No trees = no lemurs
Forest restoration for the White Collared Lemur at Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika, Madagascar
Missouri Botanical Garden: the clue is in the name really! We love plants – everything about them: we love unpicking their evolutionary relationships, we love to describe how they mould themselves to their environments, we love discovering how best to propagate and grow them but, most of all, we love simply revelling in their beauty. With our passion for plants it may come as a surprise that in Madagascar, in addition to plant conservation, we are doing our bit for lemur conservation too. Currently MBG’s Madagascar Research and Conservation Program is supporting community-based conservation at eleven priority areas for plant conservation. While these sites support extraordinary plant diversity, we estimate that they provide habitat to some 35 species of lemur too. At seven of these sites our interventions include work to restore forest where it has become critically degraded. One of the locations where forest restoration is a priority is the 1553-hectare Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika Forest in south-eastern Madagascar. In April 2020 we were pleased to receive a grant from IUCN Save Our Species, not really for plant conservation, but rather to improve the forest’s integrity as habitat for the critically endangered White Collared Lemur – considered to be among the World’s 25 most threatened primates. Our aim in this project is that during 2 years we will provide support for local people to propagate 50,000 young plants of native trees and then plant them to launch forest restoration on 20 hectares of abandoned agricultural plots that currently perforate the forest like a Swiss cheese.
The launch of this project had a shaky start coinciding with the beginning of the corvid-19 pandemic in Madagascar and the associated government lock down. However, as soon as travel restrictions were lifted, MBG staff members, Fidy and Nambinina, purchased materials and mobilised teams to build four large tree nurseries – each located in a different village close to different parts of the forest. The nurseries were built to high standards with propagation tables, rooves of shade netting and fences to exclude free-ranging cows – providing the perfect environment for propagating trees and a pleasant working environment for humans. Parallel with the installation of the nurseries, David, an experienced horticulturalist, trained under a Darwin Initiative project at Parc Ivoloina (see https://www.madagascarfaunaflora.org/darwin-initiative.html), himself became a trainer and recruited eleven local people, both men and women, and trained them in best practice for propagating native trees. However, there can be no seedlings without seeds, so two more people were recruited, trained as seed collectors, and tasked with roaming the forest to seek seeds of the target tree species.
Now, six months after the receiving the grant, and despite the pandemic, we are proud to report that at Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika we have developed significant capacity for producing young trees of native species – indeed currently there are 7604 plants of 15 different trees species in the nurseries. All being well, by the end of the year, we will have at least 50,000 young trees and then the only challenge will be to organise forest picnics for 1000 local youth to learn about lemurs and plant these trees.
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.
Newly constructed tree nursery close to Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika Forest (photo by David Rajaonarivelo)
Chris Birkinshaw
October 2020
As these trees grow they will not only increase the area of the forest but also improve its integrity thereby helping the lemurs to flourish. And, while lemurs certainly need trees, most Malagasy trees also need lemurs to spread their seeds enabling colonisation and regeneration. Thus in reality this project is all about nurturing a healthy ecosystem for lemurs and plants, and, yes, people too.