30431: Leiderman: information: new USAID-Haiti environmental report (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leiderman@mindspring.com


20 May 2007

dear Readers:

here is a new US-government report concerning Haiti's environmental vulnerability.  this seems to be the first major report of its kind since the middle 1980's but the recommendations seem to be unchanged -- Haitians should abandon their countryside and seek city jobs in factories, buy imported foods and leave the management and control of the country's land, water and other natural resources in someone else's hands.

this report has profound implications on how one defines Haitians' birthrights.  I've included an excerpt below.  see what you think.

thank you for any comments and please circulate widely.

Stuart Leiderman
leiderman@mindspring.com

- - - - - - -

Smucker, Glenn R. et al. 2007. Environmental Vulnerability in Haiti: Findings and Recommendations. Chemionics International Inc. and the U.S. Forest Service for US Agency for International Development. April. 141 pages.  www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/Haiti_Final.pdf on 20 May 2007

[excerpt]

PREFACE
The assessment team for this report is deeply appreciative of the time and enthusiasm shown by all those interviewed in the field, the stimulating questions and comments by workshop participants in Petion-Ville and Washington, and the special support provided
> by Julie Kunen, USAID/Washington, Dana Roth, US Forest Service, and Lionel Poitevien and Ben Swartley of the USAID/Haiti Mission.
> This report will be available in both English and French. The cover photograph of the Roseaux watershed in GrandÃââAnse was taken by Joel Timyan. Authors can be contacted as follows:
Glenn R. Smucker, Cultural Anthropologist
Smucker Consulting, grsmucker@aol.com
Michael Bannister, Forester, Agroforester
Center for Subtropical Forestry, University of Florida, Mikebann@ufl.edu
Heather DÃââAgnes, Population-Environment Technical Advisor
USAID/Washington, GH/PRH/PEC, hdagnes@usaid.gov
Yves Gossin, Agronomist, Lawyer
Consultant, Haiti, yvesgossin@yahoo.fr
Marc Portnoff, Engineer
Center for Advanced Fuel Technology, Carnegie-Mellon University,
mp1a@andrew.cmu.edu
Joseph Ronald Toussaint, Agronomist, Biodiversity Specialist
Consultant, Haiti, josephronaldt@yahoo.fr
Joel Timyan, Forester Ecologist, Oak Hill, Florida
(386) 345-0048, jctimyan@yahoo.com
Scot Tobias, Environmental Health Specialist
Associates in Rural Development, Inc., Stobias@ardinc.com

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report was prepared in response to a Congressional directive that, ÃâÅafter consultation with appropriate international development organizations and Haitian officials, organizations and communities, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development shall submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations setting forth a plan for the reforestation of areas in Haiti that are vulnerable to erosion which pose significant danger to human health and safety.Ãâ This launched an iterative process that has encompassed analyses and consultations, and follow-up recommendations.

BACKGROUND
For this report, which contributes to furthering the response to this mandate, USAID contracted a multi-disciplinary team of experts to assess environmental vulnerability in Haiti. The assessment team has interpreted its scope broadly to include not only vulnerability to erosion but also an array of land use practices and related concerns, such as better management of critical watersheds, improved rural livelihoods, sustainable forest management, and reduction in the vulnerability of the Haitian populace to natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes.

METHODS
The team was composed of nine international and Haitian specialists with advanced degrees in cultural anthropology, natural resource management, agronomy, GIS analysis, public health, and biofuel technologies. Five team members are well known Haiti specialists with extensive field experience in research and program implementation. To
carry out its study, the team consulted widely with the government, the private sector, major international donors, and grassroots organizations. In May 2006, the team carried out two weeks of fieldwork in Haiti. The team presented its preliminary findings for feedback and discussion at workshops in Haiti (July 2006) and Washington (August
2006). An earlier study, which reviewed HaitiÃââs public sector capacity for natural resource management and disaster preparedness, and current activities of other major environmental donors in Haiti, laid the ground for the present report.

TRENDS
Natural Disasters
Haiti has long been vulnerable to tropical storms and hurricanes; however, in recent years, the country has been afflicted by a significant increase in severe natural disasters. The country lies on the primary pathway of tropical storms that originate in the Atlantic
and strike Caribbean islands every hurricane season. Despite the destructive power of gale force winds, loss of human life from tropical storms in Haiti is due primarily to severe flash floods in eroded watersheds that wash down on poor riverine and coastal floodplain communities. HaitiÃââs disastrous floods of 2004 in GonaÃÂves and other areas serve as a warning of major threats to densely populated districts of Port-au-Prince and other major coastal cities.

Population
Haiti has a youthful and rapidly growing population which is increasingly clustered in urban areas. Based on the census of 2003, Haiti's current population is estimated at 8.4 million people. The annual population growth rate is 2.5 percent per year and women
average 4.9 children. At present rates, the Haitian population will grow to 10 million by 2010, an increase of 19 percent in just four years. HaitiÃââs mountainous agricultural base has long surpassed its carrying capacity and cannot support this rate of population growth.

Rapid Urbanization
Like other countries in the region, Haiti is experiencing rapid urban growth, but not urban job creation. On the contrary, since the early 1980s, the Haitian economy has been marked by a long-term pattern of negative growth and increased poverty. As in sub-Saharan Africa, Haiti is experiencing "premature urbanizationÃâ Ãââ the agricultural sector
is not productive and urban areas are not generating economic growth. Despite these economic conditions, HaitiÃââs overall rate of urban population growth is 3.63 percent compared to 0.92 percent in rural areas. Port-au-Prince alone is growing by 5 percent annually, and 40 percent of Haiti's population lives in urban settlements, including
shantytowns in coastal flood plains such as CitÃÂ Soleil in Port-au-Prince, Raboteau in GonaÃÂves, and La Faucette in Cap-HaÃÂtien. The Port-au-Prince metropolitan area now comprises one-fourth of HaitiÃââs entire population. Given the sheer scale of settlement in
coastal flood plains, predicted deaths due to catastrophic flooding in Port-au-Prince would far surpass all other disasters in HaitiÃââs meteorological record.

The high rate of population growth and rapid urban expansion do not allow aquifers and floodplains to function as natural storage and filters particularly during flood conditions. Due to unplanned urbanization, hard surfaces caused by anarchic construction methods
prevent the infiltration of surface water required to recharge the countryÃââs most important aquifers, located in the major plains of Cul-de-Sac, GonaÃÂves, LÃÂogane, Les Cayes and Cap-HaÃÂtien.

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Root Causes of Environmental Disaster
The assessment team has concluded that the root causes of environmental disaster in Haiti are acute poverty, rapid population growth and unplanned urbanization. In the short term, it remains critical to convert hillsides to tree-based perennial agriculture; however,
the teamÃââs most important recommendations are for long-term actions that fall outside the realm of traditional soil conservation and reforestation efforts.

First, prospects for reduced vulnerability to natural disaster in Haiti are very limited in the absence of broad based economic development. In the long run, it is imperative to generate a large number of permanent long-term jobs and viable alternatives to farming the countryÃââs hillsides. This objective could be facilitated, for example, by US legislation favoring trade policy to support the assembly industry in Haiti and also the export of high value fruit crops

Second, an environmental management plan geared to mitigate environmental vulnerability must integrate demographic parameters and take steps to alleviate population pressure by providing access to voluntary family planning information and services. This argues for a national effort (building off current mission and donor efforts)
to integrate voluntary family planning service provision with the protection of vulnerable watersheds, economic growth activities, and mitigation efforts in urban flood plain communities.

Hillside Agriculture
The present assessment shows clearly that the future of Haiti does not reside with intensively-managed hillside agriculture. The countryÃââs steeply sloped agricultural plots require substantial investments to keep soil, water and agricultural inputs in place. Hillside farmers have long farmed HaitiÃââs slopes; however, these slopes were never
suited to annual agriculture and most farmers cannot afford the cost of installing and maintaining appropriate agricultural practices. There is also no evidence that either the Haitian state or donors can afford the high investments required to make hillside agriculture productive on a sustainable basis. Therefore, despite our best efforts, most
Haitian landscapes will never consist of an ideal of hillside farms meeting high standards of soil and water conservation, mixing perennial and annual crops, benefiting from profitable marketing strategies, attaining adequate rural incomes, and providing equitably for upstream and downstream users alike. There will undoubtedly be sites where
something close to this ideal model can be achieved, but these will be islands in the overall landscape. Rather, the primary ÃâÅnaturalÃâ resource to be managed in Haiti is the intellectual power and work ethic of the Haitian people. Dysfunctional economic and political structures have prevented Haitians from exploiting their individual capacities. In the long run, Haiti must develop non-agricultural economic motors in secondary cities throughout the country, with improved education feeding employees into those businesses. Instead of
succeeding though natural resource management projects, it is more likely that improved watershed management will eventually be achieved when the rural population leaves mountainous regions and finds alternate employment in lowland areas, coastal cities and beyond Ãââ the Puerto Rican model. Unless the current hillside population density
decreases significantly, reforestation in the sense of reestablishing the previously-existing forest will never be possible.

Watershed Interventions
In the near term, landscape restoration is urgently needed in selected watersheds. This will buy time for longer-term efforts to boost broader economic growth, family planning, improved education, and good governance in secondary cities. Up to now, there has been no precedent in Haiti for successful interventions at the level of whole watersheds;
This legislation has now been adopted; success has been achieved at localized or pilot scales. Nevertheless, to effectively reduce
vulnerability, interventions must engage a critical mass of farmers and affect the preponderance of slopes within watersheds. The challenge, therefore, is to scale up interventions in scattered plots and isolated ravines, and promote alternatives to erosion-intensive agriculture on HaitiÃââs slopes. This includes increasing the proportion of the
landscape devoted to perennial crops rather than erosion-intensive annual food crops, off-farm employment generation including transformation of local agricultural products, and generally shifting agricultural pressures away from slopes onto more intensively
cultivated lowlands and other sites less vulnerable to erosion.
Valuable lessons have been learned from the successes and failures of previous projects in Haiti, especially in the areas of tree culture and marketing of agroforestry products. When properly targeted and implemented, project interventions on slopes can speed landscape restoration, restore the functions of ecosystems, mitigate poverty, and slow the anarchic population growth of HaitiÃââs cities. Using a participatory methodology, watershed management plans should be prepared for whole watersheds and should include identification of assets as well as high risk sites within watersheds. This process
should include the direct participation of local farmers and other watershed stakeholders including local government. Conversion of hillsides to tree-based perennial agriculture should be undertaken in a
context of national planning that takes food security into account as well as the capacity for urban centers and lowland agricultural zones to absorb significant increases in population. If grain and pulse production were to decline due to the widespread conversion of slopes to tree crops, Haiti would become even more dependent on food imports.
Therefore, complementary improvements in flatland agriculture are needed as well.

Watershed Vulnerability and Prioritization
There is little chance of reducing vulnerability to natural disaster unless the interventions encompass whole catchment areas and incorporate ridge-to-reef planning. To be effective, interventions must be part of an integrated approach, directly linking natural resource management with other pertinent sectors such as early warning, urban planning, reproductive health, and job creation programs. To be sustainable, watershed interventions must be rooted in participatory approaches with local levels of government, grassroots organizations, and resource user groups. Given the overwhelming challenges, it is imperative to establish priorities and make choices based on reliable data and careful analysis of risk and opportunity Prior to the
present study, HaitiÃââs watersheds had never been compared and ranked quantitatively in terms of their vulnerability to loss of human life, productive infrastructure, soil potential, or erosion risk. Therefore, the assessment team used geographic information systems (GIS) analysis and hazard mapping to develop an unprecedented new tool for (i) ranking
the relative vulnerability of HaitiÃââs watersheds and (ii) establishing priorities to mitigate risks of natural disaster and promote economic growth (please see map below that identifies priority watersheds). The teamÃââs vulnerability analysis of HaitiÃââs 54 major
watersheds identified four thematic clusters of high priority watersheds:

Port-au-Prince. There is virtually no chance of diminishing HaitiÃââs vulnerability to severe flooding without mitigation efforts that target densely populated urban neighborhoods. The Port-au-Prince metropolitan area has far and away the highest potential for loss of life and infrastructure if a disastrous flood occurs. This is due to
the sheer density of people living in the metro region, many in floodplains. Therefore, a task force is urgently required to create flood maps of high risk zones of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. A programmatic response should be firmly rooted in partnerships with neighborhood groups. The sheer scale of investment and organizational effort required to alleviate flood risk in the Cul-de-Sac watershed that encompasses Port-au-Prince will undoubtedly require a multi-donor strategy rather than reliance on a single donor.

Secondary Cities (Les Cayes, Trou du Nord and Jassa, La Quinte-GonaÃÂves, and Cap-HaÃÂtien). This cluster links high risk to population and infrastructure with high production potential. Therefore, program interventions in secondary cities and their
rural uplands should emphasize economic development along with natural resource protection and disaster preparedness. The Inter-American Development Bank and USAID job creation programs are already active in Les Cayes, GonaÃÂves, and Cap-HaÃÂtien.

High Mountains and Protected Areas (GrandÃââAnse, RiviÃÂre Jacmel, and Fonds Verrettes). The highland forests of these watersheds exercise a critical hydrological function as headwaters of more than a dozen rivers and have global significance for biodiversity. According to recent reports, the GrandÃââAnse region has become the countryÃââs principal source for the unsustainable harvest of wood charcoal. Therefore, this cluster links very high erosion risk with the regionÃââs high frequency of hurricanes and the opportunity to conserve HaitiÃââs most significant protected areas, Macaya and La Visite National Parks and the Pine Forest Reserve. Watersheds in this cluster
> would benefit from the development of a national heritage strategy together with the Haitian government and international NGOs, including co-management with local user groups and the promotion of ecotourism.

Manageable Size, Donor Absence and Vulnerability (Trou du Nord, Momance-LÃÂogane, LimbÃÂ, Tiburon/Port-Salut, Aquin/St. Louis du Sud). This cluster overlays manageable size with the absence of other donors whose efforts have instead targeted the lower Artibonite and some of the larger secondary cities. Watersheds in cluster 4 are conducive to ridge-to-reef management plans encompassing both urban and rural
sectors, and the income-generating capacity of local producer groups.
In sum, the USAID/Haiti Mission cannot directly intervene in all 54 major watersheds of Haiti. Therefore, it should devise a near term strategy for interventions in high priority watersheds. In general, prioritization should target high risk sites and link early warning
systems with watershed interventions, including best management of natural buffering systems such as highland forests, the estuaries of mangroves, and coastal wetlands.

Prospects for Biofuels in Haiti
Charcoal and fuelwood currently provide 75 percent of HaitiÃââs energy consumption. Given the importance of these products, the assessment team was asked to make recommendations regarding improved biofuels and biofuels management as an element of watershed management. The team recommends expansion of bio-energy crops including wood and oil bearing plants in response to viable markets, and incorporation of such crops on slopes and in soil conservation structures where feasible.
Future efforts should promote sustainable planting and harvesting of trees for charcoal and other wood products. Measures to increase the supply of fuelwood should include farm-site tree planting, more efficient carbonization, and massive diffusion of more efficient cookstoves, including more efficient charcoal stoves. To support these efforts, it is also important to advocate for a national strategy on sustainable charcoal production. Production of oil bearing crops in drier agricultural zones may be used to reduce soil erosion and improve watershed management; however, at the present time these crops
and their markets are not well established. Therefore, the Mission should closely monitor liquid biofuel opportunities and work with local stakeholders to define an action plan for pilot efforts in this sector.

CONCLUSION
A USAID strategy for intervening in high priority watersheds should be just one element of a long-term multi-sector strategy for major investments in economic development and off-farm employment in secondary cities, small towns, and flatlands. In order to have a
discernible impact, there should be a significantly heightened level of inter-donor collaboration at policy levels as well as the targeting of field interventions. Also, Mission programming should make use of other US government resources in addition to USAID expertise in urban planning, environmental management, coastal and marine resources,
and disaster preparedness. For such an approach to be effective, the US government should make a long-term commitment to poverty alleviation and to interventions in critical watersheds. An effective strategy will require seamless continuity of funding at major funding levels going well beyond scattered projects and intermittent three to five year project cycles. This will require a major commitment on the part of the US government, as well as an enabling political environment in Haiti.

- - - - - - -

leiderman@mindspring.com