Attendees will also benefit from ten booths of groups offering information and opportunities relating to alternatives to wood, recycling, preventing deforestation and promoting reforestation. The DOERS display will offer an overview of the problems and solutions, and reprints of articles you can take and share with others.

On April 24, friends of sustainable agriculture will have a unique opportunity to help with the early development of the brand new Turkey Ridge Cooperative Orchard. First planted in 1988 as a private enterprise, Turkey Ridge Orchard sits on twenty-five acres of rolling ridgetop land two miles west of Gays Mills, WI.

This year, after the land was almost sold to an outsider, the hard workers who have been sustaining the orchard for several years bought it and went cooperative. They are now the largest cooperative organic apple orchard in the eastern half of the United States.

From the beginning, Turkey Ridge Orchard has not used synthetic chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, or fruit enhancers. Instead naturally occurring substances and Mother Nature’s natural methods of pest and weed control are applied.

Mechanical removal of weeds in the tree rows eliminated the need for herbicides. Mulching the grass from the field rows provides fertilizer for the trees. Because grass is cut to provide fertilizer, mice, who will girdle young fruit trees in the winter, have no place to nest in the orchard. This eliminates the need for mouse control.

Bring a sack lunch, musical instruments and your vocal chords for the two-hour trip: a communal dinner will be provided at Turkey Ridge at 5 p.m. Bring along work gloves, and shovels if you have them.

Anyone not physically hale and hearty enough to help with the planting will find love and appreciation in the kitchen, preparing dinner for the hard-working hordes. Having experienced a rough transition from commercial enterprise to worker cooperative, Turkey Ridge is presently more or less struggling towards survival, and needs our help if they are going to have a robust future.

              Continued on page four

Everyone hates the idea of forests being destroyed. But if we wait for government or industry to save them, they will all be gone before we know it. It’s up to us, as individual consumers, to change our buying habits. And as activists, we need to pressure government and industry to stop the destruction.

When reading historical novels about Haiti, one is struck by the descriptions of the scenery. The plains were fertile and green, and the mountains were so thick with forest that escaped slaves fled into the jungles and were never seen again. The Haiti of today is a stark contrast to the Haiti of yesterday - in fact there are less than a handful of forests remaining.

The Gros Morne Reforestation Project in northwestern Haiti was begun in 1998 by the villagers of Gros Morne, in response to an erosion crisis: their main street (also the national highway) was about to be lost to a crumbling riverbank. A quickly-formed Committee of Urgency came up with a 3 part plan: build an erosion wall; train riverbank communities to plant trees to control the erosion; and to plant trees both in the village and in a model forest on a local mountain top.

The government built the wall, due to the pressure they organized. Peasants from the watershed as far north as the village of Terre Rouge have participated in tree-planting training programs, and in areas where the seedlings are protected from hungry goats they have an 80% success rate. The forest on Tet Mon (the mountaintop) now boasts 180,000 trees and is around 15 ft. tall! And the main streets of the village are now lined with seedlings, and neighborhood committees are responsible for their protection.

The vision of the community's project has expanded to take in the entire watershed. It is clear that without significant work to the north the rivers will continue to wash topsoil from other villages into Gros Morne. University students and a professor recently completed a study that identifies critical areas for greenbelts. Leaders of the project now believe that in a few years they can restore normal weather patterns to the watershed, bringing an end to droughts that have plagued the north for years. Interns from an agronomy school in the northern city of Cap-Haitien are a regular fixture at the training center where they share their knowledge.

In 2001 the project also expanded to include what the Kenyan Greenbelt Movement calls the three levels of reforestation. One of the founders of the Greenbelt Movement, Lilian Njehu, visited Gros Morne to conduct a training session and explained to the people gathered how the women in her community first started to think about reforestation when their children were getting sick and dying and the diagnosis was malnutrition. "We started figuring out how the smallest piece of land or even an empty rice sack could be used to plant food," Ms. Njoroge explained.

The tree nursery at Grepin, Haiti, source of seedlings for Tet Mon.                     (for more on Haiti, see p. five)

The three aspects of reforestation in Kenya became tree planting, forest planting and food security. Tree planting differs from forest planting in that the trees are planted on small plots of land, along the streets and in people's yards. Food security was a new idea for the Haitian reforestation project, but it has a clear connection.

Reforestation is about renewing the land, giving it back its nutrients and allowing the soil to lay fallow and hold water again. Food security is a natural part of the process, because when you turn part of your land over to be renewed by trees you need to feel assured that you can still feed your family.

One of the first food security projects has already begun among the women of Gros Morne. By taking two empty rice sacks and filling them with soil women are able to grow enough vegetables to feed a family of five. The best thing about this initiative is that it allows poor families who have no land to grow vegetables to feed themselves.

Tickets for the school bus ride will cost $11. Some scholarship money is available, so don’t let lack of funds keep you away! We will be gathering at the parking lot of the Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ, 1501 Gilbert Rd., on Madison’s west side, at 9:30 a.m. on Sat., April 24. The bus will leave promptly at 10 a.m. Buy your ticket by sending a check today. (see coupon on p. 7.)
      Or, if you want to drive on your own, you will find Turkey Ridge on Hwy 171, west of Gays Mills. Turn at the red caboose (Stevenson Rd.) and proceed up the hill, following the signs. Let us know you’ll be coming, so we can include you in our supper plans!
      In case of rain, or very soggy ground, consult the DOERS website or call 223-9571 to be sure it is on. Rain dates are Sun., April 25 and if it’s still wet, Sat., May 8.

On Sat., March 27, at 10 a.m, the folks at Turkey Ridge Cooperative Orchard in Gays Mills, WI will offer an apple tree workshop. It will cover the basics of tools and techniques for pruning fruit trees and grafting. They have obtained a promising new type of disease-resistant rootstock that attains almost full tree size. Participants will learn how to take cuttings and graft them to this new rootstock. Each participant will then be able to take home their newly grafted tree to plant. The cost will be $10.00.

Organized by Friends of Troy Gardens, the workshop, attended by 22 people, featured presentations by Kevin Bradley, of Edible Forest Nursery in Watertown, and Peter Kaseman-Wold, of Goodland Tree Works, as well as a video.

For info on getting involved in future orchard activities (including harvesting from these excellent and productive apple trees in September) contact Dan Durica at troycommunitygardens@tds.net or 240-0409 (Mon. or Wed 9-4).

As part of the sustainable living development at Troy Gardens on Madison’s north side, The Urban Open Space Foundation will be hosting a design session on Sat., Mar. 27. The public is invited to offer their ideas for the 3 acres of edible landscaping that are planned. It might include berry bushes, vines, and fruit trees. For details on the session, or to volunteer for the fall planting, call Brianna Meier at 255-9877 x 13.

Due to the generous response of our members and donors, we have been able to raise $1253.95 for water projects in the Mideast run by CARE International. In Abosoda, Iraq, the Compact Water Units at the Ramadi Hospital were repaired by Oct. 2003, and a chlorinator installed. They also installed 60 km. of water networks in the district, serving approximately 4,000 households.

During the recent holiday season, DOERS raised a total of $1249 for Women for Afghan Women, enough to sponsor 11 women at the 3-month course for literacy and sewing in Kabul. Thanks to all of you for making this life-changing education available to them!

DOERS, entirely run by volunteers in their free time, has received a big boost with the arrival of Shan Thomas, a volunteer with extensive experience and knowledge in running foundations and not-for-profit organizations.

She has completed our application for 501-c-3 status, and as soon as we collect $550, we will send it in. But we have a deadline: May 3, 2004! So please send in a special contribution to help us achieve this important step in finding funding to continue our work.

4

HOST AMY GOODMAN…Anti-government gangs and militias are working with opposition groups and former army officers in an effort to overthrow the government of Jean Bertrand Aristide. There is concern that Washington is once again working behind the scenes to foment a coup.

The Haitian President said yesterday he will not step down from office, telling reporters "I will leave the palace Feb. 7, 2006"-that is the day his mandate as president ends. For weeks, Haiti has seen armed gangs attacking government forces and supporters in various towns and cities across the country. Pro-government supporters have been defending Aristide.

There have been a series of armed battles that have resulted in at least 40 deaths. Haiti has no army and has a dwindling police force numbering only a few thousand.

This week the Bush administration stopped just short of calling on the Aristide to resign. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher told reporters, "We recognize that reaching a political settlement will require some fairly thorough changes in the way Haiti is governed." Another senior official told The Baltimore Sun, "When we talk about undergoing change in the way Haiti is governed, I think that could indeed involve changes in Aristide's position."

DR. PAUL FARMER: … I will just start with a basic fact, and that is the army …was disbanded in 1995. Why would the Pentagon and Washington not forgive Aristide for disbanding the army? One reason might be that that was an army created by the U.S. occupation of Haiti, so it came into being through an Act of U.S. Congress signed in Washington.

And here a lot of Americans probably don't know that. They don't know that we occupied Haiti militarily and set up the structure that was in place there from 1915 until 1990 when Haiti had the first democratic elections, and the population voted overwhelmingly for Aristide.

And another point, before making any predictions, is: anybody who is listening to your show or anybody who is watching the situation in Haiti should be asking themselves why is it that the government now in place is the body calling for elections? And why is it that the opposition is saying that we can’t have elections?

That's always a big sign, you know, a huge neon sign, suggesting that the people in place know that they'll win in democratic elections, because they have popular support, whereas, the opposition, that is trying to make sure that elections don't happen, know that they can’t win power in Haiti through the modern means, which is through the ballot box.

They can win in the old fashioned ways they have almost always propelled Haitian politics forward, which is coups d’etat, having fake elections, etc., that what went on for 180, 190 years, but they can't win at the ballot box. And that’s the basic issue.

What's at stake is the preservation of the people's right to choose who they want as their leaders. Unfortunately, I believe that that choice has been eroded by U.S. foreign policy, fairly consistently, especially over the last decade.

So, too, with the [U.S.-enforced] embargo against… what? Against humanitarian and development assistance to Haiti, which, you know, I, as a physician, just can’t believe that there would be any popular support, per se, blocking water assistance to Haiti, when Haiti was recently ranked 147th out of 147 countries assessed in terms of water security. And you know, the list goes on.

But I'm particularly concerned that we have managed, the United States has managed, to stall aid to Haiti: health, education, and other humanitarian aid for really as long as Aristide has been in office.

And you know, I work between Harvard and Haiti, and I work at one Boston hospital, Harvard teaching hospital, which has five times the revenue of the entire country of Haiti. Not health revenue, all revenue for Haiti.

DOERS encourages its members to support a peaceful resolution to Haiti’s political crisis. We do not want to see thousands of Haitians forced to become ocean-borne refugees, fleeing politically motivated violence. We support an end to the embargo on humanitarian aid that the U.S. government is enforcing, and a new policy of humanitarian and ecological assistance.

• Ask them to sponsor legislation to release funding to the Government of Haiti that can ease the suffering of the Haitian people, including Congresswoman Barbara Lee's HR 3386, "New Partnership for Haiti," and Congresswoman Maxine Waters' HR 1108, "Access to Capital for Haiti's Development Act."
• If you belong to an organization or a faith community, issue your own statement supporting Haiti's democracy and honoring the Haitian Bicentennial.
• Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper about the situation.
• Plan a trip to Haiti to demonstrate your solidarity with the Haitian people and to celebrate the Bicentennial.