Save the Cayes Botanical Garden

For over eight months, the Cayes Botanical Garden has been forcibly closed. No child, no student, no researcher, no visitor can enter. Meanwhile, collections of rare endemic and native plants are disappearing day after day. For 23 years, this garden has been a source of pride for Les Cayes, for Haiti and for the diaspora — a unique place for education, research and discovery of our flora.

The story of the Cayes Botanical Garden began with the vision of one man: William Cinéa, a Haitian forestry engineer and botanist. After pursuing his forestry studies in the Dominican Republic from 1995 to 2000, he returned home with a powerful idea — to contribute to reforestation and to the protection of nature. Thus was born the "Haïti Verte" initiative, the forerunner of what would become the botanical garden.

In 2002, during a training program in Israel focused on agricultural and environmental initiatives, William Cinéa visited the renowned Bahá'í Gardens — of exceptional design and beauty — which convinced him that a project of comparable scope could exist in Haiti. Upon his return, he took action: he leased a six-and-a-half carreau plot at Bergeaud, along National Road N°2 in Les Cayes, belonging to the Gérard family.

A formal farm-lease contract was officially signed with the mother of the heirs, Mrs. Laurette Milard Gérard, in full compliance with legal procedures. Maître Edlan Jabouin, the family's lawyer, received the payments on behalf of the owners. From the outset, the relationship between the Cayes Botanical Garden and the Gérard family was marked by mutual respect and trust. In 2004, one of the heirs, Jacqueline Gérard, visited the site with her mother and was so moved by the project that she herself proposed to replace the name "Haïti Verte" with "Jardin Botanique des Cayes" — a gesture that reflected the whole family's embrace of this vision.

For Mrs. Laurette Milard Gérard, the lease signatory, the garden embodied a natural continuity with the family's values of stewardship of the land and reforestation in the South department, particularly in Port-Salut. Over the years she regularly visited the garden to encourage the team, share her advice and express her support. For more than twenty years, relations between the two parties remained constructive, respectful and mutually beneficial.

In 2018, one of the heirs, through the family's law firm, sent a promise-of-sale contract and announced the termination of the farm lease. The Cayes Botanical Garden team then called on the State to intervene and acquire the property, valued at more than US$800,000. Through the Ministry of the Environment — and more specifically the ANAP (National Agency of Protected Areas) — a meeting was organized with the lessor, his wife and the JBC team. A report was produced, and the sellers were asked to provide the titles needed so the case could be included in the 2019-2020 national budget. Unfortunately, these documents were never provided, which blocked the process.

In June 2024, Mrs. Laurette Milard Gérard passed away. Her son, who supported the sale, resides in the United States; it was then his wife, present in Haiti, who initiated — without a mandate — a process to seize the land. Even though the garden represents more than 23 years of work, patience and living collections, the team was given only eight days to move all the plants and vacate the premises. Eight days later, accompanied by the police and her lawyers, she barred access to the garden's staff. Her first actions were to cut down the collections of native and endemic plants to turn them into charcoal, to eliminate all the plants of the ecological reserve and to set it on fire over more than one hectare. Banana plantations were even installed inside the garden.

Faced with this situation, seven of the nine heirs of the family, frustrated by this action, wrote to the Minister of Justice and Public Security demanding an urgent intervention. Through their law firm, they also formally ordered Mrs. Marie Donna Bastien-Gérard to immediately cease all action against the garden. For these heirs, the garden embodies the greatness and vision of their parents: they refuse to watch it disappear.

From the outset of the crisis, the garden's team has launched appeals in several media outlets — Vision 2000, Radio Caraïbes, Magik 9, Le Nouvelliste, AyiboPost — to alert the authorities. The Minister of the Environment was also contacted. Yet, to this day, nothing has been done. Meanwhile, this heritage continues to disappear, and the preserved plants are being lost a little more every day. This garden goes beyond the interest of its founder, William Cinéa, and of the Gérard family: it is a scientific institution of national importance.

This petition aims for 5,000 signatures before June 5, World Environment Day, to demand that the State act urgently: to engage in dialogue with the Gérard family to stop the destruction of the country's rare plant collections, to restart the acquisition process, or to identify a new site to relocate the garden in the South department — or, failing that, in another department — in accordance with article 256 of the Haitian Constitution.