Every tree is a life

Last week Josh Koons and I were in Haiti to close out the first half of our project to restore eighty farms with 100,000 trees. We hiked steep footpaths going from farm to farm, 1400 trees planted on each since February. The transformation of the mountainside was stunning. When we got to the top, it felt like we were skydiving as we looked down on a lush valley with mountains beyond. Then it hit us.

The catastrophic nightmare of Port au Prince was only fifty miles away and the peaceful place in front of us was complicit in its mayhem. The extreme poverty of rural Haiti had driven its sons and daughters to leave for the city in numbers that quintupled Port au Prince’s population to three million in the last fifty years. They left in search of a better life but most were swallowed into the slums of a city that grew too big too fast. Even after the earthquake, a million people poured into the city that has become dystopic. It is unrealistic to think that seismically-unstable Port au Prince can be redeveloped to support its current population. The solution is to reverse the migration of people back to the countryside by transforming it from a place to escape, to a place that offers jobs, opportunities, and good livelihoods. 

As we head back, we cross a field where trees planted last month are barely visible above of the stubble of last season’s harvest. It is the dry season now and Jonald, who runs our nursery, explains they were the last to go in before the rains ended. "No more will be planted until the rains return", he tells us. "Every tree is a life." His statement is about more than the tree. He’s reminding us of all the other lives that hang in the balance of the next fifty thousand trees we plant, lives like those of the sons and daughters of rural Haiti, who one day should be able to thrive in the place where they were born. 

Take care and thanks for your interest in Haiti.

Rob

Rob Fisher, Executive Director

Partner For People And Place/JP Haiti

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