Inside Haiti’s biodiversity: Ouanaminthe botanic garden and forest inspire preservation and awe

OUANAMINTHE, Haiti — Local entrepreneur Edwi Fils-Aimé got more than he expected when he visited the Botanical Garden of Ouanaminthe recently. Although many Haitian celebrities had been praising the northeast border town attraction, Fils-Aimé’s own tour of the green haven was a real eye-opener. 

“I was amazed by the variety of plants,”  Fils-Aimé explained afterward. “It felt like I traveled through several countries in just a few hours.”

Located in Bedou, a quiet village about 3.7 miles from the center of Ouanaminthe, the Botanical Garden, is one of two major green spaces in town. The other space is a cedar forest tucked along the banks of the Massacre River nearby. 

Both the manicured gardens and cedar forest are bringing back biodiversity, cooling the local climate and restoring the land, local botanists say. Together, the spaces are crucial in the fight to reverse the rampant deforestation and urban extinction that stripped much of northeastern Haiti of native plants. To the botanists, the spaces stand as proof that Haiti’s ecological revival can grow from the ground up.

“Initially, we wanted to create something that would mark our generation’s contribution to the community,” Sanchez Pierre, an environmental geographer and one of the botanic garden’s founders, recalled recently. 

“Now, our mission is broader: To preserve life on our planet,” Pierre added.

A homegrown oasis ignites conservation efforts 

From 2016 to 2020, a trio of agronomists and nature advocates — Pierre, Alex Milhomme and Junior Joseph — created the botanical garden as a way to build their legacy. As natives of the northeast themselves, the agronomists understood that the area’s ecological future was on the line. Much of its soil is shallow, weakly developed and susceptible to erosion, with high levels of nutrient deficiency, especially phosphorus. 

They needed to act. So the trio decided to create the garden to help reverse the trend. When they could not find a space to buy at first, family members donated their land to support the project, offering the botanists the very ground they might inherit so a new kind of legacy could take root.
Today, the botanic garden has evolved into a living archive of the northeast’s native flora and fauna, including dozens of endangered and endemic species. Teeming with