Two years later and 1.4 million trees greener.

We’ve planted 1.4 million trees in Haiti since 2010, when we launched the Timberland Tree Nursery and Training project in the Gonaives region.

Less than 2% of Haiti’s original forests remain due to a long history of unsustainable land use practices and a continuing dependence on tree wood and charcoal for cooking and heating needs. The deforestation causes a decline in soil fertility which results in erosion that leads to extensive flooding and depleted groundwater supplies and food insecurity. Tropical storms and hurricanes have caused major destruction, not only from their winds, but from flood waters that surge down bare hillsides and mountain slopes into villages and towns.

The Timberland tree nursery project in Haiti is an example of our commitment to Earthkeepers – the philosophy that guides us in everything we do. By building a community-based agroforestry model that includes eight tree nurseries run by volunteer farmers throughout the Gonaives region, Timberland is connecting those farmers with trees, seeds, tools and training. The combination of these elements has resulted in larger crop yields, which means more food to eat, crops to sell and increased income for the farmers and their families.  A variety of multi-purpose and fast-growing trees are grown in the Timberland nurseries. In addition to reforestation, these trees provide many other benefits including combating malnutrition; sustainably harvested wood for charcoal production and lumber for construction; re-nourishment of the soil; and much needed shade.

1.4 million may sound like a lot of trees but Haiti needs a lot more. Want to learn more and help Timberland plant more trees? Watch the featured video below for an update from our recent visit to the Timberland tree nurseries in Haiti. Then, get involved by planting trees in our Facebook Virtual Forest Application. You can help us put an additional 1 million trees in Haiti’s soil above and beyond our commitment to plant 5 million trees by 2015. Join us now. Nature Needs Heroes.

...(continued) Hope and opportunity exist in the form of community based projects like Yéle Vert, a sustainable program of tree planting, agricultural improvement and environmental restoration. To date, working with local farmers and farming groups the six Yéle Vert nurseries are producing trees that will reforest degraded hillsides, produce sustainable charcoal and fuel wood and produce biodiesel. Additionally, the farmers are planting multi-purpose fast growing trees – including Leucaeana leucocephala, Swietenia macrophylla, Jatropha curcas, and Moringa oleifera, which will grow on their degraded lands and help them establish intensive hillside farming practices. In return for their help with the nurseries, the farmers receive supplies of seeds and fertilizer for their farms and environmental training at the Yéle Vert training and resource center located at the central nursery.

To learn more about the Yéle Vert program, meet some of the farmers and see the results at the community nurseries, check out these videos.

Timberland invites Facebook users to join us in supporting the Yéle Vert program by participating in the Timberland Earthkeepers Virtual Forest application. The more trees growing in the virtual forests of the Facebook community, the more real trees Timberland will plant in Haiti (up to one million trees total). With the participation of the Facebook community, Timberland will support the expansion of the Yéle Vert program to other communities in Haiti by establishing additional nurseries from which the trees planted on behalf of the users of the Timberland Earthkeepers Virtual Forest application will be grown and planted. So start planting and help us to reforest Haiti.

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