by Monica Roy and Claire Frohman, Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL)
It’s January and the slightly cooler weather has made the SOIL farm in northern Haiti a very pleasant place to be! The nursery is as green as ever: full of avocado, cashew, orange, breadfruit, moringa, and mangrove trees. We have started collaborations with local community groups to plant the first batch of trees. This is the first community reforestation event of many more to come!
In addition to getting ready for community planting days, the SOIL nursery staff are also busy setting up a tracking system to document where all the trees are going to be planted. This system will allow for easy follow-up and tree care support as necessary over the coming year, as the trees get established in the ground, and will continue to do so in the many years to come, as the trees begin to green the mountainsides of Haiti!
All the trees will be planted using rich, organic compost generated by SOIL’s eco-toilets from the urban Cap-Haitien community of Shada. In order to celebrate the SOIL “poop loop” cycle of toilets to compost to tree planting, tours are being organized of the SOIL farm for Shada’s eco-toilet users.
We’re excited to provide the people of this urban community the chance to come out and see the positive impact that their toilets are having on Haiti’s environment and even more excited by the prospect of bringing our project full circle: where there is enough space and motivation, we are planning to plant some trees from our nursery in and near the households of our toilet users in Shada!
Stay tuned for more updates and thank you to all the generous donors who have supported this project.
Sustainable Development, Sustainable Livelihoods 