在地震十周年纪念日前夕，林地反思了海地的十年投资

Sunday, January 12 will mark the 10th anniversary of the catastrophic 7.0 MW earthquake that struck Haiti and shook the world. For months following the disaster, international media kept Haiti in focus and shared stories of loss, perseverance and hope. This anniversary and milestone presents an opportunity for the world to take new look at how Haiti has recovered and evolved over the past decade. At Timberland, we are doing just that. Our investment in Haiti began in 2009 with a commitment to plant five million trees in five years. That commitment led to an ongoing journey of learning, discovery and positive impact that we couldn’t have imagined at the time.

Although we had aligned internally on our tree planting commitment in 2009, we planned to announce it publicly in 2010. The earthquake certainly gave us pause. As we learned more of the situation from news reports and our contacts on the ground, we wondered if our investment could be better spent to forward the urgently needed relief effort.

We certainly supported the relief effort with donations and by engaging other companies and our employees to do the same. We also reserved our largest investment for our planned tree planting program as we believed it would support the ongoing recovery Haiti would need after the media cameras left the scene. Ten years later, we’re glad we decided to stay the course.

2010年，我们与Smallholder Farmers Alliancewhich created its树货币农林业模型让小农户种植，移植和照顾树木。为了换取他们在树苗圃工作的时间，参与小农户的农民获得了积分，他们可以换取更好的种子，手动工具和农业培训。几年后，可赎回的福利列表越来越多，包括扫盲计划，微还汇款服务以及更多的农民要求的好处。188bet上不了

在五年结束时，SFA不仅种植了500万棵树，而且还为农民带来了可观的好处。平均而言，参与该计划的3,000名SFA农民的农作物产量增加了40％，收入增加了50％ - 100％，这使他们能够将3,400名儿童送往学校。在这些结果的鼓励下，蒂姆斯兰（Timberland）探索了继续支持这项宝贵工作的方法，尽管这次是为了成为客户。

Cotton came to mind as a crop that the farmers could grow and we could use in our products. In 2016 we invested in a feasibility study to explore cotton’s return to Haiti after a 30-year hiatus. In 2017 the SFA conducted field trials of different varieties of cotton to determine which would fare the best.

一百个农民于2018年8月种植了棉花的主要品种，一月我们参加了海地的第一个商业广告cotton harvestsince the late 1980s. The SFA then ginned and baled the cotton, which has now been woven into fabric that is in the hands of Timberland product designers. We aim to have products with Haitian grown cotton in our stores in 2021.

去年夏天，有350名农民种植了棉花，该计划打算在未来几年中扩大规模，最终与17,000名农民互动 - 所有这些人都参加了植树计划，并获得了种子，工具，培训等的访问权限，以增加其产量和收入。Timberland最近还承诺在海地种植更多的树木，作为其种植的承诺的一部分未来五年全球5000万棵树。

This Haiti cotton program is bigger than just Timberland. We have engaged other brands and potential customers who want to support the development of a new supply chain of organically grown cotton that helps reforest Haiti and improve farmers’ lives. In doing so, we are all supporting a program that will benefit Haiti’s smallholder farmers and can scale to other smallholder farmer populations around the world.

当我反思过去十年时，我感谢我们与SFA的合作伙伴关系，并对我们迄今为止的共同进步感到谦卑。这只是开始。尽管海地多年来经历了许多悲剧和动荡，但在如此多的希望的边缘，这是一个美丽而充满希望的国家。Timberland期待继续我们与SFA的合作，以保持机会的到来。

About the Author

Atlanta McIlwraith is Timberland’s Senior Manager of Community Engagement and Communication. She manages Timberland’s partnership with the Smallholder Farmers Alliance along with other values partnerships for the brand. Atlanta had the privilege to plant trees and cotton seeds, join in last year’s cotton harvest, and spend time with the farmers – all of which were unforgettable experiences that further fuel her passion to bring Haiti cotton to life.