New Congressional Bill Proposes Debt-for-Nature Swap for Armenia and Haiti

I am suspiciously positive and skeptical at the same time for Haiti. The deforestation in Haiti is linked to the day to day drudgery of that Nations source of cooking fuel, charcoal.
At any one time one may drive the south highway from Port-au-Prince to Cayes and then over to Port Salut and north along the coast to Tiburon and Cap Dame Marie. I’ll wager that one would count over thirty massive trucks upon any afternoon loaded beyond capacity with thousands of pounds of charcoal in sacks destined for markets along their routes to P-a-P. This is an endless never ceasing activity. The three million plus in the greater P-a-P area and the attached sprawling settlements want to cook and produce heat for a plethora of other needs.
Replanting trees often meets with disaster.
The Bill for Haiti should be well thought forward in view of the culture and consequences of just what charcoal does for the growing population.
When I first entered Haiti over half a century ago there were perhaps 3 million as the nation’s population versus by my calculations of over 13 million today in 2018.
Since the 1960’s there has been endless changes and shifting of views without any real on-the-ground measures to curtail and replace the use of charcoal. A 1950’s effort to distribute kerosene cooking stoves met with failure when the price of that fuel surpassed Charcoal.
Haiti’s Leaders have been without their own conviction to alter the falling into the abyss syndrome that Haitians have been living with for decades upon decades.
Haiti is in no particular way better off today than it was in the 1950’s save for some superficial entities and the pretend to be democracy that is marginally better than living under the threat of the 1957-86 regime.
The money merchants who dwell along Rue des Miracles have little empathy not understanding of the trials and tribulations of the millions who sweat for their not-so-daily bread battling the odds to eek out a living in the agricultural arena.
The Haitians themselves must be provided with an alternate cooking fuel and jobs that take them out of the charcoal industry before such an ambitious and rewarding project may be undertaken.
Just try doing so without some real choices being cemented into the economy! I can guarantee failure before it is started.
The top may not lead-down-to-the-bottom. Life in Haiti is far too desperate to go about this project in a white-collar application. It will take political guts and devotion, with enormous conviction, education, and fill-in rewards to bridge the change-out from the charcoal industry that has decimated Haiti’s once lush and beautiful forests.
So many others of Haitian birth and want who have devoted their lives to the ambitions of re-forestation have been foiled by the run-away population growth that exceeds the country’s ability to feed itself since 1983 when food imports surpassed petroleum needs.
And we all have been reminded of just what a few cents rise in the cost of petrol did achieve in recent Haitian time.
The project is valid and needed, but must be worked forward and dove-tailed into the existing circumstance at hand.
CARE lost millions of trees back in the dechoukaj of 1986. Many hundreds of tree farmers have planted only to loose their fledgling forests to the in-opportunities of social unrest in Haiti.
Pa fe menm bagay sa ke yo te fe nan pase nou……Ayiti pa genyen tan pou jwe nan pwolemn sa…..twop moun paka fe vi you kounye-a….korido sa manke limye!
This honorable intention must be carefully previewed and worked into the Haitian economy. It will require years to bring about the stage upon which reforestation may succeed. I want this to happen, and so do millions of others!