ARTICLE - A TREE GROWS QUIETLY

A TREE GROWS QUIETLY IN HAITI (8 MILLION TIMES OVER)
(AOL) - By Emily Troutman, Contributor

LEOGANE, Haiti -- The key to making good news in Haiti is to stay out of it. That's according to John Winings, acting director of the Comprehensive Development Project, a small organization operating in the hills above Leogane.

Over the past 20 years, CODEP has quietly planted more than 8 million trees -- a living, breathing forest in Haiti. Reforestation and anti-erosion programs are overwhelmingly unsuccessful in Haiti, which suffers from vast deforestation. But CODEP has a remarkable 80 percent success rate with the trees it plants.

As it turns out, the hard part isn't planting the trees -- it's keeping Haitians from cutting them down. A tree is quick cash.

So CODEP offers incentives.

"If the trees stay in the ground ... after two years, we'll replace your thatched roof with a tin roof. After three years, you earn a water catchment system and a cistern. After five years," Winings said, "you get a house."

Some 600 people in remote villages are harvesting seeds, planting trees and tending their own wood lots with CODEP. Communities -- sometimes just a row of houses, sometimes families -- volunteer together to improve their land in exchange for a small stipend and the chance at a house.

But even after five years, members of the growing cooperative must still contribute approximately $350 toward the house and earn points based on service.

It's a startling incentive in the new post-earthquake Haiti, where aid groups have passed out nearly 40,000 transitional shelters over the past year. Shelters come with tin roofs, and the allure of getting one has drawn thousands of impoverished Haitians into Port-au-Prince, about two hours east of Leogane.

The U.N., among others, has also injected hundreds of millions of dollars into "Cash-for-Work" programs, where day labor earns employees $5.

Since employees of CODEP don't work every day, they don't make as much. What they do earn, eventually, is ownership of the trees they grow. It's not a job -- it's a living.

"We didn't lose any employees to the Cash-for-Work program," Winings said. "And I think it's because the community knows that job will last for a month. CODEP will be here the next month, and the next month after that."

Enese Medee, a supervisor who has worked with the program for 15 years, says the small stipend CODEP provides is enough to make a living. But the average wage is rising.

Like many rural programs, it has become increasingly difficult to compete against the draw of Port-au-Prince.

Producing a Shady Interlude
Along the hilly drive from Leogane to Jacmel, motorists often notice the shady interlude of forest. But few understand how the trees got there or know that CODEP was the driving force behind them.

The neighboring Dominican Republic has 28 percent forest cover where Haiti has only 4 percent, according to U.N. figures from 2006. The lack of trees causes soil to disappear, making hurricanes and rain more dangerous because of potential deadly mudslides.

Despite decades of interventions from the international community, environmental improvements on a large scale haven't happened. It's not for lack of funding.

In 2009, the United Nations analyzed 43 environmental programs in Haiti, together worth more than $391 million. The results, according to the report, were "relatively meager." The study did not look at CODEP.

"Most organizations that support this kind of work," Winings said, "are just not willing to spend 15 to 20 years. They want results faster than that."

Despite evidence that short commitments don't work, the vast majority of projects studied by the United Nations had program cycles of less than five years -- some less than two. Programs suffered from a "chronic lack of follow-up."

Rock walls disappeared. Trees were cut down. Expensive equipment was plundered.The U.N. study was conducted to set the stage for the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, a joint venture between Columbia University's Earth Institute and the U.N. Environmental Program. Over 20 years, they expect $3 billion will be spent on the environment in Haiti.

Jamie Rhoads, an agricultural development specialist working in Haiti, believes real success in development "takes a special kind of relationship" with the community. Rhoads serves on the board of directors of Haiti Fund Inc., the funding arm of CODEP.

"It took a long time to weed through the people," Rhoads said, "to find ones who now recognize that they've been working there for 15 years. They've put all their kids through school. They've done a huge amount of saving in those trees."

Tending the Seedlings
Along rutted paths off a turn on the road to Jacmel, small wooden houses were surrounded by avocado trees, oranges, mangoes, bananas and plots of coffee beans. In a clearing through the trees, a group of eight community members tended to seedlings.

If CODEP has finally cracked the code on reforestation, it's mostly because it stuck around long enough to see it through. The planting program happens in a decades-long circle-of-life time frame not suited to development's fair-weather friends.

Thirty-four communities participate along five watersheds, where each creates their own acreages of ecosystems. To begin, they dig precisely angled contour canals. Then they plant eucalyptus, followed by local vetiver grasses to hold the soil.

Eucalyptus trees were introduced to Haiti in 1947 and form the foundation of CODEP's program, though acacia is now being considered.

"In three years, eucalyptus grow 18 to 20 feet high. They can survive being cut eight or nine times. Also, goats won't eat the seedlings," Winings said.

After eucalyptus leaves fall into the ditches, creating natural compost, growers plant fruit and other forest trees. All of the seeds come from their own network of nurseries. Eventually, growers are free to selectively cut and sell the trees.

Through the years, the organization has tried new things and failed. It took a long time, Rhoads said, to figure out which species of trees work and why, and assess the long-term outcome.

Results took 15-20 years to unfold, making it difficult to replicate the program.

"It will take that long-term personal commitment all over again," Rhoads said. "You can't just show up and measure your success by how much money you're spending."

Haitians Want Non-Haitian to Run Program
Winings is a well-known figure in the green mountain villages. The 69-year-old hikes through ankle-deep mud and takes donors on uneventful tours of trees. He is the acting director in the country and the only non-Haitian employee.

These days, many organizations pride themselves on getting in and getting out. CODEP doesn't have an exit strategy and it's unclear if it ever will. Even after 20 years, it may not be possible to turn the whole thing over to Haitians, as other charities often promise.

"When I asked what [the employees] wanted in a new leader, the main thing they said was that he has to be white and a foreigner. I accepted that," Winings said. "But then I needed to peel back the layers."

Since the organization operates in tight-knit isolated communities, Winings found that Haitian supervisors are often loath to fire their neighbors or mediate dramatic, soap opera-type conflicts that drag on for years.

Capacity building is slow and working with Haitian counterparts often means accepting different societal rules. Staff meetings, for example, can take hours.

"Americans would just go ballistic," Winings said. "But that's the way the culture needs it to be."

CODEP has a modest annual budget of $600,000, funded by a combination of about 100 churches, 150 individuals and some grant money. Smaller budgets don't necessarily mean less productivity. Sometimes, Winings said, bigger budgets can be a hindrance.

In the past, CODEP has aimed to fly below the radar of local authorities. It's a mixed proposition.

The United Nations cites coordination with local authorities as a key instrument to success. In exchange for its low profile, CODEP has been protected from saboteurs and profiteers

.In Haiti, CODEP is mostly known only to the communities it serves. But with 8 million trees in the ground, things are bound to change.