SANDOWN — New Hampshire non-profit “Trees4Haiti” will share a message of wildlife conservation and offsetting carbon emissions to help save the Bicknell’s thrush, a endangered bird species, with Sandown elementary students in early February.
The group has been around since 2006 with a mission of helping the country of Haiti while also restoring habitats of the Bicknell’s thrush, near and far.
The Bicknell’s thrush is a small, brown songbird with habitats in high, mountaintop elevations. Population has decreased over the years due to changes in its wintering habitats, places like Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
“Our goal is to plant trees in Haiti to help save the environment down there while linking it to saving an endangered bird that calls New Hampshire home,” said Matt Marcotte, the organization’s secretary.
Matt Marcotte is a Salem, New Hampshire, resident and senior at Southern New Hampshire University.
Throughout his life, his father, Dennis Marcotte Jr., would encourage him and his two older sisters to find ways to save this bird species.
His father started Trees4Haiti after watching a PBS documentary highlighting a Haitian foundation called Fondation Seguin that replanted trees in the country’s national parks. The film also discussed this specific bird.
Dennis Marcotte Jr. found that the bird had local ties to New England, dwelling in the White Mountains and in Vermont.
Trees4Haiti has planted hundreds of thousands of trees in Haiti’s Seguin mountains over the last 16 years.
The operation was officially sanctioned a New Hampshire non-profit organization this past summer.
Matt Marcotte grew up in Plaistow and was educated in the Timberlane Regional School District.
He’s excited he’ll be able to make a presentation to Sandown North Elementary School’s fourth grade class that will tie into their curriculum.
Kids will learn how something planting trees helps restore the Bicknell’s thrush’s natural homes.
“They don’t have a place to mate, eat and live comfortably for those months,” Matt Marcotte said. “When they are flying back, they are doing so in less and less numbers.”
The non-profit organization hopes to get more school districts involved in its overall conservation goals to combat climate change and foster reforestation.
“We want to implement ‘adopt-an-acre,’” Matt Marcotte said. “Each school district would adopt an acre in Haiti and raise money each year to plant trees there.”
