ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how the cultural ecosystem services of education, sense of place, and inspiration served to strengthen a carbon sequestration project involving tree planting and maintenance in a region where poverty and deforestation are intertwined. Where other carbon offset credit programs have not lived up to anticipated goals, this project – with its emphasis on cultural ecosystem services – succeeded in sequestering carbon and improving small-holder incomes and other ecosystem service co-benefits that increase agricultural resiliency. The case study involves an educational program in Haiti developed collaboratively by a liberal arts college in the U.S., a local non-profit organization, and a community of small farmers who sequester carbon in coffee-agroforestry systems. The carbon credits were verified by students, building workforce and technical skills, while educating about carbon and approaches that build resiliency to climate change. A focus of the program was not only to help farmers make more secure the place they value, but also to immerse students in place-based learning about historical injustices between the Global North and South. Working with Haitian farmers to establish these agroecosystems inspired students to act towards effective solutions to climate mitigation and to pursue other means of addressing inequality and injustices.
