Miarinarivo is a small commune situated approximately 45km south of Ambalavao in the central highlands of Madagascar. It is relatively remote and travel via taxi brousse from Ambalavao is only possible on a few days of the week and takes several hours. Ny Tanintsika works with three community forest management associations (COBA’s) within the commune. These associations have been created to locally manage the protection and enhancement of remaining forest within the region. It empowers local people with the knowledge and skills to manage their (limited) forest resources. The management plans were created under guidance from Ny Tanintsika and the Malagasy government. The plans define areas of strict conservation (fitting with the region plan to provide corridors) and mixed forest use to meet the daily needs of the community (sustainable resource use). The plan also allocates plantation areas to supply fuel wood for cooking and agricultural lands for food production and agroforestry.
I spent five days in Miarinarivo with the field technicians from Ny Tanintsika. We visited the nurseries and reforestation sites of two villages (COBA’s), community agroforestry technicians (TAC’s) and several households along the way. My first objective was to demonstrate the use of GPS to record areas reforested. Secondly, I was to teach techniques for monitoring survival of seedlings produced at the community nurseries. We also set up a trial for producing mycorrhiza (VAM) at the nurseries. Mycorrhiza are vital to the growth, health and successful establishment of seedlings.
We were invited for lunch on several occasions but due to the busy schedule had to decline on most days. On the last day we joined one of the COBA’s for a traditional rice feast. Ny Tanintsika had donated a plough to the COBA and they were eager to display its use and give thanks. It was the beginning of the rice harvest and Malagasy traditional is to share your wealth when you have it. I had to make my way into the house via a precariously unstable wooden plank raised 2.5m above the ground. This was disconcerting after having broken my femur just over a year ago. We feasted on eggplant, chickpea, and (needless to say) rice. It was a lovely experience to have been welcomed into their house.
There had recently been a cyclone and trekking through rice paddies was very challenging. The windrows of rice paddies had become very slippery and most of us ended up with both feet stuck deep in mud. I had a great time working with the Ny Tanintsika staff and community members.
Landscape cleared of deciduous forest and only fallow agricultural land remains with scattered baobabs
The sacred baobab
Lovers baobab tree
I’m sure the car would come off second best in this match-up
Lovely place to be walking home
A dog’s life
Dinner??? Fresh killed wild boar
Sunset at alley of the Baobabs
Local fishing boats scatter the beach
Sunset at Morondava beach
Lovers in the sunset
We stayed in Morondava for one night before heading to Tsingy and for four nights after returning (we could have stayed longer, it is a very relaxing place). On our way back from Tsingy and Kirindy, it is very common for your 4×4 driver/tour to take you to Allee des Baobabs (baobab alley) to see the sunset before returning to Morondava (baobab alley is less than one hour’s drive from Morondava). The baobabs are over 800 years old and incredibly beautiful and striking though it is terribly sad to see that most of the other trees in the region have been razed to the ground, which makes these huge trees even more ominous and looming. Sadly, the area is not a national park, and the trees are threatened by further deforestation, effluent from encroaching rice paddies and sugar cane plantations, and fires. Despite its popularity as a tourist destination, the area has no visitor center or gate fees, and local residents receive little income from tourism. There are many enormous baobabs in the region including a sacred tree where people pray. If you have a driver, ask him to take you to some of the other baobabs in the region, some are intertwining, which looks quite romantic! *Traveller alert* – this is probably one of the most visited tourist attractions in Madagascar, so if you are expecting the alley to yourself at sunset, think again. Take plenty of patience with you and try to arrive early if you want to take a photo without tourists ruining it!
Morondava is a very pleasant seaside town on the west coast of Madagascar. It has a laidback feel to it (apart from the main street on market day, which is quite thriving). There is a strip of hotels/restaurants lining the beach and mangroves on the other side of the road catering to a range of budgets. The seafood is superb. Especially now having visited a few coastal areas in Madagascar, we really were spoiled with the quality and variety of seafood in Morondava. The beach is pretty good (and clean). You can take a pirogue trip down the river. Morondava is a great base from which you head to Baobab Alley, Tsingy or south to Belo sur Mer. We stayed four nights and would have liked to stay longer. At first we stayed at Trecicogne as it was listed as the ‘top pick’ on Lonely Planet. But we left after two nights as they kept turning the water off. We understand that water is short, but we drew the line at not being able to wash our hands after going to the toilet! We sort of splashed out on our last two nights at the Baobab Hotel – 80,000 Ar per night about $35AUD. http://www.baobabcafe-hotel.net/baobabcafe-circuit-hotel-en.html This hotel was really nice, and bonus had a pool! We also splashed out on a huge crayfish for 35,000Ar, $15. It was to die for! We recommend eating at Bougainvilliers (try the stuffed crab) and Stadium Hotel on the main street (7000Ar for two huge langostines). Needless to say, we were a bit sad to leave Morondava, especially knowing we had two days of taxi-brousses ahead of us…
We are based in Fianarantsoa, in the central highlands of Madagascar, for our volunteering work with Feedback Madagascar/ Ny Tanintsika. Fianarantsoa is the 5th largest city in Madagascar and the capital of the Haute Matsiatra region. It was built by the Merina people in the early 19th century for the Betsileo Kingdom when the regions of Madagascar where unified. The Betsileo people are known as very hard working people. Others joke that they are always cold and even wear jumpers on the hottest of days.
The Ny Tanintsika office in Fianarantsoa has about 15 employees and probably another 15 field staff. We are really lucky to be a part of this organisation. The staff are wonderful and have been very welcoming. They are all highly educated and very knowledgeable. Their experiences and willingness to help have made our journey here very enjoyable. We have been lucky to rent a house next to the office. It is very nice – especially for Malagasy standards. There are two bedrooms, a living area, small kitchen with a camping gas burner to cook and a bathroom. We’ve been sharing with a young dutch/german couple completing a University degree in International Development. Washing is very refreshing as we only have cold water. Boiling some hot water makes it possible for us to have the occasional warm bucket shower.
The best things about Fianarantsoa are the Ny Tanintsika staff and local people. Most people are very friendly and say hello when you pass by on the street. We’ve been to Karaoke with locals and had a blast. Singing here feels much easier (and somewhat less embarrassing) than back home. Buying our fresh fruit and vegetables is always an experience. The market place is full of people and getting what you want can be a challenge. Although Fianar is very developed there are still rice paddies wherever houses have not been built. Waterways are sadly full of rubbish as is often the case with cities in developing countries. There are also many fruit trees scattered through the city. There are many peach trees in which you will often find chameleons, rocking back and forth, stalking insects.
Most Vazaha and tourists only stop in Fianarantsoa overnight on their way to Tulear or returning from visiting national parks such as Andringitra, Ranomafana or Isalo. We’ve had a fantastic experience here so far, met some lovely Malagasy people and eaten many wonderful foods. Thanks Fianarantsoa.
Vazah (white stranger) tree – looks like burnt skin
common green gecko (Phelsuma madagascariensis)
Yann – a lovely Irish frenchman
red-fronted brown lemur
Eulemur rufifrons
native ebony
a very happy baobab
on the prowl
the fossa walked past me – yikes!
Collared iguanid
Collared iguanid
scar tissue
Kirindy Reserve is a privately managed forest in one of Madagascar’s most threatened ecosystems: its dry deciduous forests. There are many animals with 31 different mammals with 8 species of lemur and it is the best place to see the elusive fossa. There are also 50 different species of reptiles. We highly recommend a visit to Kirindy. If you don’t have time to drive out to Tsingy, a good alternative would be to drive from Morondava to Kirindy, stay one night, do a night walk that evening and a morning walk the next day. After that drive back to Morondava stopping off at the Alle des Baobabs for an amazing sunset. Many tourists visit the Baobabs but if you squint you may just be able to pretend all the other ‘Vazah’ are not there.
We really enjoyed our night walk in Kirindy, we saw several nocturnal lemurs and reptiles. The morning walk was also good, where we saw many diurnal lemurs. We saw a few fossa as well as they come into camp for a drink as water is very scarce in this forest. The forest is certainly dry, don’t expect any lush green rainforests here.
Our only ‘gripe’ about Kirindy was that were were practically forced to stay at the Reserve in a room for 120 000 Ar per night, which was high compared to other accommodation we were staying at in the region. We had wanted to camp, but were told that the fossa will eat our tent…hmmm. We felt like the staff took advantage of the tourists and were ripping us off a bit. No cheap accommodation was available, we had to eat at their restaurant and they would add on small prices for many things. Perhaps you could try camp Amoureux instead only a few kilometres away, which is camping, but may be better value. All in all, it was well worth it as Kirindy is an excellent forest teeming with wildlife.
We had heard a lot about the otherworldly jagged pinnacles of Tsingy de Bemaraha. Tsingy is a nature reserve on the west coast of Mada, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We heard that the park is closed in the rainy season (Dec – March), so if we wanted to see it, we had to go in November. We emailed and asked around a few tour operators, but decided to go on our own. Most nature parks must be visited with a guide, but that doesn’t mean a complete package tour is necessary. It is much cheaper (if you have the time) to turn up yourself and organise a guide on the spot. Most tours were going from Antsirabe, and we figured there was no need to pay for two-four days of a tour that was just transport. From Ambositra, we caught a 7am taxi-brousse to Antsirabe. We then had to wait for 2-3 hours for the next taxi-brousse to take us to Miandrivazo. We had contemplated going all the way from Antsirabe to Morondava, but that taxi-brousse wasn’t leaving until 5pm and we didn’t want to wait that long. Miandrivazo was a good stop over to break up the trip. It took from 1pm-7pm. A tout/guide came up to us in the taxi-brousse while we were waiting in Anstirabe and offered us a tour. We didn’t really want to spend 2.5 days in an unsheltered pirogue down the Tsiribihina river, so we asked if he would hire a 4WD in Morondava to take us to Tsingy and Kirindy. He offered 75Euro a day (for four days) including petrol. So this was our itinerary:
Day one: Drive Morondava to Bekopaka, camp the night
Day 2: Hike Grand and Small Tsingy, camp Bekopaka
Day 3: Drive to Kirindy, night walk, had to stay in bungalow as ‘apparently’ fossa eats your tent
Day 4: Morning walk Kirindy, sunset at Baobabs, drive back to Morondava
He said if we found another 1-2 people, we could share the costs. It sounded like a good deal, and much better than anything we had been offered so far, so we agreed. He recommended a hotel in Miandrivazo and the next morning was waiting for us with a contract to sign. This was our first mistake, signing the contract and paying more than half up-front. Don’t get me wrong, we had an awesome trip and it was still a pretty good price. But it was a lesson not to pay up front if possible, even a deposit. In hindsight, we probably should have not committed and seen if we could get a better deal in Morondava. It was low season, and as two people we were in a good place to negotiate. We took a taxi-brousse from Miandrivazo to Morondava at 8am and arrived about 3pm. We had planned on seeing if we could find any other tourists to share the car. We made cursory efforts, but didn’t find anyone. The next morning we were picked up by our driver and were taken to another hotel. That was where another vazaha (foreigner) was waiting. He asked if we knew that he was coming. We didn’t. We were happy to have another person join us if we could share the costs, but when we got in the car, the driver told us his boss said we weren’t going anywhere until we all paid the full amount, so much for sharing the costs! We were all pretty angry, but he had us, we had each already paid a hefty deposit, so could hardly walk away. Needless to say, it was a bit of a sour start to the trip.
However, the French tourist who joined us was a really interesting, cool guy, so we were happy to share with him. We weren’t too impressed though when a wheel bearing broke and we got stranded in the heat. Luckily another car stopped to help us and we all squeezed into their car. We were a bit anxious that evening because we really didn’t trust that if the driver couldn’t fix the car, that our ‘guide’ would help us, particularly if he knew we had another car to go in. Fortunately, our driver fixed the car and met us later the next day.
But…back to the Tsingy. Despite all the setbacks, we had an awesome trip. During the journey to Tsingy, we had a few river crossings where the car is put on a raft and motored along the river, passing laughing children bathing in the water. The sharp limestone formations were other-worldly and really fun and challenging to climb. The view was really spectacular. We had to wear rockclimbing harnesses which we attached to metal rope. We went through narrow caves and crossed some hairy drawbridges, it felt like we were Indiana Jones! We saw sifakas and brown lemurs up close too. This was the complete Malagasy experience, definitely worth the long journey. Next stop…Kirindy…
Eugenie and Ifaliana while inspecting Tapia plantings
Local nurseries established to provide local and exotic species for reforestation
Inspecting seedlings at the nursery
Citrus trees planted at nursery used for grafting and supply to locals
Remnant intact Tapia forest
Epiphytic orchids in the Tapia forest
Tapia forest infested with exotic pines
Tapia forest infested with pine trees
Lookout on Tapia forest infested with pines
Everyone wants a Zebu
Amazing carpentry skills by the locals
We were very fortunate to have the National Director of Ny Tanintsika and one of her brightest staff show us around their project sites in Ambositra. The town is approximately four hours’ drive south of the capital city, Antananarivo. We visited local plant nurseries and the endemic, threatened Tapia woodland, home of the silk worm. Ny Tanintsika has developed small scale agroforestry plots within these communities– with cash crops such as sweet potato, tomatoes and citrus trees.
We also visited a womens’ silk weaving cooperative, which was created by Ny Tanintsika. This project supports women’s groups and households to protect the endemic tapia woodland – the last remnants of highland primary forest – through the revitalisation of the silk industry in Madagascar.
The Tapia woodland is only found in the central highlands of Madagascar. The dominant tree Uapaca bojeri is endemic to Madagascar. Tapia woodlands are adapted and resilient to the regions natural fire regime however frequent intense fires and land clearing has resulted in habitat degradation and fragmentation. The Tapia woodlands have now been restricted to fragmented stands that total less than 130 000ha. Most of these isolated stands have lost their species diversity and are no longer intact representatives of the former Tapia woodlands prior to high levels of disturbance.
The woodland we visited in the Faliarivo community is one of the last vestiges of intact Tapia woodland within the region. During our visit it was clear that almost no seedlings were present of the dominant native trees and the process of self-regeneration had stopped. The woodland has become infested with pines and this threatens the long-term biodiversity value of this woodland. If the pines are not eradicated the health of the Tapia woodland will only further decline.
Ny Tanintsika wishes to engage the local community to eradicate the pine from the Faliarivo Tapia woodland. Monetary compensation will be provided to locals for harvesting all of the pine within the woodland. Local nurseries have already been established for Tapia woodland restoration and will provide seedlings for infill planting once the pines have been eradicated. The timber harvested represents a commercial gain and profits will be re-invested into developing alternative income schemes for the local community.
This is one of the projects that Anni and I will focus on while we are here in Madagascar.
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