Abner Septembre, the Minister of the Environment is heading for our mountains, which constitute a rich and diverse heritage, from a natural, cultural, historical and architectural point of view.

The Minister recalls that our mountains represent approximately three quarters of the national territory and that they are the main water towers of our sources and rivers. They house most of Haiti's fortification system and are the natural habitat of several animal and plant species, some of which are endemic. Our mountains support different microclimates and a biodiversity that could be despite everything the richest in the Caribbean, which makes Haiti one of the 34 hot spots of global biodiversity which constitute an important link in the national bread basket. Finally, they are mainly the living space of the peasants.

Unfortunately, this heritage is today in danger mainly because of deforestation which has many consequences, among others: loss of land and biodiversity, food insecurity, water stress, massive rural exodus, the weakening of socioeconomic infrastructures, the slums and spatial disarticulation of cities, even hyper-sedimentation and pollution of aquatic and marine environments.

The Ministry is giving itself 10 years to largely restore the green mantle and ecosystems of our mountains and watersheds. However, underlines Minister September, it is illusory to want to do so without also improving the purchasing power and the living environment of their inhabitants. Hence a paradigm shift, of which the Ten-Year Strategic Program, 2021-2030, called "Plante ak Rekòlte Dlo", is expressed through two sub-programs supported by three pillars divided into twelve actions.

Let's go to the mountains to cultivate water is at the same time a call for participation and citizen engagement, launched by the Ministry of the Environment to all Haitians and foreigners living in Haiti, to build green fortresses, with a view to to protect our people, who have become very vulnerable to natural disasters, and to regain our food sovereignty.

The official launch of the "Plante ak Rekòlte Dlo" Program will take place on March 22, 2021, in Vallières, in the mountains of the Nord-Est department, on the occasion of International Water Day.

HL/ HaitiLibre