Haiti will receive a $9 million grant from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to carry out a sustainable land management program at the Macaya National Park, one of the country’s largest remaining forests.

According to the IDB, the new resources will be used to strengthen the Macaya National Park’s surveillance corps and its management, reforest about 1,500 hectares (3,750 acres) of degraded lands, and build watershed protection infrastructure to mitigate flooding and erosion.

The grant will also finance activities designed to engage local authorities, institutions, and families that farm within the national park’s perimeter or cut trees to make charcoal. The program will encourage these stakeholders to become involved in land planning and in the management of the national park.

The new grant, drawn from the Haiti Reconstruction Fund, will complement a previous grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for the national park’s program, which focuses on the upper watersheds of the country’s southwestern peninsula. Other donor-funded watershed management programs target the lower reaches and piedmont areas.

Haiti has lost almost all of its forest coverage due to pressure from population growth, harmful farming practices, and the demand for firewood to make charcoal, which is the principal source of energy. Deforestation hastens soil erosion, which is worsened by the country’s exposure to hurricanes and tropical storms. It also exacerbates the flooding and landslides that occur every rainy season.

The IDB is Haiti’s leading multilateral donor. One of its priorities is to support Haiti’s effort to improve agriculture. At present it is financing projects totaling more than $200 million in that sector, including investments in irrigation, farming technology transfers, land tenure clarification, and watershed management.