Pyat (Piatre)

Pyat is a community blessed with natural springs, but it has taken community cooperation and commitment to manage the springs to provide for the community's need and cultivate a healthy harvest of watercress.

Pyat is a section communale on top of a small mountain in the southeastern part of St Marc commnune. The mountain has multiple springs that the community protects and manages in a way that the entire community benefits and the springs can be maintained: one spring is reserved for drinking water, another is reserved for animals to drink out of, a third is channeled to a hydro-electric dam, with the runoff from that being used for agriculture.

The water used for agriculture goes to irrigate a very specific plant: watercress. Thanks to the good management of the springs and the irrigation channels, almost every single family in Pyat has a small piece of irrigated land that they use to grow watercress and sell to St Marc and Port au Prince. The irrigation also allows the community to grow other crops, but watercress is the livelihood that sustains the community, sends children to school, and meets the community's other needs. All of this is thanks to the community's sustainable management of its natural springs.