HAITI / DEFORESTATION

Haiti's environmental problems are reaching a breaking point. But some Haitians, like Jane Wynne, are taking matters into their own hands, and are doing all that they can to save the country's few remaining trees. MINUSTAH

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:50
• Production Date: 27 July 2009
• Asset Language: Original
• Subject Topical: PEACE AND SECURITY; NATURAL RESOURCES; ENVIRONMENT
• Geographic Subject: HAITI; UNITED NATIONS STABILIZATION MISSION IN HAITI - MINUSTAH
• MAMS Id: U090727b

Description

STORY: HAITI / DEFORESTATION
TRT: 2.50
SOURCE: MINUSTAH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ CREOLE/ NATS

DATELINE: 1 JULY 2009, KENSKOFF, HAITI

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, denuded hills with flowers
2. Close up, hummingbird with flowers
3. Close up, flowers
4. Wide shot, exotic black bamboo trees
5. Wide shot, Jane Wynne cutting plant stalks
6. Close up, cutting plant stalks
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Wynne, Environmentalist, Wynne Farm:
“We’ve been working for years on top of this mountain - my dad started terracing this corner of Haiti, it’s about 30 acres of land - to leave it as an example of how to work the land on hillsides.”
8. Wide shot, hillside
9. Zoom out, farmers working on denuded hillside
10. Wide shot, a few trees
11. Wide shot, man cutting a tree
12. Med shot, cut tree trunks
13. Med shot, cut tree trunk and Fidel Adja
14. Med shot, cut tree trunk
15. SOUNDBITE (Creole) Fidel Adja, Surveyor, Wynne Farm:
“People can’t just go hungry. They need fuel to cook food with. So they cut down a tree. They make a little charcoal, and sell it to buy food.”
16. Wide shot, kid walking near a cut tree trunk
17. Wide shot, local forest ranger walking through a field
18. SOUNDBITE (Creole) Orisme Saint Bonheur, Forest Agent:
“The first time we find someone who is cutting trees, we try to explain them why they shouldn’t do it. The second time, we arrest them and bring them to police.”
19. Tilt down, Jane Wynne giving environmental classes
20. Close up, Jane Wynne talking
21. Wide shot, students in the class
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Wynne, Environmentalist, Wynne Farm:
“We have this place; it’s like a center in education on the environment. Our house, our farm, is open to everyone.”
23. Med shot, students pressing water out of a briquette maker
24. Med shot, students making briquettes
25. Wide shot, students in a circle making briquettes
26. Pan right, students looking at a paper briquettes
27. SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Wynne, Environmentalist, Wynne Farm:
“They come and they say, talk to us about ecology, because we hear about protecting the biosphere on the radio, protecting the environment. Tell the students, tell the adults. What does that mean – protecting the environment?”
28. Med shot, students observing making organic compost
29. Close up, cutting grasses with a machete
30. Wide shot, man cutting grasses in front of students
31. Med shot, Jane Wynne making compost
32. Wide shot, students making compost
33. SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Wynne, Environmentalist, Wynne Farm:
“It’s been a long fight. It is still a fight today. It’s only now we can say that people are starting to understand what we’ve been doing for years, only now, and I’m very happy.”
34. Med shot, students walking through the gardens at Wynne Farm
35. Med shot, students walking through pine forest

Storyline

Haiti’s environmental problems are reaching a breaking point. Massive deforestation along the country’s hillsides has turned this tropical paradise into a wasteland of desert and scrub. The dry parched soil grows fewer and fewer crops, and flooding claims hundreds of lives every year.

But this secret garden outside the capital still flourishes – its exotic flora and fauna are nearly all that remains of Haiti’s lush past.

Thanks to Jane Wynne. She’s dedicated her life to protecting the country’s dwindling forests.

SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Wynne, Environmentalist, Wynne Farm:
“We’ve been working for years on top of this mountain - my dad started terracing this corner of Haiti, it’s about 30 acres of land - to leave it as an example of how to work the land on hillsides.”

Wynne’s father adapted the terracing practices of the Incas in Peru to the steep hillsides of Wynne Farm. However, local farmers have been slow to adapt to the innovation, causing widespread erosion. With fewer crops and an exploding population, desperate farmers clear away trees in search of new farmland.

Peasants encroach on Wynne Farm, to steal its valuable trees for charcoal fuel. Gas is too expensive and electricity is scarce. Environmentalist Fidel Adja says this forces millions of people to cut trees to survive.

SOUNDBITE (Creole) Fidel Adja, Surveyor, Wynne Farm:
“People can’t just go hungry. They need fuel to cook food with. So they cut down a tree. They make a little charcoal, and sell it to buy food.”

The Haitian government is only just beginning to manage the problem, by creating local forest rangers like Orisme Saint Bonheur.

SOUNDBITE (Creole) Orisme Saint Bonheur, Forest Agent:
“The first time we find someone who is cutting trees, we try to explain to them why they shouldn’t do it. The second time, we arrest them and bring them to police.”

But Wynne says the sanctions are not enough. Wynne Farm is using education to discourage people from tree cutting. This group from Port-au-Prince is learning why deforested hillsides cause flooding in the cities.

SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Wynne, Environmentalist, Wynne Farm:
“We have this place; it’s like a center in education on the environment. Our house, our farm, is open to everyone.”

Wynne’s strategy is to teach people cheap, practical alternatives to charcoal energy. Here the group is learning how to make burnable briquettes out of recycled paper.

SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Wynne, Environmentalist, Wynne Farm:
“They come and they say, talk to us about ecology, because we hear about protecting the biosphere on the radio, protecting the environment. Tell the students, tell the adults. What does that mean – protecting the environment?”

For most, this is the only environmental education they’ve ever received. Wynne Farm educates a few thousand people per year – a drop in the bucket, but things are beginning to change.

SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Wynne, Environmentalist, Wynne Farm:
“It’s been a long fight. It is still a fight today. It’s only now we can say that people are starting to understand what we’ve been doing for years, only now, and I’m very happy.”

The real challenge for Haiti will be strengthening state control on forests, and finding alternative sources of energy for the country’s eight million people.