Nurturing green employment in Madagascar for people, plants and prosimians
Chris Birkinshaw and Fidisoa Ratovoson
June 2022
The Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika Forest, in a forgotten corner of south-eastern Madagascar, whether viewed on the ground or in google earth, is a sad sight: tatty fragments of forest in a landscape otherwise denuded of all natural vegetation. Not the obvious location for a conservation project. But, degraded as it may be, this forest vestige is also home, sometimes the only home, for a long and growing list of threatened plants and animals: 32 and six species respectively. And, these figures are surely under-estimates since the biological inventory of this site is far from complete. The star residents of this forest are the extraordinarily elegant and critically endangered palm Dypsis elegans and the richly coloured (if drably named) and also critically endangered Grey-headed lemur.
Dypsis elegans
This project is funded by IUCN Save Our Species. The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of Chris Birkinshaw (MBG) and do not necessarily reflect the views of IUCN.
Missouri Botanical Garden has been supporting the community-based conservation of the Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika Forest since 2009 and our hard-working site-based team have succeeded in preventing further loss of forest due to shifting cultivation and stopped lemur hunting. However, it is clear that this “swiss cheese” forest will remain highly vulnerable to outside threats (such as wild fires, desiccation, catastrophic winds and alien invasive species) so long as it remains so badly fragmented – thereby presenting a long periphery to the hostile surrounding landscape. As part of our strategy to address this issue, in 2019 we were fortunate to access a grant from IUCN Save our Species, that enabled us to launch forest restoration of abandoned plots within the forest. In these plots the soil is so exhausted and microclimate so hot and windy that natural regeneration is sluggish. Therefore, to speed forest recovery, over the past two years, we supported reconstructive restoration of these areas – a process in which young trees of a diversity of locally native tree species were propagated, out-planted and nurtured. To date 77,250 young native trees of 74 species (some endangered in their own right) have been produced, out-planted, and provided with post-planting care; and of these 80% have survived and grown. So, now at the end of this project 22 hectares of formerly barren grassy plots within the forest are bristling with young trees that, with time, will grow to heal wounds of this much abused forest.
Restoration zones (shown in white) in part of the forest
We now plan to continue this work, launching restoration in new areas, until this forest returns to its robust former glory and, in so doing, provides habitat for rare fauna and flora, as well as benefits for local people.
Local people help with restoration