Forests have all but disappeared from Haiti’s hills and mountainsides. In their place are slopes of grass and bare dirt.

Wood is the main source of cooking fuel in rural Haiti. Overcutting and overgrazing have decreased forest cover dramatically, causing erosion and other environmental problems that impact farmers.

MCC is supporting 23 community tree nurseries around the town of Desarmes in central Haiti. The nurseries produce more than 400,000 tree seedlings per year.

Soufiana Elistin and her husband Emmanuel Bois-Rond, at right, planted hundreds of seedlings on their land. They are cutting trees in gradual ways that keep the land forested. 

Community tree nurseries produce many varieties of fruit and forest trees, including kampech, a forest tree whose leaves are pictured here. 

Charles Filance works in a tree nursery in the rural community of Dris. The nursery has produced hundreds of thousands of seedlings since it was formed in 1991. 

MCC supports environmental education classes at 12 schools in and around Desarmes. Students mix potting soil during a field trip to a community tree nursery.

Jak Guérin, a nursery worker, teaches students about the components of good soil. 

Soil and seeds are placed into small plastic bags or cones in order to grow seedlings.

Workers clean out thousands of cones in a stream beside a tree nursery in the rural community of Kabay. 

Monius Moneus, a local farmer, planted an acre and a half with trees that he is gradually harvesting to support his family of four. 

Mary Rose Louise planted hundreds of trees around her family’s house on a hilltop.“I want the whole savannah to be covered with trees,” she says.