Delayed Truck Delivery

A delivery of one truck with 500 trees costs $30. Saturday we delivered several loads and the last delivery had trouble. The driver was committed to going on a road along the beach, but unfortunately, the truck got stuck in the sand along the way, almost being completely submerged.

Over thirty locals had to come out and help push the truck out of the wet sand. Enel and the team had to unload the trees in the dark and got home very late that night.

Trees on the Move

Our trees have been outgrowing their nursery bags. No one likes to dig in hard soil, so people have been waiting for the rain to take them home to plant. Luckily, this past Friday it rained all weekend. Now our Nursery Manager, Enel, has been able to deliver trees to good homes.

A New Presentation on Eating Healthy

Thanks to financial support from Trees that Feed Foundation, Pastor and Agronomist Nerva is planning presentations for schools in Les Cayes on the importance of eating nutritious foods that grow from trees.

Each of the 200 children will receive a breadfruit meal once a month along with his inspiring lecture. The breadfruits come from farmers that work with THTP to plant trees that provide agroforestry.

Agronomist Remy's Commitment

Agronomist Remy has committed to growing a variety of trees on his family's land in Saint Louis de Sud. Five hundred avocado and Breadnut trees will go in the ground this week with many more to be planted each rainy season.

It’s exciting because we believe his dediication will help us get a high tree survival rate. In the past, we’ve often given trees in small numbers to get good survival rates, but planting hundreds on one farmer’s land requires more work than they can usually take on. Two major reasons for this are grazing animals and a lack of water nearby during times of drought.

To increase tree survival, Remy has picked land near a water source. We’ve provided him with barbed wire, and in exchange, his family is committed to building the fence, planting the trees, and watering the trees between rains. We’ll track these trees and provide updates on the results in the months to come.

Sous Captaj

This is the cover of the spring called Sous Kaptaj where the water travels through pipes above and below ground serviing many villages with clean water. The community is very interested in fencing in and reforesting the mountainous watershed behind this spring. We’ll be meeting with the community leaders to discuss how to go about carrying out this vision.

Watershed for Sous Captaj

The watershed in Sous Cataj is completely deforested, and the mountains are devoid of trees from clear-cutting in the last 50 years. To change that, this month, a lot of our community discussions have been centered on reversing this phenomenon. We know the first step is to protect the land from grazing animals with fencing. When we receive donations that go beyond our nursery budget, we’re going to invest in watershed protection by purchasing the barbed wire in exchange for labor and posts from the community.

As you walk around the water spring and into the mountain, you easily see the deforestation. For each $300 we spend on fencing, we are able to fence in and protect enough mountainside for about fruit and forest 2,500 trees. We’re hoping by the end of 2022 we will have started a forest on several hectares of watershed here.

Stocking Up On Bags

We purchased 20,000 bags this week because the price was really good! Two cents for each forest bag and three cents each for fruit tree seedling bags. We'll hold on to the bags and start planting them in December in preparation for the April rains.

We hope the Holiday fundraiser campaign is a success so we can start a variety of 20,000 seeds by January!

Breadnut Trees Ready to Go!

The breadnut trees we planted in late October ready to be given to the best farmers.

Watershed + Fencing Update

Below is the watershed we are protecting with the 4 acres of fenced in area.

Although you can’t see it below, as you go up the mountain the land becomes more degraded until it is barren at the top. This fence will protect the watershed and seedlings from grazing animals. We’ll mostly plant a variety of fruit trees in this area.

Below, you can see our team members working hard to build our new fence.

There are two springs now that have fences around them closing in the watershed.

We fenced up the mountain on La Sous Lasikri so that we could reforest a few hundred trees there without having animals eat them or passerbys step on them.

We also fenced in the main spring near LaSikri that serves many villages with piped water. There are large trees around the spring there and some degraded land that is now all fenced in. We intend to plant more shade loving trees there like cacao.

The area in LaSikri is completely deforested from animals grazing and passerbys walking on plants. The area isn't ideal to plant, but it's a priority for reforesting the region. Our hope is to continue fencing in the watershed on the mountains and behind this area.

Peak Into Our Nursery