Environment and Agriculture. This project built ecological degradation in the southwest of Haiti. on The Targeted Watershed Management Project The project was funded with an investment of (TWMP) activities in the Macaya Biosphere approximately 17.7 million USD and spanned Reserve, and other projects that had established the period of 1987-1994. By 1992, the project similar programs in two other national protected had planted approximately 250,000 trees and areas: (1) Parc La Visite; and (2) the Pine Forest created some 20,000 jobs (PADO 1994: 5). Reserve. Both of the latter two project areas The TWMP ran two main projects: (1) Pwoje were located at the headwaters of watersheds Sove Tè (Project Save the Soil); and (2) the identified as critical intervention sites. Macaya Biosphere Reserve. The TWMP worked The FPPTP worked closely with the forest through four NGOs that collaborated with service and parks services of the agricultural peasant organizations in the ecologically sensitive ministry. The project also worked in buffer zones and diverse upper watersheds of the Pic Macaya around the parks and attempted to implement National Park. The project was envisioned as a local co-management through protected area pilot, with the idea of extrapolating the learned councils that represented civil society and local lessons to hillside management at the national elected officials (Smucker et al. 2005). The level. One of the principal conservation strategies main objectives that were enumerated were of the project was to employ local farmers or to: (1) support and strengthen governmental local residents in conservation and public works intervention in forest and park protection; (2) projects in order to alleviate pressure on, or to launch activities catered towards the protection shift activities away from, agricultural production and management of parks; and (3) lessen the within the park. strain on protected areas through initiating activities that increased farm productivity, Lessons Learned opened up off-farm employment opportunities and strengthened local organizations. Unmet • The project attempted to slow ecological project objectives were attributed to a lack of degradation (emphasized ecologically protective financial support from the Government and the over socially productive approaches) by targeting lack of specified roles for the individuals involved a seven-river watershed (macro-level approach in the project. over a plot-based approach). • Efforts to involve local beneficiaries emphasized employment that would draw people out of 49

Lessons Learned Lessons Learned • A great amount of focus was directed towards • The project worked directly with beneficiaries environmental development without linking to identify their most pressing needs (water social approaches, which were addressed catchment systems). separately. • The project incentivized the formation and • The roles and responsibilities of each party participation of community groups, working involved were not clearly stated nor was the with such groups to establish the beneficiary- inter-relationship between the goals articulated. identified water catchment systems. • Sufficient external funding and continuity of • The formation and involvement of community funding were major project obstacles. groups is also attributed to successes in limiting • Ultimately a macro-model approach, the free-range grazing and mobilizing community project viewed ‘participation’ as the adoption labor (Israel et al. 2001). of technologies and practices by the local • Project outcomes were considered scalable but beneficiaries, who were not involved in had limited effect due to constraints in project problem-identification nor in the decision- resources (ibid.). making process. • There were a priori assumptions made by Case 12 project experts that did not fully consider local, traditional land management practices, resulting in a lack of enthusiastic participation Hillside Agricultural Program (HAP) by beneficiaries. The goal of the Hillside Agricultural Program (HAP) was to increase farmers’ marketing Case 11 and productivity through natural resource management (Smucker et al. 2007). The project operated from 2000-2007. These goals aligned Agriculturally Sustainable Systems and with USAID’s strategic objectives of sustainable Environmental Transformation (ASSET) increases in income for the poor and the slowing of environmental degradation. The HAP took Operating from 1997-2002, the Agriculturally a value-chain approach and focused on coffee, Sustainable Systems and Environmental Transformation cacao, and mangoes for export. The project also (ASSET) program’s overarching goals were to: worked closely with middle-men producers and (1) improve natural resource management; (2) exporters to boost farmer-producer income. increase agricultural productivity; (3) increase The sustainability of the project after the income generation; and (4) improve the ability implementation period is not known (Smucker of farmers to both plan and manage their natural et al. 2007). resources (Israel et al. 2001). Geographically the project was located within the upper watershed Lessons Learned of Rivières Grise and Rivières Blanche, which serve as major sources of water supply to Port- • The approach shifted to an emphasis on value au-Prince. The project was designed to function chain improvement. at the macro level (Smucker et al. 2007). Farmers • Activities implemented by HAP were were enticed to participate in the project by community-oriented and based on local forming community groups that could contribute participation. to planning and labor supply. The project stressed • The project involved a combination of social water conservation in particular, and claimed to and ecological approaches. While it focused have planted 2 million trees (ibid.). 50 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

on slowing environmental degradation Lessons Learned by increasing environmentally sustainable agricultural productivity, it simultaneously • It is evident that the project implemented targeted reduction of poverty by employing lessons learned from previous case studies approaches that strengthen farm family food and employed a vast array of collaborative security. approaches, but the lack of insufficient reports of evaluation of DEED make it difficult to • The long-term project outcomes are not enumerate lessons learned from this project. known.

Case 13 Case 14

Le Développement Economique pour un Watershed Initiatives for Natural Environnement Durable/The Durable Environmental Resources (WINNER) Economic and Environmental Development The Watershed Initiatives for Natural Environmental Resources (WINNER) was funded for 127 million (DEED) USD by USAID, operating from 2009-2014. The Operating under contract from USAID project was overseen by the private Chemonics from 2008-2012, the Durable Economic and development firm, and later incorporated within Environmental Development (DEED) project the USAID-funded Feed the Future project as focused activities within two different Haitian ‘Feed the Future, West’. watersheds: (1) Montrouis (West Department); The ambitious undertaking of the WINNER and (2) Limbé (North Department). According project accomplished many laudable goals, to the USAID web site, the overarching but according to a USAID internal audit, the objective of DEED was to “initiate investment project failed to meet crucial ecological and in sustainable natural resource management at human rights standards (USAID 2012). The the scale and density needed to produce future project has also been criticized for focusing on positive landscape level changes in environment, farmers that are active in economic markets, infrastructure, and economic vulnerability in which may not reflect the most vulnerable of watersheds.”22 The contract was later modified to populations, included the poorest farmers and “jump-start planned Food Security programs in women (Fuller-Wimbush and Fils-Amié 2014). the Northern Corridor” (ibid.). After October of The Oxfam report suggested that many project 2010, project activities were limited to the Limbé activities were carried out in areas without roads watershed, which covers 90,000 hectares. The and thus lacked access to markets, which was at project was envisioned from the start as a model odds with the objectives of the project (Fuller- that could be replicated in other watersheds, Wimbush and Fils-Amié 2014). Is it not known and purports to have created a collaborative if project-promoted activities have continued process of watershed management. Project after the recent close of the project. activities commenced with a large survey in the watershed, covering 500 individual farm family Lessons Learned interviews and approximately 200 meetings with • Beneficiaries were not involved in determining 23 community based organizations . the criteria for project involvement nor in the needs assessment, and this affected technology 22 http://www.usaid.gov/news-information/fact- adoption rates for some groups. sheets/haiti-economic-development-sustainable- • Gender, while explicitly addressed in project environment-deed 23 http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pdaco669.pdf concept reports, was difficult to address within 51

the existing social structure, and thus project and had tertiary focus on nutrition education, goals to address gender fell short. nutrition health services, and food fortification. • The use of expensive technological inputs— The project had several explicit agreements with such as tractors over traditional tilling—was private sector corporations, which represented effective but expensive and proved difficult to a significant shift from working with small- maintain. holder farmers. The primary goals of FTF were: (1) increasing agricultural productivity; • WINNER was effective at some measures of (2) stabilizing watersheds above selected plains; institution building at local levels, such as the (3) strengthening agricultural markets; and (4) establishment of local CRDDs24 (Sustainable delivering nutrition messages and services. Rural Development Centers), but did not An Oxfam report found that while the systematically connect to higher-level regional project was achieving notable gains related to and national governmental structures. project objectives, farmer participation was • Difficulties related to geographical boundaries lacking beyond the initial planning stages resulted in only partial participation of some (Fuller-Wimbush and Fils-Amié 2014). communities, causing inter-community Recommendations included the increased resentment and jealousy. involvement of project recipients at all stages of project implementation, with particular focus on Case 15 increasing the involvement of women (ibid.). Lessons Learned Appui à la Valorisation du Potentiel Agricole • Inadequate efforts to include the “active du Nord, pour la Sécurité Économique et participation [of beneficiaries] throughout Environnementale (AVANSE) / Feed the all stages of the project, including both the Future (FTF) design and implementation processes” (Fuller- Wimush and Fils-Amié 2014: 6) led to a lack Feed the Future (FTF) was initially funded by of project adoption and continuation. USAID with approximately 88 million USD, for • Failure to adequately involve women ignores project operations to span from 2013-2018. The the important role that women play in implementing partner was a private development agricultural marketing (ibid.) and many aspects outfit, Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI). of on-farm agricultural processing. While the project incorporated the WINNER • The emphasis on working with private sector project (2009-2014) under the name ‘Feed corporations shifted principal benefits away the Future West’, activities in the north of the from small-holding farmers. country covered six different watersheds: Limbé, Haut du Cap, Grand Rivière du Nord, Trou du Nord, Marion, and Jassa. The project activities in the west and north Summary of Section II reflect alignment with the USAID’s three Landscape-level land management projects have development corridors: Cap Haitian, Cul-de-sac been initiated in Haiti since the middle of the Plain, and St. Marc/Cabaret. Project activities last century. The 15 projects summarized here are focused on mangoes and cocoa as export crops, not exhaustive, but are nevertheless instructive. While few projects have resulted in permanent landscape improvements, several important 24 The CRDDs will be used in a new landscape-level development project, with oversight by Chemonics/ trends can be parsed from these brief summaries, Haiti and a research component housed in the and are discussed subsequently. University of Florida. 52 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

SECTION III: Changes to Models of Landscape-level Land Management in Haiti, Lessons Learned, and Conclusions 53

or conservation approaches to landscape-level Changes to Models of Landscape- land management are increasingly less important level Land Management in Haiti in the interim. What appears to be the single most important The overarching conceptual model of landscape- element for improving livelihoods and agricultural level land management has the most direct effect productivity in Haiti is the absence or presence of on project policies, and by extension virtually soil moisture. The presence of moisture presents all other aspects of consideration related to opportunities for ecological restorative efforts the management of a given area. Historically, and agricultural production. The absence of landcape-level land management in Haiti has moisture presents opportunities for ecologically emphasized either the conservation of ecological restorative efforts with an aim to regain and resources or the improvement of economic retain soil moisture. Acknowledgement of this conditions of project beneficiaries—protective reality has led to a shift in landscape-level land versus productive approaches to land use. To an management projects in Haiti over time, toward increasing degree, projects have shifted over time the management of watersheds as targeted units to emphasize both protective and productive of intervention. approaches. A dual emphasis on human and ecological Early efforts at landscape-level land management well-being is a logical approach, considering that in Haiti took an ecological restorative approach these factors mutually influence each other; the to the landscape, focusing on the implementation local environment determines to some extent of large-scale soil conservation structures (rock the suite of livelihood possibilities available walls, contours, terracing, tree planting) or to local residents, and the on-going pursuit of irrigation systems and dams (Murray 1978, differential livelihood activities has a bearing 1978b, 1979, 1980). Ecologically restorative on many aspects of the local environment. Said projects were designed primarily by engineers differently, many Haitians make their homes and implemented on both private and public within watersheds, making them both extractors land, largely without the input or involvement and stewards of natural resources. of the Haitian peasantry. These approaches led to A shift in landscape-level land management rural Haitians’ widespread distrust of landscape- policies, to incentivize local participation, initially level projects, viewing them as government occurred in Haiti around the 1970s, principally mechanisms to control or sequester privately- through food-for-work schemes or low-income, owned lands (Murray 1978, 1978b, 1979, 1980). labor-intensive, temporary employment positions. As Section II demonstrated, there has been Increased local participation has occurred only a leveling of differences between the original gradually, despite the availability of research that ecological life zones of Haiti, which have demonstrated that projects are better able to meet historically guided the logic behind many of their objectives when the project beneficiaries the ecological approaches to landscape-level are involved at all levels of project planning and land management. The increasingly uniform implementation (White 1992; White and Runge nature of ecological zones in Haiti is in part a 1995; White and Jickling 1995). result of the removal of original plant and tree Despite a gradual shift from purely ecological species, the loss of original topsoil, and on- projects to projects that address not only the going climatic drying. The rapid encroachment needs of beneficiaries but include them in of Prosopis juliflora and other exotic tree and all levels of planning and identification, two shrub species that currently cover much of the common approaches to watershed management surface of Haiti is testament to this trend (see persevere in Haiti. Pierce (1988), building on Churches et al. 2014; White et al. 2013). These the Secretariat Technique á l’Aménagemen des phenomena suggest that ecological preservation Bassins Versants’ (STABV) review of over 100 54 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

FIGURE 9. Differing Approaches to Watershed Management.

Policy Approach A Approach B

Watershed coverage 100% Parcel by parcel

Structural: contour canals, Vegetative: grass strips, Conservation measure rock walls hedgerows

Extension, credit, Motivation Direct payment demonstration plots

Low: work stops when Sustainability High: work continues project end

Cost per hectare High Low

Results Achieved quickly Achieved slowly

Spill-over effects Low or nonexistent High

Receptivity to problems by Downplayed: seen as Explored: seen as clues to project staff inpediments solutions

Agricultural inputs Provided free Provided at cost

Relation to existing farming Superimposed upon existing Integrated with farming systems practices practices

No. of hectares treated or No. of farmers involved and Measurement indicators linear meters installed plots treated

(reproduced from Pierce 1988: 12) watershed management projects, first noted for contiguous land treatments, large ravine these two common approaches to watershed treatments, mechanical rather than biological management in Haiti: (1) ‘watershed-level structures, and monetary and commodity models’; and (2) ‘plot-based models’. Since incentives to attract peasant participation,” and both models are frequently employed within that such projects have been widely criticized by watersheds for similar reasons, the title of the development practitioners for a lack of adoption former is a true misnomer. Watershed-level or project continuity (Lilin and Koohafkan 1987; models simply target all land in a watershed in a and Lilin 1986; as referenced by White 1992, p. uniform manner, where plot-based models target 6). willing participants in a tailored and adaptive According to White (1992: 6), in contrast to manner. Pierce’s table of models and policies the “equipment du territoire” approach, the (Pierce 1988: 12) is reproduced in its entirety “agricultural parcel” approach proceeded from above (see Figure 9). the logic that: White (1992) made a similar distinction as (1) farmer remuneration was not necessary Pierce (1988) in his review of the literature, for technique adoption and even acted against noting that previous watershed management technique maintenance and diffusion; projects can be dichotomized between (2) a number of low input, indigenous, anti- “equipment du territoire” approaches versus erosion techniques existed which could be an “agricultural parcel” approach (Smolikowski improved; and 1989, as cited by White 1992, p. 6). White noted (3) peasants have a natural incentive to conserve that the “equipment du territoire” approach soil in order to increase agricultural production was “characterized by large-scale prescriptions (White 1992: 6). 55

White noted that this new ‘agricultural parcel’ types, despite several different policy approaches, approach has been increasingly adopted in Haiti allows us to elucidate the basic parameters of since the 1980s: these approaches—which subsequently provides This new approach has proven widely a framework for evaluating how these approaches successful as numerous famers have voluntarily compare to the stated goals and objectives of the adopted and maintained soil conservation Haitian government. measures. The approach embodies a farmer rather than an engineering perspective of soil ‘Micro-level’ or ‘Plot-based’ Models erosion, and views watersheds as primarily a Plot-based models acknowledge Haitian set of agricultural parcels rather than as one farmers’ long-standing resistance to adopting contiguous physical unit. Projects which use new agricultural innovations (Erasmus 1952). the ‘agricultural parcel’ approach generally Rural Haitians know well that the systems they employ classical agricultural development have developed over time are reliable, while strategies: training and hiring field extension engaging in new practices may expose them agents; integrating basic agricultural themes to less predictable vulnerabilities. Plot-based into resource conservation dominated interventions also acknowledge Haitian farmers’ extension programs; and conducting basic, diverse holdings of multiple plots of different types adaptive agricultural research. Such projects of land throughout rural areas, and emphasize an also tend to include or be associated with adaptive approach that recognizes differences in programs in community development or land plot size, plot-use history, slope, aspect, soil public health and have often carried the title quality, available moisture, spatial proximity to of ‘integrated’ watershed management projects water or roads, and other important factors. (White 1992: 6). No single strategy of inputs or approaches is The 2007 Environmental Vulnerability Report considered paramount in plot-based approaches, also outlined several different models of but rather a suite of options are available landscape-level management projects attempted to community groups through agricultural in Haiti, and varied policies that crosscut some extension offices. This process reflects the of these models25. It is important to note that variability in socioeconomic conditions of many of the so-called ‘models’ noted by Smucker project beneficiaries and an equal variability et al. (2007) are actually strategies—or as Pierce in ecological and spatial plot conditions, both rightly calls them, ‘policies’ (Pierce 1988). What within single watersheds and between different Pierce (1988) called ‘Approach A’ is essentially watersheds. what White referred to as the “equipment du Plot-based models have typically funneled territoire” approach (White 1992), and what donor support through a hierarchical structure Smucker et al. referred to as ‘Watershed-Based with several large, nationwide NGOs Strategies’ (Smucker et al. 2007). Likewise, implementing program policies through a vast Pierce’s ‘Approach B’ is synonymous with White’s network of projects implemented through local ‘agricultural parcel’ approach, and with the ‘Plot- NGOs and community groups (AOP, AFII, Based Model’ from Smucker et al. (2007). ASSET, PLUS, DRIPP, TWMP, HAP). Extension Recognizing that all three of these meta-analyses agents in plot-based models tend to be recruited (Pierce 1988; White 1992; and Smucker et al. hired, trained, and employed locally rather than 2007) distinguish between two principal model bringing on strangers from disparate areas of the country. 25 Several of these Smucker et al. policies-models are reproduced in APPENDIX A of this report. For example, the ‘market based model’ (Smucker et al. 2007) is easily incorporated as a policy strategy in either of Pierce’s two models (see Figure 9 below). 56 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

‘Macro-level’ or Entire Watershed Models • The concept of a Local Management Committee (CGL) is accepted by both The macro-level management models tend to ministries; focus more on ecosystem restoration of entire • Both ministries accept the leadership role of watersheds, working with wealthier landowners the Mayors, Asecs and Casecs in organizing the that have large plots of land, boosting agricultural CGL; productivity with a sight toward export crops, forming partnerships with the private sector, • Both the MARNDR and the MdE have and addressing infrastructure related to value- acknowledged the importance of economic chain and export processes (ODVA, ODN, factors that influence the choice of agricultural FPPTP, DEED, WINNER). Macro-level models practice and technologies by local communities have sometimes relied on scaling up from plot- and individual planters; based strategies, which has been met with • The explicit recognition of an ecological highly variable success. More often, the macro- approach, (e.g., a “ridge to reef” concept) level models have applied a ‘one-size-fits-all’ is supported by both ministries—a concept approach, which does not reflect high levels consistent with the watershed delimitation of internal heterogeneity in society, markets, model27; and ecology, landscapes, and watersheds. A common • Both ministries agree that coordination with response to this heterogeneity by implementers the Government‘s Civil Protection agency is of macro-level approaches has been a laundry essential (reproduced from Bush and Sildor list of project objectives that stress breadth over 2009: 8). depth (Delatour et al. 1984). The embracing of But both Ministries also differed in their such ambitious goals has often diluted the efforts approaches to watershed management, in notable of project personnel and budgets, and beneficial ways. The principal differences in approach results for project participants (ibid.). between the two ministries included (reproduced from Bush and Sildor 2009: 33): Haitian Government Models • The different weight assigned to the importance In 2009, the Ministries of Agriculture of conservation, production, and protection; (MARNDR) and Environment (MdE) were • Different models of geospatial intervention: the invited by USAID to participate in a policy MARNDR and DEED favor a hydrographic forum and to present their current positions delimitation (i.e. the watershed) while the on watershed management in Haiti (Bush and MdE favors an ecosystem approach in which Sildor 2009). In common, the ministries agreed the geographic zone would be determined by on the following approaches (reproduced from an assessment and analysis of the ecosystems Bush and Sildor 2009: 8): present in the zone28; and • Both ministries support a participatory approach in which the local communities and 27 This recognition should not necessarily be interpreted other civil society actors play an important role as support for what we have termed ‘ecological’ prioritizing actions and in decision-making; approaches (the earliest landscape management schemes • Both ministries support the principle of enacted in Haiti), or support for a ‘macro-level’ model. decision-making at the lowest practical In many ways, the name of the model reported above is a misnomer. The geographical perimeters of both macro- 26 level —although details are lacking about and plot-based models are delineated by the boundaries what this may mean in practice; of a given watershed. The ‘ecological approach’ noted in the USAID report above appears to be simply an acknowledgment of varied ecosystems (“ridge to reef”) 26 Supporting decision-making at the lowest level is within the delineation of watershed. illustrative of plot-based approaches to watershed 28 Again, these appear to be differences on ideas of management. appropriate delineation and not on the overall 57

• The different institutional arrangements for (1992), Smucker et al. (2007), and from numerous incorporating local management plans into other documents consulted in the writing of this larger scale planning tools: The MARNDR report. proposes that section level plans are integrated into Plans Communaux de gestion des ressources Issues of Appropriate Administrative naturelles, which are then merged into a plan Oversight and Perimeters of Project départemental de l’agriculture, while the MdE would like local planning to be integrated into Delineation the Schema Directeur d’Amenagement et de • Nearly all watershed management projects Gestion de l’Environnement (SDAGE)—a in Haiti wrestle with the fact that rivers and mechanism proposed in the 2006 MdE Décret their tributaries do not adhere to either the (reproduced from Bush and Sildor 2009: 33). political boundaries of Haiti’s departments or subsequent administrative units, or to the Haitian Government Policies on Watershed distribution of ecological zones in the country Management (Delatour et al. 1984). • The differences between ecological zones The specific policies guiding the overall have been greatly diminished in many parts of approaches of the Ministries of the Environment Haiti (Ehrlich 1985), adding doubt to models and Agriculture also varied and contained areas that delineate watersheds and policies based of overlap, and are reproduced in APPENDIX B exclusively on ecological life zones. (Bush and Sildor 2009: 30-32). Since the approaches of ministries may be refined, adapted, or changed entirely from time Ecological (protective) versus Social to time, particularly after the appointments (productive) Approaches inherent in presidential elections and the frequent • Strictly ecological approaches to landscape replacing of ministers, the above set of principles and watershed management in Haiti have should be used as a starting point to verify if and largely been unsuccessful: they were met with how Haitian Government policy approaches skepticism on the part of beneficiaries, suffered to watershed management have changed since low adoption rates, and have rarely resulting in 2009. lasting change of landscapes or behaviors. • Social approaches have demonstrated higher Lessons Learned rates of project participation, adoption, ownership, success, and project continuation The following points represent the primary (White 1992; White and Runge 1995; White take-aways from case studies covering eight and Jickling 1995; Smucker et al. 2005; decades of landscape-level and watershed-level Smucker et al. 2007). land management projects in Haiti, drawing • Ecological and social approaches should not be in particular from the summative reviews of mistakenly considered as mutually exclusive, Delatour et al. (1984), Pierce (1988), White despite the historical tendency to do so; both work better as complimentary policies tied to approach. Neither ministry is supporting what we economic incentives (Murray and Bannister have termed ‘ecological’ approaches in the sense of the 2004). large-scale preservation or conservation efforts that marked the earliest landscape-level land management • The diachronic trend appears to be toward projects in Haiti. Nor has either ministry advocated for recognition of the mutual compatibility of an entire watershed strategy (macro) or a plot-based ecological and social approaches to landscape strategy (micro). Their differences appear to regard the and watershed management. perimeter of delineation, not model or approach. 58 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

Participatory Approaches versus Command- together in projects enacted in Haiti. In this report and elsewhere, these varied approaches and-Control Approaches have been conceptualized into larger models • The historical command-and-control that we have referred to as ‘macro-level’ approaches to landscape-level land management, and ‘plot-based’ approaches. The principal including watershed management, have been differences between macro-level approaches met with skepticism and suspicion on the part and plot-based approaches include: of target project beneficiaries. In these cases, ——Plot-based approaches tend to account for levels of participation tend to be low, and the inter- and intra-heterogeneity of land- impact has been questionable. Based on the holdings, ecological zones, society, markets, review of the literature, command-and-control roads, etc., of watersheds; approaches have frequently been the model ——Plot-based models rely on prior and ongoing of ecological models of landscape-level and research to assess and address these levels of watershed management. heterogeneity; • Participatory approaches to landscape- ——Plot-based approaches adapt policies in an level management appear to be crucial for iterative, farmer-driven process; sustainable project impact. Since local farmers ——Plot-based approaches necessarily involve occupy watersheds and are the direct project local participation at all stages of project beneficiaries, their inclusion in all aspects identification, implementation, and of project identification, management, and ownership; implementation has proven crucial to project success (White 1992; White and Runge 1995; ——Plot-based approaches rarely achieve 100% White and Jickling 1995; Smucker et al. 2005; project coverage within a given watershed; Smucker et al. 2007). and • Successful project approaches included ——Plot-based approaches have proved the multiple stakeholders, such as members of most-successful in terms of project adoption local government and local governing groups, by beneficiaries and continuity after the end community groups, church groups, and other of the project cycle. solidarity structures (Smucker et al. 2007). In contrast: Frequently unsuccessful project approaches • Macro-level approaches tend to target entire viewed participation as simply the contribution watersheds, but still frequently fail to achieve of land or labor. 100% coverage; • Participatory approaches allow beneficiaries to • Macro-level approaches tend to come with a identify desired improvements and improved priori assumptions and solutions developed by technologies. ‘experts’, which frequently rely on a complete • Participatory approaches, with higher levels of restructuring of local agricultural or land local investment and ownership, are likely to management practices, rather than building see higher levels of continuity after the end of on existing structures. Improved technologies project timeframes. are also often promoted without considering beneficiaries input on the value or applicability Macro-level Approaches versus Plot-based of these improved technologies. These trends often result in less-than-enthusiastic Approaches participation or in resistance to project • Many of the above approaches (participatory participation. vs. command-and-control; ecological vs. social; • ‘Participation’ from the perspective of macro- protective vs. productive) have neatly collated model project implementers is frequently 59

viewed as beneficiaries initial adoption of ——Land held collectively by kin groups tends technologies or practices, and the occasional to remain consolidated and is therefore contribution of time or labor. found in larger holdings; • One of major reasons for the failure of macro- ——Land collectively held by kin tends to be of level landscape management projects in Haiti lower quality, is frequently situated on steep has been the adoption of a longlist of project slopes, poor soils, and usually has low to no objectives meant to address the complexities of arable potential; integrated landscape-level land management— ——Arable land-holdings are discontinuous an emphasis on breadth over depth, but an across the landscape; emphasis applied indiscriminatingly across all ——Haitians employ two parallel and lands and inhabitants within a watershed. complementary systems of land tenure (one • The attempt to implement wide-ranging formal and one informal); objectives through a top-down manner ——Land tenure in Haiti is complex, but frequently results in project funds and personnel functional; stretched thin, with few project objectives ever fully realized. ——Land tenure in rural Haiti is internally secure; and Despite real differences in our bifurcated model outlining the two primary approaches ——The issue of land security in Haiti deserves to landscape-level land management in Haiti, careful consideration in any landscape-level we recognize that there are valuable aspects to land management program (see the Péligre both models. Effective landscape-level land dam case study in this report). management in Haiti should draw on the lessons • ‘Macro’ level approaches that address strictly learned from the 15 case studies in designing ecological improvements to landscapes new models of governance that incorporate the may be able to enact some of their goals most effective strategies and policies from both on agriculturally unproductive land, which models. frequently correlates to large plots of land held collectively by kin groups, or government-held Land Inheritance, Land Tenure, and Land land. Security While no two watershed or landscape-level land management approaches enacted in Haiti • Haitian systems of land inheritance, land have been identical, these insights crosscut the tenure, and land security are generally not experiences from nearly all previous projects, and a constraint to participation in plot-based can serve as generalizable lessons learned from models of landscape-level land management the fifteen case studies briefly presented in this projects focused on mixed social and ecological report. approaches. This is because such approaches reflect the reality of these issues in Haiti: ——Most farm families in Haiti own or have access to multiple plots of land; ——Most arable land is divided equally each generation between all sibling inheritors, male and female; ——Plot sizes of arable land are small: the average size of land plots in Haiti is 1.4 hectares; 60 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

FIGURE 10. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Gap Analysis.

• Long history of project attempts in • Institutional capacities; different contexts; • Leadership; • Broad consensus on the need to act; • Knowledge • Consensus on watersheds as priority • Implementation; and intervention; and • Unrealistic project objectives • Increasing convergence on key policies STRENGHTS WEAKNESSES

• Haiti has many advocates; • Failure to involve local project beneficiaries in virtually every aspect • Large cadre of technical experts; OPPORTUNITIES THREATS of project identification, planning, • Volumes of new research since implementation, monitoring earthquake; and evaluation, and on-going • New national level and regional management; and level data; • Failure to involve all levels of society • Advances in GIS and GPS; and • Improved infrastructure and communications

the environment in Haiti is necessary for refining Conclusion older policies and developing new policies that The fact that few landscapes and fewer watersheds reflect these changes. in Haiti are now under efficient management, The review of the current state of Haiti’s despite decades of previous efforts, suggests that environment reveal a paradoxical phenomenon: rd researchers, practitioners, development agencies, 1/3 of the country is covered by patches of th donors, the Haitian government, and project trees, while 3/4 of the country is covered by a beneficiaries have much to learn from the past. mixture of trees, woody shrubs, and vegetation. Learning from the past avoids duplication, saves The immediate effect of this arboreal and time and resources and also promotes the best vegetative cover in Haiti is beyond the scope interests of project beneficiaries. of this report, but is treated elsewhere (Tarter The choice to open this report with a focus 2015b). on the history and the contemporary state of Knowing how previous landscape-level land the environment of rural Haiti was strategic. management and watershed management Understanding how the current ecological projects enacted in Haiti have historically state of rural Haiti has developed is paramount succeeded or failed, is important in the process to understanding early landscape-level land of learning from the past. Knowing how to management approaches. Furthermore, as the proceed for the success of future projects with landscape of Haiti has changed dramatically since similar aims is equally crucial. We conclude with these early attempts, a grasp of the current state of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis based on the insights 61

highlighted in this report. It is our hope that the they most-importantly represent a dangerous suggestions offered here can serve as a preliminary meddling in the lives of project beneficiaries guide in the formation of future landscape-level living at the margins of ecological and human land management projects designed for Haitian vulnerabilities. beneficiaries. Figure 10 presents a diagram of Conceptually, the historical and the pertinent insights offered in the concluding contemporaneous impediments to landscape analysis, and highlights an underlying assumption level management can be categorized as the of our conclusion: strengths can be applied result of weaknesses inherent in: (1) institutional to address weaknesses; and threats represent capacities; (2) leadership; (3) knowledge; (4) opportunities to be addressed. implementation; and (5) unrealistic project objectives. Strengths Institutional Capacities Weaknesses of institutional capacity are global, There is widespread agreement among all human phenomena, not unique to Haiti or stakeholders and beneficiaries of landscape-level to the Haitian government. Historically, the land management in Haiti: the rural countryside Haitian government has suffered from low- continues to suffer ecological degradation. This to-non-existent budgetary support, under- or degradation has detrimental consequences for unpaid employees, non-merit based position the largely agrarian population of Haiti and appointments, a lack of access to technologies watershed approaches to landscape-level land and tools that aid in effective governance, and management are crucial to maintaining and allegations and cases of widespread internal strengthening the agrarian base of the country. corruption. The most immediate and visible The consensus on the pertinence of the issues result of these historical trends has been of landscape-level land management facing rural the modification of the modus operandi of residents of Haiti is well-established. many institutions, to bypass the government One of the strongest assets available to inform entirely and work through nongovernmental and improve future landscape management in organizations (NGOs) or other nongovernment Haiti rests on the long history of varied program channels. approaches. These approaches have been enacted Yet, institutional capacity, particularly in various parts of the country, at differential organization continuity, has also been weak in scales, with notably different approaches, and many of the development partners at work in varied levels of success. Haiti, regardless of their choice to work within At the broadest level it appears that some or outside of the Haitian government. Like progress is being made: approaches have moved governments, many institutions suffer from along a slow but iterative trajectory that has periodic turnover and the refinement or shift increasingly converged on the consensus of of priorities affiliated with election cycles, the several of the key points mentioned in this report. state of the economy, or changes in public Weaknesses opinion. In short, there is a lack of institutional memory analogous to the brain drain Despite enthusiasm across stakeholders for phenomenon, illustrated in some measure by the implementation of effective landscape the Haitian diaspora abroad. management in Haiti, several weaknesses must Leadership be acknowledged. Failure to acknowledge An historical paucity of landscape-level land such weaknesses risks the addition of another management champions is reflected in all levels failed project to a long list extending from at of project management and implementation. least the middle of the 20th century. And while At the highest levels, the institutional turnover failed projects represent a loss of donor funds, 62 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

touched on above effectively eliminates any support, but less-frequently reflect realities on possibilities for sustained leadership. the ground. As the 15 case studies illustrated, many In a similar vein, funding partners frequently projects fail to include project beneficiaries in operate on short timeframes that are unrealistic a meaningful way, beyond symbolic food-for- to the nature and needs of project timelines. work programs, or the temporary contribution Shifts in governance, policies, and markets of labor or land. The result has been a low in countries that supply the coffers of many level of project adoption by participants, both funding institutions may have an immediate on short and long-term horizons. This trend effect on the continuity of projects, regardless is at times exacerbated by underlying currents of the stage of implementation. within Haitian society, which may favor the Finally, a lack of involvement of local retention of power in the hands of local elites project beneficiaries at all levels of problem or wealthy families, rather than placing local identification, formation, oversight, and beneficiaries in positions of leadership. virtually all other aspects of effective project Knowledge implementation has had a negative effect on Another major impediment to effective both adoption rates and long-term project landscape management in Haiti can be continuity. described by reference to the image of high- Unrealistic Project Objectives quality research collecting dust in the vaults A regrettably common phenomenon in the of various public and private institutions. This development landscape of Haiti concerns the phenomenon is partly due to the inaccessible embracing of unrealistic project objectives that nature of many early reports that were appear to support overarching project goals. produced in non-electronic format, and partly This flaw can be understood as an attempt attributable to poorly planned projects. to address problem complexity by explicitly A second weakness concerns the repeated acknowledging the interconnectedness of citing of outdated secondary sources. To various domains related to the problem. illustrate, it is commonly reported that Haiti However, history has demonstrated that a has 30 major watersheds; in fact, Haiti has laundry list of noble objectives designed to over 160 major watersheds, which were support overarching project goals frequently pragmatically grouped in the early 1970s into results in institutional lethargia or paralysis, 30 geographical areas. The continued citation as material and human resources are diffused of this aggregation has resulted in widespread and stretched thin. Acknowledgement of misinformation about this most-basic fact complexity is important, but attempts to related to hydrology in Haiti. Regrettably, this envision a single project as the save-all solution tendency for outdated and questionable data to to problems that span multiple domains has be cited into commonly accepted truth is not met with overall failed results. the exception to the rule. Implementation Opportunities Development project timeframes are frequently There are several tangible opportunities at this tied to donors’ funding cycles, which can result juncture in history, which suggest effective in a well-documented pressure to rush projects landscape-level land management in Haiti is or burn through budgets before the end of a within reach. The earthquake of 2010 thrust Haiti given donor’s grant period or the close of an into the media and international consciousness institution’s fiscal year. There is an underlying and attracted the attention of many genuinely sense of urgency in regard to development in concerned and well-intentioned individuals and Haiti, perhaps fueled by doomsday narratives institutes; Haiti has a new cohort of advocates. that may be effective in soliciting project donor 63

Many researchers with expertise in different virtually every aspect of project identification, knowledge domains and from experiences in planning, implementation, monitoring and other areas of the world threw themselves into evaluation, and on-going management. research and development in Haiti, bringing Typically this has only transpired in Haiti when a level of expertise in research design that was beneficiaries of all levels of society are active sorely missing for many decades. The result has partners at all levels of the project. been the subsequent production of voluminous amounts of up-to-date and more-reliable data and analyses on various systems and challenges Recommendations in Haiti. The advent and improvement of remote The vast majority of this report has been descriptive. sensing technologies has given shape to some We turn now to offer 11 modest prescriptive of the most robust regional and nation-level recommendations for future planners, partners and data and analyses available for Haiti. Increased participants in landscape-level land management projects availability of communication technologies in Haiti, borne out of the literature reviewed and the have improved the sharing of information on a case studies examined herein. These recommendations level unprecedented in Haiti, permitting a more are not exhaustive. If one central, implicit message of thorough understanding of processes at play on this report can be ventured, it is this: circumstances a national level. vary—such a message should likewise be understood The improvement of communication in context of the 11 recommendations offered here: technologies in Haiti has also allowed the 1. Efforts at landscape-level land management increased involvement of the Haitian diaspora in Haiti should strike an appropriate balance abroad. The Haitian diaspora injects the largest between: (a) natural resource conservation, and most-direct lifeline of financial support management, and/or restoration; (b) directly to hundreds of thousands of families in improving and/or increasing agricultural the rural countryside of Haiti. The realization of productivity; and (c) improving the lives of this new reality presents a myriad of opportunities project beneficiaries by increasing economic for working with the Haitian diaspora to leverage activities. other opportunities in rural Haiti, which may help improve the management or mitigate the 2. Striking the above balance suggests that further degradation of fragile watersheds, or other project planners should target watersheds as landscape-level land management approaches the appropriate unit of landscape-level land management interventions at this time in Threats Haitian history. 3. Project planners should closely examine and Perhaps the largest threat to effective landscape adopt policies from both the ‘macro-level’ management in rural Haiti is the failure to and ‘plot-level’ models presented in this properly involve local project beneficiaries. As report, in the context of their specific project the case studies and meta-analyses illustrate, too objectives and specific circumstances. often project involvement has been purchased or incentivized in ways that do not translate into 4. Planners should avoid unrealistic efforts to long-term project adoption. True improvement restructure or reform the land tenure system of landscapes and livelihoods requires a level in use in rural Haiti, and instead develop of project adoption that is genuine and based mechanisms for understanding, engaging, on incentives that will remain long after the and working within this existing system. last development professional packs up and 5. Project planners should take care to consider leaves Haiti. Such a level of project investment how every single project activity might affect and ownership is only possible through the land security—a potentially volatile issue involvement of local project beneficiaries in with profound human rights implications. 64 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

6. Planners should ensure the incorporation and participation of actors, stakeholders, and beneficiaries from multiple levels and sectors of society, in processes of project identification, formation, and execution. 7. Planners should listen to project beneficiaries as a first step, rather than employing strictly command-and-control approaches based on a priori assumptions of appropriate technologies or behavioral changes suggested by outside experts. 8. Project planners should take the necessary time to align the nomenclature, goals, objectives, and visions of different actors, stakeholders, and beneficiaries to ensure the clarity and harmony necessary for shared communication, understanding, trust, and ultimately project success. 9. Ensuring local and national government participation in watershed management in Haiti requires methods for addressing the challenges inherent in the overlap between political boundaries and watershed delineations. 10. Planners should recognize that there is vast ecological and social heterogeneity across landscapes in Haiti, and work to produce policies that recognize these differences rather than promoting activities that attempt to minimize them. 11. Planners should recognize and work to mitigate the fact that effective landscape- level land management projects typically require longer than the 5-year cycles that typically characterize donor contributions and project timelines. Readers are encouraged to consult the bibliography below for further reading on the descriptions and prescriptions offered in this report. 65

SECTION IV: Sources Consulted 66 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

Section IV offers a bibliography of important documents related to landscape management efforts in Haiti. It may serve as a resource for future researchers, policy-makers, program administrators, project implementers, and project beneficiaries:

Balzano, Anthony. 1986. Socioeconomic Aspects Préparation du dossier d’infrastructures dans of Agroforestry in Rural Haiti. University le haut bassin versant. Draft. of Maine Agroforestry Outreach Research Benge, Michael D. 1978. Renewable resource Project. Reproduced by U.S. Department of system for use of Haitian Forests: A Working Commerce. Wash., D.C. Paper. In Renewable energy and charcoal Balzano, Anthony. 1986. Tree-Planting in Haiti: production, Prepared by Roger D. Moeller. Agroforestry And Rural Development Office of Science and Technology. USAID. in a Local Context. PhD. Thesis, Rutgers Report No. PN-AAK-768. University. Ann Arbor, MI: University Blemur, Marguerite, Glenn G. Davis, Warren J. Microfilms International. Enger, G. Reginald King, Uli Locher, Alice Bannister, M.E. and P.K.R. Nair. Agroforestry L. Morton, Charles P. Pase. 1987. Agricultural adoption in Haiti: the importance of Sector Assessment: Haiti. USAID Contract household and farm characteristics. No. PDC-1096-I-06-4164-00. Agroforestry Systems 57: 149-157. Brenner, Mark and Michael W. Binford. 1988. A Bayard, Budry, Curtis M. Jolly, and Dennis sedimentary record of human disturbance A. Shannon. 2006. The Adoption and from Lake Miragoane, Haiti. Journal of Management of Soil Conservation Practices Paleolimnology 1: 85-97, 1988. in Haiti: The Case of Rock Walls. Agricultural Brinkerhoff, Derick W., Pascal T. Fotzo and Economics Review. Vol. 7, No. 2, pp: 28-39. Barbara J. Ormond. 1983. HAITI: HACHO Bargout, Remy N and Manish N Raizada. 2013. Rural Community Development. A.I.D. Soil nutrient management in Haiti, pre- Project Impact Evaluation Report No. 49. Columbus to the present day: lessons for USAID/Haiti. future agricultural interventions. Agriculture Brooks, Kenneth N. and Karlyn Eckman. & Food Security 2013. Vol. 2, No. 11, pp: 2000. Global Perspective of Watershed 1-20. Management. USDA Forest Service Bellande, Alex. 2009. Impact socioéconomique Proceedings, RMRS, pp: 1-13. de la dégradation des terres en Haïti et Bush, Martin and Emmanuel Sildor. 2009. interventions pour la réhabilitation du milieu Watershed Management in Haiti: cultivé. Comisión Económica para América Recommendaed Revisions to National Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL). Imprimé aux Policy. Développement Economique pour Nations Unies, Santiago du Chili. un Environnement Durable (DEED). Report Bellande, Alex. 2010. Historique des Interventions presented to USAID by DAI. en Matière d’Aménagement des Bassins Campbell, Ernest Paul. 1994. Do Farmers in a Versants en Haïti et Leçons Apprises. Deforested Environment Need Help to Comité Interministériel d’Aménagement du Grow Trees?: The Case of Lascahobas, Haiti. Territoire (CIAT); Banque Interaméricaine MA thesis. University of Florida: Gainesville, de Développement. July, 2010. Florida. Bellande, Alex, Josselin Cantave, Félix Duvelson. Churches, Christopher E., Peter J. Wampler, 2013. Programme de gestion de l’eau Wanxiao Sun, and Andrew J. Smith. 2014. dans le bassin de l’Artibonite (ha-l1087). Evaluation of forest cover estimates for Haiti using supervised classification of Landsat 67

data. International Journal of Applied Earth Volumes I and II. Report submitted to Larry Observation and Geoinformation 30, pp: Harms, Agricultural Development Officer, 203-276. US AID/HAITI. Coffey, Michael John. 2011. A Meta-analysis Dyoulgerov, Milen, Ana Bucher, Fernanda of Haitian Rural Household Surveys. Zermoglio, and Claudio Forner. 2011. Anthropology dissertation. University of Haiti: Vulnerability, Risk Reduction, and Arizona. Adaptation to Climate Change. Climate Cohen, Waren B. 1984. ENVIRONMENTAL Risk and Adaptation Country Profile. DEGRADATION IN HAITI: An Analysis World Bank Group/Global Facility for of Aerial Photography. Report prepared for Disaster Reduction and Recovery/Climate USAID, PAP, Haiti. June-Dec. 1984. Investment Funds/Climate Change Team. Conway, Fredrick J. 1979. A Study of the Earl, D. E. 1976. Charcoal as a Renewable Fuelwood Situation in Haiti. USAID Mission Fuel: Reafforestation and the Fight Against to Haiti. Contract No. AID-521-C-98. Erosion Haiti. FAO, Haiti. 31 pages. Conway, Fredrick J. 1984. Social Science Ehrlich, Marko, Fredrick Conway, Nicolas Adrien, Research in Forestry Project Design: A Case Francis LeBeau, Lawrence Lewis, Herman Study. USAID/ S&T/RD, 5 pp. Lauwerysen, Ira Lowenthal, Yaro Mayda, Conway, Frederick J. 1986 Synthesis of Paul Paryski, Glenn Smucker, James Talbot, socioeconomic findings about participants and Evelyn Wilcox. 1985. HAITI: Country in the USAID/Haiti. Agroforestry Outreach Environmental Profile: A Field Study. Report Project. University of Maine Agroforestry to US AID and IIED. Contract No. 521- Research Project. USAID/Haiti Project 0122-C-00-4090-00/IIED Contract No. Number 521-0122. U.S. Agency for DAN-5517-A-00-2066-00. International Development, Port-au-Prince, Erasmus, Charles John. 1952. Agricultural Haiti. Changes in Haiti: Patterns of Resistance and Conway, Frederick J. 1986b. The Decision- Acceptance. Human Organization. Vol. 11, making framework for tree planting in the No. 4, pp: 20-26. agroforestry outreach project. University Ewel, J. 1977. Soil Erosion and Prospects for of Maine Agroforestry Outreach Research Land Restoration in Haiti, USAID, Contract Project. USAID Project No. 521-0122. No. AID/1a-C1196. Curtis, J. H., and Hodell, D. A. 1993. An isotopic Fuller-Wimbush, Danielle and Cardyn and trace element study of ostracods from Fils-Amié. 2014. Feed the Future Lake Miragoane, Haiti: A 10.5 kyr record of Investment in Haiti: Implications for paleosalinity and paleotemperature changes Sustainable Food Security and Poverty in the Caribbean. American Geophysical Reduction. Oxfam America Research Union Geophysical Monograph 78, pp: Backgrounder Series. Oxfam America. 135–152. http://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/ Delatour, Leslie, Hervé Denis, Daniel Lafontant, media/files/Haiti_Feed_the_Future_ Judith Magny, Carole Roy, and Leslie RB.pdfhttp://www.oxfamamerica.org/ Voltaire. 1984. Regional Development static/media/files/Haiti_Feed_the_Future_ in Haiti: A Socio Institutional Profile. RB.pdf Architecture et Planification, Société Gingembre, L. 2012. Haiti: Lessons learned and Anonyme (ARCHIPLAN). Report to US way forward in natural resource management AID/HAITI. Report No. 521-0000-C-oo- projects In Assessing and Restoring Natural 3080-00. Resources in Post Conflict Peacebuilding. DEVRES, INC. 1990. USAID’s Haiti Hillside Ed. D. Jensen and S. Lonergan. London: Strategy: An Assessment of an Approach. Earthscan. 68 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

Hatzenberger, Francoise. 2000. The Historic Capital. Report to US AID/HAITI. Contract Evolution of the Haitian Forest. In No. EDH-I-00-05-00004-00. Forest History: International Studies on Knowles, Robert B., Bruce Markley, James O. Socioeconomic and Forest Ecosystem Buckalew, and Laura Waite Roebuck. 1999. Change: Report No. 2 of the IUFRO Task Water Resources Assessment of Haiti. US Force on Environmental Change. Mauro Army Corps of Engineers. Mobile District Agnoletti and S. Anderson (Eds.). CAB and Topographic Engineering Center. US International Publishing, pp: 65-78. Southern Command. Hodell, David A., Jason H. Curtis, Glenn A. Jones, Kreft, Sönke and David Eckstein. 2014. Global Antonia Higuera-Gundy, Mark Brenner, Climate Risk Index 2014: Who Suffers Most Michael W. Binford, and Kathleen T. Dorsey. from Extreme Weather Events? Weather- 1991. Reconstruction of Caribbean climate Related Loss Events in 2012 and 1993 change over the past 10, 500 years. Nature. to 2012. German Watch. Prepared with Vol. 352, No. 6338, pp: 790-793. financial support from the German Federal Horton, John, Gilles G. Damais, Marion Le Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Pommelec, Marise Etienne Salnave, Rosina Development. de Souza, Ariel Rodríguez, and Lisa Sofia Lowenthal, Ira P. and Glenn R. Smucker. 1985. Restrepo. The Peasantry and the Physical Environment. Hotz, Helenmary M. and Christian, Alan D. A Field Study (Chapter VII). In Haiti, 2015. Using GIS and Remote Sensing to Country Environmental Profile (Eds. Marko Analyze Lake Level Rise of Étang Saumâtre, Ehrlich et al.). USAID/Port-au-Prince, pp: Haiti. International Journal of Geospatial 89-96. and Environmental Research. Vol. 2: No. 1, Mainka, Susan A. and Jeffrey McNeely. 2011. Article 6. Ecosystem Considerations for Postdisaster Howard, Philip. 1997. Development-induced Recovery: Lessons from China, Pakistan, and Displacement in Haiti. Refuge. Vol. 16, No. Elsewhere for Recovery Planning in Haiti. 3, pp: 4-11. Ecology and Society. Vol. 16, No. 1, pp: no Howard, Philip. 1998. Environmental Scarcities pagination. and Conflict in Haiti: Ecology and McGowan, Lisa A. 1986. Potential Marketability Grievances in Haiti’s Troubled Past and of Wood Products, Rural Charcoal Uncertain Future. Canadian International Consumption, Peasant Risk Aversion Development Agency. Contract No. 26248. Strategies, and the Harvest of AOP Trees. Israel, Morris, Roy Jemison, Will McDowell, University of Maine Agroforestry Outreach Jean-Wesnel Saint-Cyr, and Glenn Smucker. Research Project. USAID Project No. 521- 2001. Assessment of the ASSET Project. 0122. Prepared for Office of Economic Growth. Métraux, A. L’Homme et la Terre dans la Vallee USAID/Haiti. de Marbial, Haiti. UNESCO/ED/OCC/IO. Jourdain, Jean Fanfan. N.D. Climate Change and Paris, 1951. the Water Sector in Haiti: A Two-Extreme Ministère de l’Environnement. N.D. Guide Perspective on Vulnerability from Droughts Méthodologique pour l’Élaboration des to Floods. Ministry of Environment, Haiti. plans de gestion des Bassins Versants d’Haïti. Kloss, D. and J. Lewis. 2009. Private Financing Ministère de l’Environnement. for Watershed Stewardship in Haiti: A Murray, Gerald and M.E. Bannister. 2004. Unique Carbon Sequestration Opportunity. Peasants, Agroforesters, and Anthropologists: Développement Economique pour un A 20-year Venture in Income-generating Environnement Durable. DAI/Terra Global Trees and Hedgerows in Haiti. Agroforestry Systems. Vol. 61, pp: 383-397. 69

Murray, Gerald F. 1978. Hillside Units, Wage The Contribution of Ecucation. Ecology Labor, and Haitian Peasant Land Tenure: and Society. Vol. 18, No. 3, pp: 31. Implications for the Organization of Erosion Pierce, Thomas H. 1988. Watershed Management Control Projects. Report to US AID/HAITI. in Haiti: The STAB Experience. Murray, Gerald F. 1978b. Land Tenure, Land Development Strategies for Fragile Lands, Insecurity, and Planned Agricultural Development Alternatives, Inc., Tropical Development Among Haitian Peasants. Reearch and Development, Inc., Earth Report to US AID/Haiti. Satellite Corporation, and Social Consultants Murray, Gerald F. 1979. Terraces, Trees, and the International. Prepared for US AID. Contract Haitian Peasant: An Assessment of Twenty- No. DHR-5438-C-00-6054-00. Five Years of Erosion Control in Rural Haiti. Pierre-Louis, R. 1985. Soil Degradation Report to US AID/HAITI. and Declining Agricultural Productivity.” Murray, Gerald F. 1980. Haitian Peasant Contour Ministry for Agriculture, Natural Resources, Ridges: The Evolution of Indigenous and Rural Development (MARNDR), Erosion Control Technology. Development Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Discussion Paper No. 86. Harvard Institute Pillot, Didier. 1980. Outils, espèces et techniques for International Development: Cambridge, de culture. Dynamique des systèmes haïtiens. Massachusetts. In: Journal d’agriculture traditionnelle et OAS 1991. Republic of Haiti: Agroforestry and de botanique appliquée. 27e année, bulletin Watershed Management Project [of the] n°3-4, Juillet-décembre 1980. pp. 203-219. Artibonite River. Pre-Feasibility Study. Sergile, Florence E., Charles A. Woods, Paul General Secretariat of the Organization of E. Paryski. 1992. Final Report: Macaya American States, Executive Secretariat for Biosphere Reserve Project. Gainesville, Economic and Social Affairs, Department of Florida. Report to US AID/HAITI. Contract Regional Development and Environment. No. 521-0191-A-00-7107. Washington, D.C. Singh, Bhawan and Marc J. Cohen. 2014. Climate Oriol, Michèle, Henri Rouillé d’Orfeuil, et Change Resilience: The Case of Haiti. Agnès Chamayou. 2014. Innovations locales Oxfam Research Reports. Oxfam America/ et développement durable en Haïti. Éditions University of Montréal. de l’Université d’État d’Haïti/Fondation de Smith, Ronald. 1980. The Potential of Charcoal France 2014. Plantations for Haiti. USAID/Haiti. Port- Paavola, Jouni, and W. Neil Adger. 2006. Fair au-Prince. adaptation to climate change. Ecological Smith, Scot E. and Daniel Hersey. 2008. Analysis Economics. Vol. 56, No. 4, pp: 594-609. of Watershed Vulnerability to Flooding in PADO 1994. Status of Haiti’s Agriculture, Haiti. World Applied Sciences Journal. Vol. 5, Environment, and Private Enterprise. Private No. 6, pp: 869-885. Enterprise and Agricultural Development Smucker, Glenn. 2001. Farm to Market: Office (PADO). USAID/Haiti. No. PD- Conservaion Farming in Haiti. Productive ABI-315. Land Use Systems: End of Project Report Pelleck, Richard R. 1988. Misperceptions of Compendium. Report to USAID. Deforestation in Haiti: Problems of Available Washington, D.C./ Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Data and Methodology. Ambio, Vol. 17, No. Smucker, Glenn and Joel Timyan. 1995. Impact 3, pp: 245-246. of Tree Planting in Haiti: 1982-1995. Haiti Pichler, Adelheid and Erich Striessnig. Productive Land Use Systems Project. Differential Vulnerability to Hurricanes in South-East Consortium for International Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic: Development and Auburn University. Report to USAID. Washington, D.C. 70 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

Smucker, Glenn R. 1981 Trees and Charcoal 119 of the Foreign Assistance Act). USAID/ in Haitian Peasant Economy: A Feasibility US Forest Service (METI). Study of Reforestation. Report to USAID. Swarup, Anita. 2009. Haiti: ‘A Gathering Storm’: Washington, D.C. Climate Change and Poverty. Oxfam Smucker, Glenn R. (Ed.), Gardy Fleurantin, International. Mike McGahuey and Ben Swartley 2005. Tarter, Andrew. 2015. Trees in Vodou: An Arbori- Agriculture in a Fragile Environment: cultural Exploration. Journal for the Study Market Incentives for Natural Resource of Religion, Nature, and Culture. Vol. 9, No. Management in Haiti. Report to USAID. 1, pp: 87-112. Washington, D.C. Tarter, Andrew. 2015b. Adaptive Arboreal Smucker, Glenn R. 1981. Trees and Charcoal Practices: Haitian Farmer Responses to in Haitian Peasant Economy: A Feasibility On-going Deforestation. PhD Dissertation. Study of Reforestation. Report No. PN- Department of Anthropology, University of ABW-392-95526. USAID/Haiti. Florida. Smucker, Glenn R. 1982. Social and Tarter, Andrew. 2016. Haiti is Covered in Trees. Organizational Conditions for Tree EnviroSociety, web site of Environment and Planting in the Northwest of Haiti. USAID Society. May 19, 2016. Agroforestry and CARE, Haiti. Port-au- Toussaint, Joseph Ronald, Eliot Hamilcar, Prince, Haiti. August 1982. Dimitri Noris, and Marie Alice Limage. 2001. Smucker, Glenn R. 1983. Peasants and Integrating the Management of Watersheds Development Politics: A study in Haitian and Coastal Areas in Haïti. Haïti National Class and Culture. PhD Dissertation. Ann Report. L’Unité de Mise en Oeuvre du Arbor: Univ. Microfilms Michigan. Plan d Action pour l Environnement(UMO Smucker, Glenn R., Michael Bannister, Heather PAE), Ministère de l’Environnement. D’Agnes, Yves Gossin, Marc Portnoff, Joel Gouvernement de la République d’Haïti. Timyan, Scot Tobias, Ronald Toussaint. UN/World Bank. 1982. Haiti: Issues and Options 2007. Environmental Vulnerability in in the Energy Sector. Joint UNDP/World Haiti: Findings and Recommendations. Bank Energy Sector Assessment Program. Chemonics International Inc., and the U.S. UNESCO. The Haiti Pilot Project: Phase One, Forest Service. Report to USAID/HAITI. 1947–1949 (Paris: UNESCO, 1951), 11– Smucker, Glenn R., T. Anderson White, and 13. Alfred Métraux et al., Making a Living Michael Bannister. Land Tenure and the in Marbial Valley (Haiti) (Paris: UNESCO, Adoption of Agricultural Technology in 1951), 1–5. Haiti. 2000. CAPRi Working Paper No. 6. UNESCO2. 1949. Agreement Between the CGIAR System-wide Program on Property Haitian Government and UNESCO. Rights and Collective Action. Secretariat, Fundamental Education: Pilot Project in International Food Policy Research Institute, Haiti. Item 11 (b) of Agenda. Washington D.C. USAID 2012. Audit of USAID/Haiti’s Watershed Smucker, Glenn R, Gardy Fleurantin, Mike Initiative for National Natural Environmental McGahuey, and Ben Swartley. 2005. Resources Program. Office of the Inspector Agriculture in a Fragile Environment: General. Audit Report No. 1-521-12-003-P. Market Incentives for Natural Resource April 27, 2012. San Salvador, El Salvador. Management in Haiti. Report to USAID/ USAID2. 1979. Draft Environmental Report Haiti. Order No. 521-o-00-05-00066-00. on Haiti. Prepared by the Science and Swartley, D. Ben and Joseph Ronald Toussaint. Technology Division, Library of Congress. 2006. Haiti Country Analysis of Tropical Washington, DC. Contract No: SA/TOA Forestry and Biodiversity (Sections 118 and 1-77. 71

Van der Plas, Robert. 2007. Haiti: Strategy to Development and Cultural Change. Vol. 43, Alleviate the Pressure of Fuel Demand on No. 1, pp: 1-41. National Woodfuel Resources. Energy White, T.A. and C.F. Runge. 1995. The emergence Sector Management Assistance Program, The and evolution of collective action: Lessons World Bank Group. ESMAP Technical Paper from watershed management in Haiti. World No. 112/07. Development. Vol. 23, No. 10, pp: 1683-1698. Verna, Chantalle F. 2015. Haiti, the Rockefeller White, Thomas A. 1992. Peasant Cooperation Foundation, and UNESCO’s Pilot Project for Watershed Management in Maissade, in Fundamental Education, 1948-1953. Haiti: Factors Associated with Participation. Diplomatic History. Vol. 0, No. 0 (no EPAT/MUCIA Working Paper No. 4. The pagination; advanced access). Environmental and Natural Resources Verner, Dorte and Willy Egset 2006 Haiti: Social Policy and Training Project. Minnesota Resilience and State Fragility in Haiti: A Agricutlural Experiment Station, Project Country Social Analysis. Report to the Nos. MN-42-049 and MN-42-035. World Bank. Report No. 36069-HT. White, Thomas Anderson and Jon L. Versluis, Anna and John Rogan. 2009. Mapping Jickling. 1995. Peasants, experts, and land land-cover change in a Haitian watershed use in Haiti: lessons from indigenous and using a combined spectral mixture analysis project technology. Journal of Soil and Water and classification tree procedure. Geocarto Conservation 50, pp: 7-14. International. Vol. 25, No. 2, pp: 85-103. Wood, Diane Walton, and Frederick J. Conway. Versluis, Anna J. 2008. We All Live Downstream: 1984. Assessment of Haiti’s Indigenous Disaster, Land Change and Reciprocity in A Environmental Non-governmental Haitian Watershed. Geography Dissertation. Organizations and Recommendations Clark University, Worchester, MA. for a USAID Program to Support Them. Versluis, Anna. 2010. Highlands management Environmental Planning and Management in flood-prone watershed: Does reflexive Project. International Institute for reciprocity make a difference? Global Environment and Development. US AID. Environmental Change. Vol. 20, pp: 333-341. Contract No. NGO/FA/86-01. Voltaire, Karl. 1979. Charcoal in Haiti. Report to World Bank. 1982. Staff Appraisal Report: Haiti USAID/Haiti. Port-au-Prince. Forestry Project. Projects Department, Latin Wha, Tatiana. 2013. Engaging the Haitian America and the Caribbean Regional Office. Diaspora: Emigrant Skills and Resources are Report No. 3776a-HA. needed for Serious Growth and development, World Bank. 1991. Staff Appraisal Report. Haiti: not Just Charity Cairo Review, 9/2013, pp: Forestry and Environmental Protection 56-69. Project. Country Department III: Latin Watras, Joseph. 2010. UNESCO’s Programme of America and the Caribbean Regional Office. Fundamental Education, 1946-1959. History Report No. 9307-HA. of Education. Vol. 39, No. 2, pp: 219-237. World Bank. 2015. Haiti: Towards a New White, Justin, Yang Shao, Lisa M. Kennedy Narrative. Systematic Country Diagnostic. and James B. Campbell. 2013. Landscape Latin America and Caribbean Region, May Dynamics on the Island of La Gonâve, Haiti, 2015. 1990-2010. Land, 2, pp: 493-507. Zuvekas, Clarence. 1978. Agricultural White, T. Anderson, and C. Ford Runge. Development in Haiti: An assessment of 1994. Common Property and Collective sector problems, policies, and prospects under Action: Lessons from Cooperative conditions of severe soil erosion. Report to Watershed Management in Haiti. Economic USAID. Report Control No. PN-AAF-587. 72 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

SECTION V: Appendices 73

varies not only qualitatively, but also in quality APPENDIX A: Challenges to this and objectivity. The solutions to these challenges Literature Review are beyond the scope of this report, but point to the necessity of independent, objective project The literature on landscape management in Haiti analyses, based on field-site visits and off-the- is voluminous, and a thorough undertaking of all record interviews with project personnel and literature was not possible. project beneficiaries. Development reports are frequently influenced by the mandates of the producing institution. Many reports failed to adequately describe their APPENDIX B: Landscape Level research design and data sources, or acknowledge potential sources of bias in their methods and Management Schemes in Haiti conclusions. In some cases reports are clearly (Reproduced from Smucker et al. 2007: 18-22): driven by the implicit or explicit agendas of the Landscape Engineering institution or the individual researcher, and fail From the 1950s to the 1970s there were bilateral to note any project shortcomings or need for projects with the Government of Haiti using an policy refinement. This trend is illustrated by the approach commonly described as “équipement authors’ review of several evaluations that praised du territoire,” a landscape engineering strategy. projects widely acknowledged (in Haiti) to have These projects were done on both private and failed. public lands using a top-down management A final related shortcoming of evaluating approach to cover large, contiguous areas with literature on development projects in Haiti conservation structures. Soil conservation was concerns an historical lack of data, questions considered to be a strictly technical problem of data accuracy, issues of data accessibility for to be solved by engineers installing mechanical particular periods of time, and uneven topical structures, mainly rock walls and contour and temporal coverage.29 The unfortunate canals, using paid (cash or food for work) labor. result of this phenomenon has been that many Neither land tenure nor the interests of peasant Haiti researchers must rely on dated or outdated landowners were taken into account. sources. The issue is compounded when In many cases this resulted in very expensive researchers cite secondary or tertiary sources. rock walls constructed on infertile, steep, and Figures provided in a 2010 report might derive droughty garden plots. The cost of installing from a secondary source published in the 1980s, the structures was many times greater than the which relied on partial or questionable data value of any added increment of crop yield due from the 1950s. An illustrative example of this to these conservation effects. In general this tendency can be found in the case of the 1972 model is noted for its unsustainability and its OAS report that aggregated 100+ watersheds in near total lack of upkeep of the structures, most Haiti into 30 pragmatically organized zones. This of which eventually disintegrated. This model report has since been cited to the point where should be discarded; although, there were some many researchers suggest that there are only 30 limited positive results derived from teaching major watersheds in Haiti. farmers certain techniques or introducing tree Stated more succinctly, the available literature species. on landscape management projects in Haiti Civic Infrastructure and Job Creation Job creation projects that became widespread 29 While certain historical periods (eg. The period during the middle 1990s share certain surrounding the 2010 earthquake) are replete with characteristics with the landscape-engineering literature, other periods (eg. The period surrounding model in that public works projects were the Duvalier presidencies) are marked a significant decline in published research. accomplished with paid labor. Some of these 74 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

projects made a serious effort to respond to These projects were not designed to cover the specific needs and local characteristics of whole watersheds. Farmers did not treat all of rural localities, for example, the rehabilitation their plots, which varied in their slope, distance and expansion of irrigation works operated by from the residence, security of access, soil grassroots water user organizations outside of fertility, contribution to household economy, Mirebalais. Others merely served as a pretext and other factors. The principal reason farmers to distribute salaries for political reasons chose not to treat all plots was undoubtedly and had no lasting results. In the future, job the high threshold costs for doing so. Treating creation projects will be required as a needed degraded hillside slopes “correctly” was beyond element of watershed management, especially the means of most farm families. Significant for infrastructure repair and treatment of landscape-level changes did occur in some water courses, but such efforts must fit within regions due to plot-based project interventions, an overall strategy so that resources are used and three such case studies are presented later efficiently. in this chapter. This was an interesting period Plot-Based Models because new technical approaches and new Beginning in the 1980s, donors funded partnerships between technicians and farmers agricultural extension projects through grants were developed, and the implementing and cooperative agreements directly with agencies attained greater understanding of NGOs. They specifically sought a greater peasant farming systems. Nevertheless, the understanding of peasant farming systems and plot-based model, although useful, was not tried to design field approaches accordingly. designed to solve the fundamental problems of Programs emerged which engaged in watershed protection. tree planting and many other types of soil Watershed-Based Strategies conservation techniques beyond the rock The stated focus of these projects is the and canal structures favored previously. Fund watershed, or more realistically, a portion of a management was often done by a large watershed. This focus defines the geographic international NGO acting as an umbrella limits and the intended type of outcomes, which agency, receiving funds from the donor and in are primarily environmental and intended turn administering smaller agreements with to benefit the broader society by reducing local NGOs or farmer groups of various sizes the damage to infrastructure. Paradoxically, and strengths. design of watershed projects is often based Some projects concentrated their activities on lessons drawn from plot-based projects in smaller regions while others spread out where the objectives are mainly concerned over larger areas. The basic unit of work with increasing agricultural income rather within the NGO or community-based farmer than producing environmental benefits for organization (CBO) was the farmer work downstream users. Resolving the differences group, and project interventions were offered between these contrasting objectives will be from a basic list of contour and gully soil crucial to designing an effective watershed conservation practices, tree planting, crop seed project. The technical approach and outreach, improvement, fruit tree grafting, marketing, and funding and benefit-flow mechanisms vary institutional strengthening activities. Extension across projects. agents were selected by the contracting groups Much debate has taken place in Haiti about from within their own members; these were watersheds, especially since the release of a report trained by project technicians and acted as by Löwenstein (1984) on the deteriorating liaisons between project staff and participating condition of the Macaya watershed; however, farmers. no satisfactory watershed-level solution has yet evolved, even though some interesting results 75

were obtained along the way. For example, the have had a positive effect on the environment, USAID-funded ASSET project…worked for but the project has not tracked the effect of three years in the Grise/Blanche watersheds marketing on NRM. Furthermore, HAP and was designed to work at a landscape scale promotes improved marketing opportunities (Israel et al. 2001); however, the project did not for a given crop regardless of where it is grown, have a major effect on flooding, sedimentation, so the effects are not concentrated nor do they or water supplies in the lower watershed. This consider whole farming systems and their was due largely to the project’s limited scale of impacts on the watershed. The narrow scope of operation in the upper watershed. marketing projects limits their ultimate effect In general, evaluation of watershed projects on natural resource management. Nevertheless, points to the importance of designing marketing is a key consideration and must be approaches that consider charcoal markets, central to future watershed projects (see “Tree animal markets, infrastructure, household water Products and Trade” later in this chapter). supply, and appropriate social structures. Most importantly, building local social capital needs (Reproduced from Smucker et al. 2007: 18-22). to be taken to a new level when considering watershed-level interventions. It is imperative to consider off-farm externalities and build APPENDIX C: Watershed new social links that protect the interests of participating farmers whose long history of Management Principals of the economic and social disadvantage has led to the creation of their present systems. These Ministries of Environment and persistent systems will not readily be put at risk. Agriculture Market-Driven Models This approach seeks to augment small (Reproduced from Bush and Sildor 2009: 30- farmer income by developing or improving 32): marketing links for agricultural crops. The objective of the marketing strategy is to assist Ministry of Environment farmers to generate sufficient profits to cover Principle 1: The objectives set for the their normal agricultural expenses plus the management of natural resources and additional expenses required to invest in better biodiversity are society‘s choice. germplasm and soil and water conservation. Principle 2: Management must be In other words, the intent of project designers decentralized and conducted at the lowest is for marketing to drive improved natural possible level. resource management. Principle 3: The managers of an ecosystem A market driven strategy was introduced including a watershed must consider the effects in the Productive Land Use Systems project (real or potential) of their activities on adjacent (PLUS) and then substantially expanded by ecosystems or elsewhere. the Hillside Agricultural Program (HAP) Principle 4: Given the advantages of good since 2001. The HAP project included natural management, it is important to understand resource management components in the early the economic context of the ecosystem. All years, but specific NRM interventions were management programs should (a) reduce eliminated in 2003 due to funding cuts. HAP market distortions that have an negative impact marketing activities have successfully created on biodiversity; (b) align the incentives that new opportunities for tree crops (coffee, favor the conservation and sustainable use of mangos, and cacao) that have benefited farmers biodiversity; (c) internalize the external costs by boosting farmgate sale prices. This may and benefits of ecosystem management. 76 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti

Principle 5: The ecosystem approach should financial management, monitoring and be applied only at the appropriate scale. evaluation; making adjustments. Principle 6: Given the time scales and the Principle 4: All actions must be the result different phases that characterize ecological of negotiation at each step among the users processes, the management of ecosystems of the resources and the supporting partners. should set long term objectives. This negotiation should eventually give rise to Principle 7: An ecosystem approach should management agreements. determine the appropriate balance between Principle 5: The approach should be gradual: conservation and use of biological diversity. projects should improve the existing situation Principle 8: An ecosystem approach should but without abrupt short term changes in social consider all the available information— or environmental status quo. Priority should including scientific data, but also local be given to supporting existing agricultural knowledge and practices. organizations. The techniques applied should Principle 9: An ecosystem approach should be integrated technically, economically and include all social sectors and all the pertinent socially into existing production systems. scientific disciplines (reproduced from Bush They should particularly take account of the and Sildor 2009: 30-32). characteristics of the zone, take advantage of local knowledge, be integrated into the Ministry of Agriculture agricultural calendar, be adapted to local materials and the local availability of labor. Principle 1: Intervention should be in the Principle 6: The objectives and strategies of context of the municipality level Natural management plans should be aligned with the Resources Management plan established by priorities of the users—which is most often the the Conseil Municipal for setting priorities. maximization of revenue. Management should The plan should address the technical aim at both conservation and production: and methodological criteria fixed by the • Actions are not necessarily targeted at the MARNDR (before execution, all projects most degraded areas; on the contrary, there must go before the DDA for review, possible should exist sufficient agricultural potential revisions, and a final decision made by the to allow investment costs to be recovered. central office). Principle 2: Supporting structures (NGO, • Actions should be capable of becoming private sector, government agencies) should economically independent. aim to help the collectivités territoriales • For each agricultural product, the whole and agricultural associations appreciate the value chain should be strengthened resources in their area and to identify actions (production, post harvest systems, processing, to increase their value. After an assessment of commercialization). physical, land-tenure, economic, and social • Actions must be economically viable in the factors an action plan will be prepared and short term—especially if the community implemented. situation is precarious. Principle 3: Through their representatives Principle 7: Emphasis should also be placed as members of collectivites territoriales on non-farm income-generating activities and agricultural organizations, the local (ecotourism, rehabilitation of access roads, population will participate in all the steps stabilization of gullies, agri-processing, artisanal involved: request for assistance; assessment of products) in order to reduce demographic constraints, opportunities, and needs; seeking pressures on natural resources. and participating in fund raising; deciding on priority actions (zoning, techniques, participating communities, calendar, etc.); 77

Principle 8: Supporting measures must ensure the technical and organizational training of the communities. Principle 9: Supporting agencies should assist the communities to manage the financial resources allocated to the project in order to help the communities develop their skills and competence in financial management. However, the level of funding should be aligned with the capacity of the communities to manage these funds. Principle 10: It is a basic principle not to finance local unskilled labor for intermittent work on soil conservation (reproduced from Bush and Sildor 2009: 30-32).