In the heart of the Nippes department, there is a series of waterfalls so magnificent that not one, but two spirits are believed to dwell there. The Sault du Baril waterfall is visited by more than 150,000 local tourists every year. While these seasonal visitors may not notice it, people living in the community around the waterfall are seeing changes in their environment and even in the amount of water running into these sacred basins each year.
The Point Vert, or green points pilot is focused on the lands above the waterfall, where severe erosion has begun to affect the soil’s ability to retain the water that filters into the streams. Farmers who are part of the community organization known as MODESBA, have been cultivating the hillsides for generations. Like 80% of Haiti, the Saut du Baril community is situated on steep mountains characterized by a patchwork of severely denuded zones where, in the absence of trees and other greenery, heavy rains have washed away the richest layers of soil.
In areas like these, farmers cannot plant gardens anymore. The soil can’t hold onto seeds and there isn’t any nutrition left for plants to thrive. However, there are hearty trees and shrubs that can not only survive these conditions, but they can also begin to bring the soil back to life by infusing it with nutrients and helping to retain moisture after it rains.
Through the Point Vert pilot, farmers in the area are asked to do two important things in order to receive support. If they agree to fence off the most vulnerable part of their land and allow trees or plants to grow there for two years, they receive a payment for the use of the land along with the trees, shrubs and grasses than can help restore the soil to a more productive state.
The Point Vert pilot project in Sault du Baril is an example of a payment for ecosystem services model, where the farmers are paid to keep the trees on their plot alive until they are big enough and strong enough to survive on their own. In Haiti, the biggest enemy of greenery like trees and shrubs are goats. Goats are extremely valuable and are often the only back up a family has in case of health or other emergency. Goats are allowed to graze freely because of the value they represent. Through the Point Vert pilot, MODESBA is able to pay families to keep trees alive long enough for them to have more value alive over the long-term –because they are mature enough to produce fruit – than they do in the short-term as food for goats.
In addition to renewing the land for the benefit of individual families, MODESBA is concerned with the health of the beautiful Sault du Baril waterfalls. The Point Vert pilot will have a visible impact on the entire water system because of the concentration of plantations along the headwaters of the watershed.