Yon Istwa sou Efò yo nan Jesyon Tè nan Nivo Peyizaj yo nan Ayiti: Leson yo Aprann nan Etid Ka yo ki Kouvri Uit Dekad

Public Disclosure Authorized A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti Public Disclosure Authorized Lessons Learned from Case Studies Spanning Eight Decades September, 2016 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 Management Efforts in Haiti is a product of the Agriculture Global Practice of the World Bank. The initial draft of the report was prepared under an activity led by Pierre Olivier Colleye and was intended as background information for government consultations conducted in May, 2015. The authors would like to thank the participants of this workshop, including the Ministry of Agriculture (MARNDR), for their valuable inputs. The final report considers feedback from this workshop, as well as comments from multiple experts across various institutions. The authors would like to thank the peer Reviewers - Peter Jipp, Julian Lee, Ademola Braimoh, Gerhard Dieterle, and Holger Kray - for their review and feedback. In addition, the team would like to thank the Haiti Country Management Unit – Mary Barton-Dock, Pierre Xavier Bonneau and Michelle Keane – for their support and Practice Manager Laurent Msellati for his guidance. The team acknowledges and thanks the Program on Forests (PROFOR) for supporting the publication of this report. 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 Agroforestry Outreach Project Agriculturally Sustainable Systems and Environmental Transformation The Artibonite Project Appui à la Valorisation du potentiel Agricole du Nord, pour la Sécurité Économique et environnementale/ Feed the Future Le Développement Economique pour un Environnement Durable/The Durable Economic and Environmental Development Développement Rural Intégré Petit-Goâve-Petit Trou de Nippes Forest and Parks Protection Technical Assistance Project Hillside Agricultural Program The Haiti Pilot Project Macaya Biosphere Reserve L’Organisme de Développement du Nord Organisation de Développement de la Vallée de l’Artibonite Productive Land Use Systems Pwojè Sove Tè Secretariat Technique á l’Aménagemen des Bassins Versants Targeted Watershed Management Project Watershed Initiatives for Natural Environmental Resources AFII AOP ASSET ATP AVANSE/FTF DEED DRIPP FPPTP HAP HPP MBR ODN ODVA PLUS PST STABV TWMP WINNER 9 Executive Summary A variety of public and private institutions have initiated landscape-level land management1 projects in Haiti since the first multilateral development project of the United Nations was implemented there in 1948. The rubrics guiding these projects have been diverse: sustainable rural development; integrated landscape management; agro-ecosystem management; agroforestry; ecosystem stewardship; and watershed management—to name just a few. Despite a vast nomenclature that reflects real differences in landscape-level land management approaches and policies, most such projects implemented in Haiti have moved along a temporal trajectory toward the following set of shared, complementary objectives: i) Natural resource conservation, management, and/or restoration; ii) Improving and/or increasing agricultural productivity; and iii) Improving the lives of project beneficiaries by increasing economic activities. The success or failure of landscape-level land management projects in Haiti has not been determined by these complementary objectives, but by the differential emphasis of overall project approaches and policies toward achieving these objectives. The present report opens with a brief history of ecological degradation in Haiti—a necessary exercise for two reasons: (1) understanding how ecological degradation has proceeded historically in Haiti is required for mitigating future degradation; and (2) as the rural landscape has been altered significantly since the earliest landscape-level projects were implemented, a grasp of current ecological conditions in Haiti is also necessary. 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 management, including but not limited to ‘watershed management’. After providing a brief ecological history, the report then shifts to examine fifteen different landscape-level land management projects executed in Haiti between 1948 and 2014, detailed in the form of brief but summative case studies that highlight salient project features, and differences in approaches and policies. The primary findings presented below emerge from these fifteen case studies, the preceding ecological history, and a review of many documents presented in the bibliography of this report. The bibliography serves as a point of reference for further inquiries, guided by citations throughout this report. The primary findings from the review of literature and case studies suggest: • There is wide consensus on the need for landscape-level land management in Haiti, and increasing consensus on watersheds2 as the appropriate location for effective project implementation. The majority of Haiti’s population is embedded in an agrarian landscape that relies on agricultural production as their primary livelihood strategy. Agricultural possibilities will continue to decline without effective landscape-level land management strategies. Centuries of deforestation and climatic drying have made access to water a major determiner of on going agricultural production. Since rainfall is increasingly variable and unreliable in many of the denuded locations in Haiti, watersheds represent one of the most effective locations for landscape improvement efforts. • There have been two common approaches or models to landscape-level land management projects that have been enacted in Haiti. Both require trade-offs. The ‘macro-level’ approach favors complete 2 Watershed management indicates efforts at landscape level land management that are delineated by varied 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 and ecological heterogeneity. The ‘plot-based’ approach favors highly adaptive, plot-specific policies at the expense of full landscape coverage. The former has tended to emphasize ecological outputs through command-and control models, while the latter has tended to emphasize both social and ecological outputs, developed through beneficiary participation in all levels of project identification, formation, implementation, and ownership. • ‘Macro-level’ approaches to landscape-level land management are frequently marked by the following features: 🙠 Macro-level approaches tend to target entire watersheds, but still often fail to achieve 100% coverage; 🙠 Macro-level approaches tend to come with a priori assumptions and solutions developed by experts, which frequently rely on a complete restructuring of local agricultural or land management practices, rather than building on existing structures. This trend frequently results in less-than-enthusiastic participation or in resistance to participation from project beneficiaries; 🙠 ‘Participation,’ from the perspective of macro-model project implementers, is frequently viewed as beneficiaries’ initial adoption of technologies or practices, and the contribution of time or labor toward this initial adoption; 🙠 One of major reasons for the failed efforts of many macro-level landscape management projects in Haiti has been the adoption of a laundry list of project objectives meant to address the complexities of the problem— an emphasis on breadth over depth, but an emphasis applied indiscriminatingly across all lands and inhabitants within a landscape. The attempt to implement wide-ranging objectives through a top-down manner frequently results in project funds and personnel stretched thin, with fewer project objectives ever fully realized. • ‘Plot-based’ approaches to landscape-level land management are frequently marked by the following features: 🙠 Plot-based approaches tend to account for the inter- and intra-heterogeneity of land, society, markets, roads, etc., of landscapes; 🙠 Plot-based models frequently rely on prior and ongoing research to assess and address these levels of heterogeneity; 🙠 Plot-based approaches have tended to adapt project objectives in an iterative, farmer driven process; 🙠 Plot-based approaches necessarily involve local participation at all stages of project identification, implementation, ownership, management, and continuity; 🙠 Plot-based approaches rarely achieve 100% project coverage within a given watershed; and 🙠 Plot-based approaches have proved the most successful in terms of project adoption by beneficiaries and continuity after the end of the project cycle. • Case studies show a clear, diachronic trend away from ‘macro-level’ approaches, toward ‘plot-based’ approaches. The 15 case studies presented in this report, and other cases reported on in the literature review, indicate that ‘plot-based’ approaches tend not only to be more effective, but are increasingly embraced in Haiti over ‘macro level’ models. This is especially true of arable land holdings, which are highly fragmented across most landscapes in Haiti. In certain cases, such as instances of large tracts of government-owned land, uninhabitable areas, or large plots of collectively-owned land held by networks of kin, the case for ‘macro-level’ approaches may still be made. However, the long-term success of landscape level land management approaches with these former two land categories—characterized by a lack of local land ownership and thus low investment—has historically proved untenable. • Despite a historical trend away from ‘macro level’ models toward ‘plot-based’ models, both approaches have failed to achieve their objectives at different times for some of the following reasons: 🙠 One historical determinant of landscape level land management project success or failure has been the differential emphasis placed on varied project objectives. Project objectives selected for emphasis often appear to be driven by the a priori demands of donors or implementing agencies, often emphasizing a particular technology, approach, or model that ultimately proves incompatible in the Haiti context. The results have been low adoption rates or low continuity after project timeframes expire; 🙠 Unsuccessful projects were frequently weighted down by multiple competing objectives that aimed to recognize the interrelated complexity of landscape-level land management, but simultaneously stretched project resources thin in an effort to address this complexity; 🙠 Successful programs limited the scope of what might be accomplished within the confines of the project timeframe, and focused on a few clearly defined policies tied to even fewer and more-clearly defined objectives; 🙠 Successful programs frequently took a substantial period of preparation to align the visions and goals of donors, varied project partners, stakeholders, and beneficiaries; 🙠 Successful programs involved local participation at all levels, including project identification, preparation, and implementation; and 🙠 Allowing processes of stakeholder alignment and multi-tiered collective participation permitted successful programs to identify meta-objectives and policies that addressed a multitude of concerns important to all project stakeholders, leading to higher levels of project adoption, participation, ownership, and achievement of objectives. 11 • Land tenure does not appear to be an impediment to beneficiary participation. Haitians utilize both informal and formal systems of land tenure, which permit the inheritance, management, leasing, sale, and purchase of land. While these tenure systems are complex, and thusly can appear insecure, experience demonstrates that they are highly functional and commonly do not represent an impediment to the implementation of landscape-level land management projects in rural Haiti. As the leasing of land is a common, established practice in rural Haiti, access to land appears to be a larger determiner of investment incentives to farmers than informal or formal tenure status. • Land security is a potentially volatile issue that deserves reflection. Considering historical and contemporaneous land grabs and forced displacements, land insecurity from external forces represents a real concern, particularly with projects that target large parcels of arable land. However, the vast majority of arable plots in rural Haiti have been divided into fragments that are discontinuously dispersed across landscapes, serving as a de facto protective measure against external threats to land security. Larger plots of land are collectively owned by kin groups, but typically agriculturally unproductive, which may also serve to protect them against external forces. • Participatory models have demonstrated more success than other more command-and control approaches. The historical command-and-control approaches to landscape-level land management, including watershed management, have been met with skepticism and suspicion on the part of local project beneficiaries in Haiti. Within these projects, levels of participation have been low, as have levels of adoption. Experience suggests that participatory approaches are crucial to long-term project success. Since local farmers occupy watersheds and are the direct project beneficiaries, their inclusion in all aspects of project identification, preparation, 12 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti and implementation is crucial to project success and sustainability. Successful project approaches included multiple stakeholders, such as members of local government, and local governing groups, community groups, church groups, and other solidarity structures. • Frequently effective government participation is limited by overlap between project and political administrative delineations and ecological zones. Many watershed management projects in Haiti wrestle with the fact that rivers and their tributaries do not adhere to either the political boundaries of Haiti’s departments or subsequent administrative units, or to the distribution of ecological zones in the country (Delatour et al. 1984). The differences between ecological zones have been greatly diminished (Ehrlich 1985), adding doubt to models that delineate watersheds and policies based exclusively on ecological life zones. • Project continuity As of yet, all documented examples of 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 it is unclear in most cases if the internal rate of return of project investments make them viable without sustained donor support. Nearly seventy years after the first landscape level land management project of the United Nations was executed in Haiti, similar projects continue to be implemented, and many continue to suffer avoidable historical shortcomings. The broader development community and project beneficiaries in Haiti have much to learn from the past in order to most effectively design and implement successful landscape-level land management projects in the future. This meta analysis has been crafted for this very audience, as a point-of-departure for future efforts at landscape management in Haiti. The key findings listed above summarize a review of the literature and the fifteen case studies subsequently presented in this report. The reader interested in a more nuanced, in-depth understanding of how these individual cases unfolded in Haiti is encouraged to consult the extensive bibliography of sources at the end of this report. Background Centuries of deforestation in Haiti have played 13 • Increased climatic drying; out on an overwhelmingly mountainous terrain that receives seasonal rains and torrential downpours from frequent tropical storms and hurricanes. The standard of living for many rural Haitians has been negatively impacted as a result of deforestation and removal of the vegetative cover. Some of these impacts, such as the loss of valuable topsoil, have been directly observable, but other impacts of deforestation in Haiti have been less visable. Ecological Vulnerabilities From a strictly ecologically standpoint, deforestation in Haiti has caused or contributed to: • Damage to Haiti’s riparian systems and the soil-silting of lakes and unique coral reefs; The lack of a protective vegetative cover has led to an increase in the rapidity of surface water runoff out of watersheds, reducing the ability of rainwater to recharge the aquifers. Since Haiti’s rivers are aquifer-fed, river water levels have been lowered, and in many cases permanent rivers have become seasonal. Soil silting of lakes is raising water levels, changing water salination levels, and destroying or threatening fresh-water, brackish water, and ocean fish habitats (Hotz and Christian 2015). • A decline and loss of Haiti’s diversity of endemic flora and fauna; Haiti is home to some of the highest levels of biological diversity in the Caribbean (Swartly and Touissant 2006). The disappearance of potentially rare, endemic flora and fauna represents a loss of unknown proportions. The erosion of specific soil profiles results in a decreased ability of native flora to regenerate, paving the way for exotic or invasive species that lower overall biological diversity due to an increasingly homogenized habitat for both flora and fauna. The decline of a protective vegetative layer subjects Haiti’s land to increased evapotranspiration—the drying of soil through direct exposure to sun and wind, which work together to wick away surface moisture. The heat rising from arid land drives away higher moisture air, in many cases reducing the likelihood of rainfall, and causing the pseudo drought phenomena experienced throughout much of rural Haiti for the last several decades. The social science literature is replete with well-documented testimonies of Haitian farmers who contribute drought and pseudo drought conditions directly to the over-cutting of trees. • Increased terrestrial vulnerability to the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes; Without complex root systems to hold Haiti’s mountainous terrain in place, entire mountainsides frequently wash out during tropical storms and hurricanes. Streams and rivers swell from immense groundwater runoff, causing flooding, increased erosion and widening of riparian systems, and the soil silting of lakes and ocean habitats. Individual trees and remaining tree stands are subject to higher exposure from wind than trees aggregated in forests, resulting in the widespread downing of remaining arboreal stands. The effects of tropical storms and hurricanes are not only exacerbated due to Haiti’s deteriorating ecosystems, they also contribute to that deterioration in an iterative, degenerative terrestrial cycle. Human Vulnerabilities Since most rural Haitians are embedded in an agrarian landscape and rely on agricultural production as their primary livelihood strategy, the ecological and landscape degradation noted above directly contributes to: 14 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti • Nationwide declines in agricultural productivity; The production of soil takes thousands of years but major losses of topsoil in Haiti may transpire in a single storm. As the majority of Haiti’s population is understood to be dependent on agricultural production as a primary livelihood strategy, and some 80% of rural households rely on agriculture (World Bank 2015: 27), the loss of valuable topsoil has an insidious and deleterious long-term effect on agricultural productivity. Haiti’s GDP per capita fell by an average of 0.7% between 1971 and 2013 (World Bank 2015: 1), weather-related damages and losses caused an average decline of 2% of GDP per year in Haiti from 1975 to 2012, and approximately 50% of tropical storm related losses in Haiti’s productive sector have fallen in the agricultural domain (World Bank 2015: 14). The silting of freshwater, brackish water, and reef habitats have caused a dramatic decrease in viable fish and aquatic resources, which has adversely affected the livelihoods of those rural residents dependent on fishing as their major livelihood strategy. • A resultant widespread rural out migration; Decreased agricultural productivity in many areas of Haiti has increased rural out-migration, as few other economic opportunities currently exist in rural areas (World Bank 2015: 35). While many Haitians would rather stay in the countryside, a complex set of environmental, social, technical and economic factors incentivizes the trend to leave the countryside that started in the 1930s and accelerated in the early 1980s (ibid.). Rural Haitians have migrated to larger towns and cities, the capital city of Port-au-Prince, or have become members of the expansive Haitian diaspora abroad. Port-au-Prince, initially constructed to hold tens of thousands of people, had swelled to a greater metropolitan area of approximately three million people by the time of the 2010 earthquake. According to the US Census of the same year, approximately one million Haitians lived in the United States, and this figure represented only 43% of the entire Haitian diaspora abroad (Wah 2013: 59). • Increased exposure to environmental hazards; Regrettably, the crowded and marginalized urban spaces where many rural Haitian migrate frequently present more environmental health hazards than those found in the deteriorating ecological conditions of rural areas. The rapid spread of cholera and the chikungunya virus, and the high mortality levels of the 2010 earthquake, are testament to the fragile living conditions of many urban areas in Haiti. • Increases in hunger, malnutrition and under-nutrition. Those Haitians that abandon rural areas lose access to year-round and seasonal supplementary sources of nutrition from rivers, streams, woodlands, orchards, communal courtyards, and gardens, which may otherwise augment their diets. Instead, many urban dwelling Haitians are forced to rely on purchased foodstuffs, frequently imported and of low nutritional value. Imports in Haiti have increased from approximately 30% of GDP in the early 1980s to some 50% of GDP in the early 2010s, with food imports representing approximately 35% of total imports over the last ten years (World Bank 2015: 17) The traditional rural breakfast of corn or sorghum porridge is increasingly replaced by imported spaghetti, topped with mayonnaise and ketchup. The traditional rice varieties of the Artibonite valley are increasingly replaced with lower-cost but less nutritious, imported white rice exported from the United States3. Citrus and other natural fruit juices that are available in rural areas of Haiti are increasingly replaced with high-sugar energy drinks, and rurally-produced bread is frequently replaced with high-sugar biscuits and crackers. Those Haitians that elect to remain in rural areas also suffer from increasing levels of hunger, malnutrition, and under-nutrition. The 3 Known in Haiti as ‘Miami rice,’ due to the common 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 the availability of many traditional sources of dietary supplementation. One traditional strategy of mitigating crop failure—reducing the number of meals consumed a day—is fast becoming the new norm of rural Haiti, as rains come less-frequently and soil fertility declines. • Increased human vulnerabilities to tropical storms, hurricanes, and extreme climatic events. Despite large increases in rural-out migration, the majority of the Haitian population continues to reside in rural areas. Rural Haitian populations often encounter tropical storms and hurricanes that may cause landslides. Landslides also block important road systems, preventing access to hospitals, and to important transportation routes for farmers dependent on marketing their agricultural goods at regional and national markets. A World Bank report noted that Haiti has a higher number of disasters per km2 than the average of Caribbean countries, and estimates that in 2008 alone, 15% of GDP was lost due to hurricanes and tropical storms (World Bank 2015: xi). Typically there is little governmental support for rehabilitation of damaged infrastructure, and local residents must mobilize with hand tools to clear the roads that are crucial to the economy of their internal market systems. An increased awareness and acknowledgement of these historical and contemporaneous trends in human and ecological vulnerabilities has given rise to an emphasis on landscape-level approaches to land management in Haiti, and increasingly a shift toward targeted watershed management. Outline of the Report This report reviews the available literature as an initial point-of-departure, providing a diachronic overview of sixty years of landscape management research and integrated landscape project activities in Haiti, spanning eight decades. The reporting period extends from the early efforts of the first integrated development program of the United Nations in Haiti in 1948, through the 2014 consummation of project activities associated with the USAID-funded Watershed Initiative for National Natural Environmental Resources (WINNER). Section I of this report opens with a brief environmental history of Haiti, followed by an analysis of the current state of environmental conditions, and closes with an examination of contemporary human and landscape vulnerabilities to acute and chronic environmental degradation and extreme climatic events. Section II of the report provides a brief summary of 15 regional or national landscape-level land management projects enacted in Haiti since the middle of the 20th century. Section III concludes the report with a summary of important themes and applicable lessons that crosscut the history of landscape-level management projects in Haiti. Section IV provides a bibliography of important documents related to the issues examined in this report. This bibliography is intended to serve as a resource for future researchers, policy-makers, program administrators, project implementers, and project beneficiaries working on landscape level land management projects in Haiti. 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. The Historical Deforestation of Haiti The gradual removal of the original forests of Haiti is a complex process that spans five centuries and continues today. Popular accounts frequently rely on a gross simplification of this process, framing deforestation in Haiti as the result of an ecologically-disconnected peasantry, with little forethought to the consequences of their environmentally deleterious actions. To illustrate, deforestation in Haiti is frequently contributed to the production of charcoal, though the vast majority of Haiti’s original forests fell far before the charcoal trade roared to life in the early decades of the 20th century. The brief history of deforestation provided here corrects some of these misconceptions, offering a pragmatically abbreviated chronology with particular focus on acute events and chronic trends that are likely to have a direct bearing on the success or failure of future landscape-level management plans for Haiti. The Colonial Period The ecology of the island of Hispaniola remained fairly unexploited for most of the 16th century, as Spanish colonial interests were focused on the procurement of gold rather than the extraction of natural resources or agricultural production (Lindskog 1998). In the late 17th century the environment of the island began to change rapidly with the renewed human presence of French emigrants and enslaved people from West and Central Africa. Anthropogenic influences on the environment of Haiti began to register a visibly notable change during the agricultural intensification activities promoted by 18th century colonial powers (Moya Pons 2007). Cultivation of the initial colonial export crops—sugar, tobacco, indigo and cotton—saw the clearing of lowland plains (ibid.). The colonial plantation strategy of cultivating lowland agricultural production was pursued on several grounds: (1) lowland areas are more accessible by roads; (2) plains in Haiti are predominantly coastal and in closer proximity to maritime vessels; (3) uniform plains had higher levels of moisture or were otherwise irrigable; and (4) many of the lowlands of Haiti contain rich, alluvial soil deposits. The initial low-elevation locus of agricultural production in Haiti did spare the removal of trees and vegetative cover from surrounding mountain ranges. The booming colony required wood for a variety of purposes, but principally for construction and fuel-wood used in sugar refinement for the increasing number of plantations (Catanese 1999). Later, trees were cleared from higher elevations to cultivate coffee—a lucrative export crop (ibid.). Records from the early colony and the new Republic are replete with mention of the felling of large hardwood trees, and the encroachment of less desirable tree species (Tarter 2015b). 18 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti In particular, the colonial period saw the commencement of a wood-extraction based economy. French ships carrying enslaved people from the African continent returned to Europe with hulls loaded with valuable timber (Diamond 2005). While the more easily accessible areas of Haiti suffered arboreal denudation during this period, many remote forest stands remained protected by their relative isolation due to the lack of accessible inroads. The Post-Independence Period Toward the end of the 13-year Haitian revolutionary period, lowland colonial plantations were burned and equipment destroyed. After the 1804 declaration of independence, the vast majority of Haitians fanned out throughout the mountainous areas of the country, establishing the traditional lakou (collective kinship habitations) of rural Haiti. Through the lakou system, Haitian farmers successfully resisted multiple attempts by early leaders of the fledgling Republic to reinstate the plantation model of agricultural production (Moral 1961). The historical dispersal of humans from lowland plains and their subsequent resettlement in mountainous areas resulted in an unusual occurrence: the reestablishment of the lowland forests of Haiti. Analyses of tree pollen from a sediment core extracted from Lake Miragoâne in southern Haiti noted a large arboreal expansion after 1804 (Brenner and Binford 1988). This regenerative arboreal expansion has direct bearing on the current state of Haiti’s ecology—a point that will be revisited subsequently, and which has policy programming implications for landscape level land management in the current era. While the lowland areas of Haiti temporarily reestablished with trees after the destruction of the colonial plantation system and a decentralizing nationwide migration, it was only a temporary reversal of the predominant trend—an on-going removal of arboreal and vegetative covers. Deforestation during the post-colonial era was not caused by the production of charcoal, which did not commence on a large scale in Haiti until the early decades of the 20th century. Two principal forces drove tree removal in newly independent Haiti: (1) Haitian government payments on a war indemnity to France, financed by timber concessions to private companies; and (2) the clearing of land for agricultural production, enacted by hundreds of thousands of farm families spread throughout the rural countryside (Tarter 2015b). In 1825 Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed that Haiti would pay France a post-war indemnity of 150 million francs—a paralyzing amount for the new Republic—as reparations to French slave and plantation owners for income lost after the world’s first successful slave revolt. The indemnity agreement, ostensibly established to ensure that France would not reinvade Haiti, is a historically curious concession, considering France’s multiple, failed attempts to retake the former colony. The Haitian government supported indemnity payments to France largely by selling forest concessions to foreign timber corporations. In 1838, the indemnity was renegotiated to nearly half of the original amount, with the requirement that the remaining amount be paid in full in 30 years (Moya Pons 2007; Bulmer-Thomas 2012). Four years later, legal mahogany exports doubled, and in 1842 exceeded 4.0 million cubic feet (Moya Pons 2007). Despite this surge in timber exportation, hardwood trees were still abundant in Haiti late into the 19th century. As one observer noted in 1878, ‘the variety of [hardwood] production seems to be almost infinite, and the supply inexhaustible’ (Stuart 1878: 267). After many of the easily accessible lowland areas of Haiti had been exploited for wood, the principal means of extracting timber shifted to dragging felled trees into the small mountain streambeds that form the many tributaries of Haiti’s multiple watersheds (Chandler 1842). With the arrival of annual torrential rainfall, these seasonally dry or low-flowing streambeds would swell, carrying the felled trees into increasingly larger rivers and eventually toward deltas where they could be prepared for export by maritime vessels (ibid.). Despite this shift deeper into the interior of Haiti, the mountainous nature of the country and the difficulty of accessing remoter areas protected many remaining hardwood stands. Deforestation in the 20th Century The first three decades of the 20th century saw the removal of most remaining hardwood forest stands in Haiti, the overexploitation of secondary arboreal growth, and the continued encroachment of former forestland by exotic tree species. The early decades of this century are marked by the US Marine occupation (1915-1934) and their establishment of a network of new roads and the improvement of earlier roads constructed by French colonialists (Leyburn 1941). The new network of improved roads in Haiti facilitated increased travel between rural and urban areas. While these new roads also encouraged urban migration, the increased urbanization during this period was not unique to Haiti—it was a phenomenon experienced globally. As Haiti increasingly urbanized—like many countries of the Caribbean—the demand for agricultural and wood products increased to meet urban needs. The changing Haitian landscape was the result of a complex interaction between immediate drivers and underlying causes of land-use change. Rapidly increasing population coupled with a decrease in agricultural productivity, spatial extensification of agricultural production and the reduction of previously fallow periods, urbanization and increasing demand for food and fuel, the expansion of road networks connecting the previously isolated hinterland to growing markets, and complementary though parallel land and tree tenure regimes all played their role in the evolution towards the highly dispersed and decentralized food and wood production system observed in Haiti today. As Haitians in areas of close proximity to urban centers intensified their agricultural production, charcoal production was shifted to the next geographically proximate location that was 19 accessible by roads. As existing roads were limited to the national highways and lesser roads of poor condition, deforestation on a national level continued in a geospatially differential manner. Once previously forested or brush-covered areas gave away to agricultural production, charcoal production shifted again. From east of Port au-Prince, charcoal production shifted offshore, to the island of La Gonâve; from La Gonâve, charcoal production moved to the northwest peninsula; from the northwest peninsula, charcoal production swung to the more remote southern peninsula, and to a lesser extent to the central plateau (Smucker 1981; Conway 1979; Voltaire 1979). The result of the extension of the agricultural frontier was the near-to-complete arboreal denudation of easily accessible areas, largely following in a sequential order based on geographical proximity to the ever-swelling capital city and smaller urban agglomerations. Today, the lack of access to arable land is an on going frustration expressed by younger members of society. The latter half of the 20th century saw the establishment of hundreds of kilometers of new roads, which opened up the vast remainder of previously inaccessible areas the country. The community-based organization Harmonisation de l’Action des Communautés Haïtiennes Organisées (HACHO), operating in the northwest of Haiti, shifted to focus on road construction in 1968. By 1982 HACHO had constructed a network of over 600 kilometers of unpaved roads (Brinkerhoff et al. 1983). In the mid-1970s, USAID financed the Agricultural Feeder Roads Project, constructed over 300 kilometers of new roads by December 1982 (USAID 1983). Multiple road projects in Haiti also originated at the hands of local community councils and were spurred by the initiative of local churches or foreign missionary groups (Smucker et al. 1979). Considering just the USAID and HACHO projects, more than 900 kilometers of new roads were established in Haiti from around the 1970s through to the early 1980s. Nine hundred kilometers of new roads is a remarkable addition 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 of original hardwood forests was rapidly filled by at least two exotic tree species: mesquite4 (Prosopis juliflora), and to a lesser extent, logwood5 (Haematoxylum campechianum) (Tarter 2015b). By 1930, the former tree species was the most common tree in the dry forests that dominate the majority of Haiti’s varied ecosystems, and the most utilized tree species for charcoal production (Gill 1931). By the 1940s, Prosopis juliflora was the most common tree in some 80 different forest-transect surveys conducted in an area north of Port-au-Prince (Curtis 1947). In 1976, the author of the first in a series of preliminary reports, which would eventually lead to the largest tree-planting project in the history of Haiti, concluded that managed Prosopis plantations could meet all of Haiti’s domestic wood needs (Earl 1976). Multiple authors of the widely-cited 1985 Haiti Environmental Profile Report noted the widespread extent of Prosopis trees and the long tradition of Haitian farmers managing the species for wood and for charcoal production (Ehrlich et al. 1985). By 1991, the World Bank reported that natural Prosopis stands 4 Bayawonn or bayahonn, in Haitian Creole. 5 Kanpèch, in Haitian Creole. dominated approximately 1/10th of Haiti’s land surface (World Bank 1991). In a recent nation-level remote-sensing analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery from 2010 and 2011, trees were found to cover approximately 1/3rd of the surface of Haiti, and trees and woody shrubs combined to cover 3/4ths of the surface of Haiti (Churches et al. 2014). A similar ratio of tree and shrub coverage was reported in an analogous study of the large offshore island of La Gonâve, based on high-resolution satellite photos from 1990 and 2010 (White et al. 2013). And finally, in a broader study of land changes within the Greater Antilles between 2001 and 2010, researchers discovered that 26 different Haitian municipalities underwent significant changes to woody vegetation (8 decreased and 18 increased) and 48 municipalities experienced significant changes in mixed-woody plantations (9 decreased and 39 increased) (Álvarez-Berríos et al. 2013: 88-91). In overall land percentages for the entire country, woody vegetation experienced a 1% increase while mixed-woody/plantations increased by 4%, or 368 km2 (89). These studies combined point to an arboreal phenomenon that stands in stark contrast to popular conceptions of tree-cover in Haiti (Tarter 2016), and demands further elucidation. 22 A History of Landscape-level Land Management Efforts in Haiti In 2012, geographers from Virginia Tech undertook a land-use/land-change analysis of Haiti’s largest offshore island of La Gonâv