University Sequesters Carbon and Conducts Research in Haiti

By Duncan Pearce C’17

Special to the Messenger

Earlier this year the University of the South made its first payments for carbon sequestration to farmers in Haiti’s Central Plateau. This represented a milestone for Zanmi Kafe (Haitian Creole for Partners in Coffee) and a Zanmi Agrikol (Partners in Agriculture) to develop the first payment for ecosystem services program in Haiti, a project initiated by students working with Sewanee biology professor Deborah McGrath. 

Launched in 2013 with the establishment of a 15,000 seedling nursery in the mountainous region of Bois Jolie, Zanmi Kafe promotes carbon sequestration through the planting and care of trees. The project has developed into a large collaborative effort aimed at improving livelihoods by reversing the negative impacts of deforestation. The project involves outreach students and interns from Sewanee, as well as Haitian interns, agronomists and farmers.

For many rural Haitian families, cutting trees to grow crops or produce charcoal is a primary source of income. However, this practice of forest-clearing erodes hillsides and subsequently lowers soil productivity, which exacerbates poverty and poor health in the region. After examining reforestation efforts in the developing world for more than a decade, McGrath concluded that breaking this vicious cycle would require some form of financial incentive that could offset the opportunity cost of maintaining trees in lieu of making charcoal. 

The idea behind payments for ecosystem services is that companies or universities desiring to offset their carbon footprint purchase credits from sellers engaging in carbon sequestration activities, such as tree planting. The payments are made to landowners to maintain ecological services such as carbon sequestration, watershed protection and biodiversity provision. 

When the idea of planting trees was discussed with the farmers of Bois Jolie, they wanted to grow coffee like their parents once did. Because coffee grows well in a shaded understory, it encourages the planting of a diverse agroforestry system that provides fruit and other products. Paying farmers to sequester carbon encourages them to plant and protect seedlings as well as maintain existing trees that provide shade for the coffee. 

Unlike most carbon-offset programs (in which credits are purchased on the open market), Sewanee students directly support tree planting. The Sewanee Student Government Association agreed to use part of the student Green Fee for sustainability projects. Last spring, following her outreach trip to Haiti, student Mary Cash led an effort to raise awareness about how students can pledge their fee to support reforestation efforts in Haiti. Nearly 400 students pledged their fee, and it was from these funds that 45 Haitian farmers were paid for planting seedlings the preceding summer. On a March 2015 Spring Break outreach trip led by Dixon Myers, Sewanee students hiked to each farm to count, measure and assess the health of every seedling that could be found. This exhaustive survey provided data necessary to calculate the carbon payments for the farmers and furnished a baseline for future monitoring. On-farm research conducted by Sewanee and Haitian student interns provides information that will help farmers manage the system more sustainably. A baseline survey of ant, beetle and bird diversity will be used to assess the impact of the agroforestry system on the region’s ecology. Photosynthesis measurements help determine the optimal light level for coffee productivity and health. 

A sister project, Zanmi Foto, started by Sewanee art professor, photographer Pradip Malde, trains Zanmi Kafe families to document their lives in a way that stimulates conversation among friends, and neighbors. The Zanmi Foto archive already has about 20,000 photographs. 

For folks who have been participating in this project for years, the first distribution of carbon payments was more than just another step down the long road to reforestation; this day was the culmination of years of hard work. The payments connecting Sewanee students to farmers demonstrate Sewanee’s care and commitment to the well-being of its Haitian friends. Zanmi Kafe and Zanmi Foto are about integrating outreach, sustainability and hands-on problem-solving to create respectful, long-lasting relationships that better the lives of all those involved. 

The Sewanee-Haiti Institute would like to thank the Sommer and Harris families as well as the global outreach program at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School for their generous support. To learn more go to <www.haiti.sewanee.edu>. 

University Students Take Spring Break to Reach Out

What could be regarded as a national movement of community service on college campuses began at Sewanee in the early 1990s, when groups of students decided they had had enough of the traditional spring break trek to the beach.They chose instead to engage in service work, either regionally or abroad, as a healthier alternative. This was a paradigm switch, offering an entirely different view of adventure, risk and pleasure, and focusing on impoverished and marginalized communities in regional, national and international locations. 

The University’s outreach office took its first service trip in 1990 to Kingston, Jamaica. Led by Dixon Myers, coordinator of outreach ministries, the program has grown in the past 25 years. This year  92 students, staff and faculty traveled to six domestic and international sites during spring break 2015. The program now takes trips during fall, Christmas, spring and summer breaks, with about 10 percent of the entire student body participating. Trips this year were to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Haiti, Miami, New Orleans and New York City. 

Lay chaplain Rob McAlister and student Anna Thorson led the Costa Rica relationship with the Cloud Forest School, whose mission statement is “to love, respect and protect the natural environment.” The late Jan Drake-Lowther (who was a beloved dorm matron) and her family were Quakers instrumental in establishing the Cloud Forest Reserve in the early 1950s. The Sewanee group assisted with various building projects at the school.

Callie Sadler, assistant coordinator of outreach, led a group to Quito, Ecuador, along with student Izzy Correa, where their work centered around youth development through local church affiliates. Cameron Graham Vivanco, C’97, a full-time mission coordinator with Youth World International, continues to support the Sewanee groups in ways that give the students a spiritual context in which to serve. Junior David Prehn said that the Ecuador experience “challenged my previous notions of service, taught me fundamental lessons about life-in-community, and brought me closer to God who enables it all.”

The Haiti Trip is an interdisciplinary “hands-on” environmental problem-solving experience for outreach and biology students, as well as Haitian students. Approximately 10,000 coffee and shade tree seedlings were germinated in a nursery two years ago and this year 22 students, alongside a dozen Haitian students, surveyed 41 farms to count every seedling that had been planted from that nursery and then documented their health. Student leaders Brooke Irvine, Elizabeth Sega and Duncan Pearce assisted biology professor Deborah McGrath and outreach coordinator Dixon Myers with this trip. 

Barbara Banks, a longtime staff member of the Sewanee Multicultural Affairs office, has a long history of working with both the Coral Gables High School and the Shake-A-Leg Boating Project for Disabled Children in Miami, Fla. Her dedication to these host sites enables students to get hands-on experiences in tutoring in an area of the country very different from Sewanee. Student leaders Arthur Ndoumbe and Davante Jennings are involved in organizations across the Sewanee campus. They find this, along with their outreach work in Miami, to be fulfilling, and they see this as an integral part of their education. 

Assistant Dean of Students Hagi Bradley of Covington, La., chose a group of organizations to give students a broader experience of the New Orleans not seen during Mardi Gras. Among these were Hands on NOLA, Fresh Food Factory, Green Light NOLA and Second Harvest Food Bank. 

“Students were particularly impressed with the mission of the Fresh Food Factory,” said student leader Kiera Coleman, who stressed the importance of what this agency seeks to accomplish. Fresh Food Factory provides healthy sustenance through a holistic service model. 

In New York City, one of the staff members at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis center (GMHC), where Sewanee students learn about and care for clients with HIV/Aids, said, “When Sewanee comes, it’s like geese returning from the winter, and we know spring is right around the corner.” That endearing phrase emerges from a long-term commitment to this host agency, where students often learn more from the clients than what they have to offer. They often hear the phrase “Living with Aids” not “Dying of Aids.”

This year, admissions counselor Danielle Larsen, student leader Tran Ly and 10 students worked with GMHC and God’s Love We Deliver (GLWD), another HIV/Aids organization based in Brooklyn. GLWD delivers meals to clients who are in the final stages of life. “Preparing meals side-by-side with these volunteers, making birthday cakes for people who may only receive this one present, it is amazing,” Ly explained. 

For more information about the outreach office go to <www.life.sewanee.edu/serve>.