Forestry Dispatch: Haiti before the quake

Can Paulownia Save Haiti?

Updated on Monday 18th of January 2010

Doug Heuck

From the window of a small, private plane, the island of Hispaniola came into view in the middle of the vast, blue Caribbean. Haiti and its neighbor on the island, the Dominican Republic, looked like two countries on a globe in a library, set apart by two different colors. The Dominican Republic was a lush green and mountainous Haiti, a rumpled blanket of brown. The six travelers were guests of fellow Pittsburgher Chris Snavely, the chairman of Snavely Forest Products, who had packed 1,000 saplings in the cargo hold. At 81, Snavely was taking on a new project: to see if he could find a species of tree that might begin to reforest Haiti.

We set foot on the sweltering tarmac and pushed our belongings on a cart to customs. After ignoring the State Department warning to stay away, we wondered what lay ahead. When the papers were finished, our armed private security team hustled us outside where three white SUVs awaited. Off we went, cutting a brief path into the main flow, honking, lurching and merging into the teeming, dusty artery of cars and motorbikes, lined by people, dogs, goats and pigs.

Kidnapping of foreigners was becoming common in Port-au-Prince, and our priority was getting out of there fast. In some places, high walls lined the city roads. Mainly, though, flimsy, makeshift commercial huts formed the berm, along with women balancing baskets on their heads, men pushing wheelbarrows and discarded tires and cars. Doors locked as we swung through a slow, sharp turn where the road narrowed. Carjackers often waited there, as professionals from the city -- people rich enough to have a car -- headed out of town for the weekend.

The main highway led north through walls of garbage into a hilly country area, where skinny cows ranged free and dead horses occasionally lay by the roadside. Drivers generally stay on the right, but there are no lanes, no signs and no rules. On a patch of good road, the driver stepped on it, only to brake hard and nearly stop before descending into axle-breaking potholes. Village followed village with Haitians in shanties selling food or charcoal.

We never saw a farm, just the occasional subsistence plot with banana or mango trees. In one small city, cars, wheelbarrows and footfalls raised a constant cloud of dust. And the people, though the deepest African black, were covered in dust, all a ghostly white.

Haiti's singular history

Since the first European set foot on it, Haiti has been a land of promise and cataclysm, of fable and frustration, of beauty and desperation. Christopher Columbus was the first European to make landfall on the island, in December of 1492. It took the Spanish about 25 years to exterminate the native Arawak Indians. The Spanish, however, soon lost interest in Haiti, moving on for gold elsewhere.

The French took control of Haiti in 1697, logging nearly the entire mahogany stock and sending it back to Europe for furniture. They cleared more to create sugar cane plantations, bringing hundreds of thousands of African slaves to work the land. More logging fueled the mills. Haiti's prosperity earned it the name "The Pearl of the Antilles," and the position of being France's most prized colony.

Soon it became a black pearl, the world's first black republic, when in 1804 the slaves revolted and finally defeated Napoleon's forces. As part of the peace, however, Haiti agreed to pay France reparations for the war, which included further deforestation of mahogany. What pride and promise the revolution held has never translated to prosperity.

Now, more than 8 million people live in an area just larger than Maryland. Unemployment, to the extent that it can be counted, exceeds 70 percent, and illiteracy tops 90 percent. There are no exports to speak of. Per capita income is just over $200 a year. And a trip to a local market confirms that Haiti is not only the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and perhaps the world, it is also the end of the consumption chain. Aside from hog's heads lying in the dirt, bubbling caldrons of red broth and well-used fabrics, the market offers half-full tubes of toothpaste, used shoes and single pieces of chewing gum.

The story of trees

When times get tough in Haiti, trees bear the brunt. Branch by branch on dusty hillsides, they're hacked down and turned into charcoal, the country's main source of fuel.

A devastating logic accompanies the loss of trees. Without trees, nothing holds the topsoil, which either blows or is washed away. The U.N. estimates Haiti loses 36 million tons of topsoil a year. Less topsoil, in turn, means fewer trees. And without trees, which breathe vapor into the atmosphere, there's less rainfall. When rain does come, the earth can't absorb it, so heavy rains become floods that kill thousands.

In short, Haiti is a haunting, apocalyptic vision of ecological collapse.

Against that backdrop, Snavely, Rawson and three others climbed the hill behind the Mellon house, pausing briefly in the shade by the Mellons' simple grave, before continuing to the compound's garden. In the garden, dripping with sweat, the group squatted and knelt to plant the first Paulownia trees. At hand were 8-inch-tall, miniature Lawn Boy-like bags half full of dirt. The process was simple: fill the bottom part with water, then fill the rest of the bag with dirt. The trees were just little twigs with roots.

On our last day, we visited the local Catholic church. It happened to be a children's service, and the large, bright building was filled with young people dressed in their Sunday best, dark pants and skirts and white shirts.

The pastor spoke, and the children sang song after song, their high, sweet voices providing the only harmony we would find in Haiti. Near the end of the service, one of the Haitians who'd helped plant the Paulownias took the podium and began a rousing speech in Creole. He gestured to Rawson and Snavely to come to the front.

As he spoke and his voice rose, the entire church broke into applause, loud and long. Afterwards, on the steps of the church outside, the young churchgoers surrounded Snavely, eager to be near the man from America who had brought the trees.

Source: post-gazette.com