After six amazing months in Madagascar, our time with Ny Tanintsika came to an end in March 2015. We were sad to leave this beautiful country and people. This island, named by some as the eighth continent, is so rich in culture and energy; despite being incredibly financially poor and politically unstable; the people really make the most of what they have with a strong sense of community. We made many good friends and learned so much from our experiences. Hopefully we contributed to the organisation at least partly as much as we gained. We really were so impressed that the staff manage to make so much progress with such little funding or government support. Their tireless effort was incredibly inspiring.

We had a great farewell, the staff organised delicious snacks and music. We received a lovely hat and a locally made bright orange handbag with photos inside of our time at Ny Tanintsika. We also went to karaoke and danced with the staff at a local nightclub; this was a lot of fun. We wish you all the very best Ny Tanintsika, but for now we can only say Misaotra betsaka (many thanks) for all your lessons and support and Mandra Piona (see you later). We are thankful to Eugenie for guiding us, providing feedback and spending time showing us projects in Ambositra. Thank you to Sam for her guidance, support and patience with our many questions, you are an inspiration! We would also like to send heartfelt thanks to all the staff. Thank you for your help, guidance, and Malagasy lessons. Without your support and assistance we would not have been able to contribute as we had hoped. And of course, a huge thank you to Jamie for saying yes to us in the first place! There are so many other people we are eternally grateful to, so thank you everyone at Ny Tanintsika, we really do hope to return to this colourful, energetic country in the not too distant future.

If you want know more about this NGO, please visit our page on Feedback Madagascar / Ny Tanintsika or www.feedback.org.

While working at Ny Tanintsika we were fortunate to be invited on a workshop to Ibity with Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) and Kew Madagascar (KMCC). Ibity is a small community in the central highlands of Madagascar located roughly 20km south from Antsirabe. The workshop was to identify critical ecosystem characteristics and other factors for consideration in developing a management plan for the area. This included fire regime, Tapia woodland restoration and the enhancement of existing gallery forests. Essential to a successful day we required an injection of caffeine. We shared morning coffees at a local bakery over introductions and a general discussion about MGB’s desired outcomes from the session. The charismatic Chris Birkinshaw is the project lead for MBG in Madagascar and led the discussions. He had invited local Kew environmental and restoration specialists, members from the worldwide MBG team and Stuart Cable, Kew Research leader for Madagascar.

The Ibity massif is a 6000ha quartz mountain that has been flagged as a priority area for conservation due to the large number of locally endemic plant species found there. The area contains diverse grasslands and regular rocky outcrops that lead to drainage gullies covered by some taller trees and shrubs known as gallery forests. On bands across the hillsides are small pockets of remnant Tapia woodland. Holcim (one of Madagascar’s largest cement producers) has a factory adjacent to the proposed conservation area. The company, after lobbying, has agreed to support the project and help the local community with funding to protect this unique landscape.

Our first stop at the Ibity project site was a remnant pocket of Tapia woodland. Tapia is important to the local communities as it provides edible fruit and silk cocoons. The cocoons are produced by a moth that feeds on Tapia leaves and is endemic to the highlands of Madagascar. Tapia woodland tends to occupy areas of shallow soils with rocky outcrops. This has also helped to protect the woodlands from deforestation for agricultural land as it typically grows around rocks on impoverished lands.

The field trip and workshop showed there is good understanding in the significance of numerous ecosystems/biomes in Madagascar however limited in detail to understand why some systems are failing. Madagascar has many varied environments which differ in their responses and adaptations to human interference.  More scientific investigation and experimentation is urgently required to develop detailed management plans for numerous areas of environmental significance.

Madagascar has a fast growing population that is largely impoverished and has dramatically changed the landscape at an alarmingly rate. More collaboration is required between organisations and departments with similar aims and objectives. Due to limited funding and participation, organizations needs to actively share information to avoid wasting resources on duplication. The trip to Ibity was rewarding and our sharing ideas and information will hopefully lead to better outcomes for the conservation of the Ibity massif and its stunning landscapes.

Land in Madagascar is usually obtained through inheritance, gift, or clearing fallow land. Ownership of agricultural land is a significant determinant of welfare. 77 percent of the rural population is below the national poverty line, and those without land are the poorest. Only about 7% of agricultural land is registered.

The majority of landholders in Madagascar assert rights to land under customary law. Land is perceived as the land of the ancestors (tanindrazana). Although land may become individualized, many believe that it must be titled or recorded in some fashion before an individual can claim perpetual ownership rights to the plot. However, many villagers do not see the necessity of formal registration.

Madagascar established a Torrens land registration system during the colonial period. Registration under the system proceeded slowly and inefficiently. Records of land once formally registered have fallen out of date because of the high costs of the formal registration process. Registration requires an average of 74 days to navigate seven different procedures, with 24 steps involved. The organisations tasked with administering the system, Services Fonciers Topographie and Domaine lack sufficient funds. Local land registry offices have been established to allow people to legalise private property rights through the issue of individual or collective land certificates. So far, only one fifth of local governments have a land registry office.

The cost of obtaining a land certificate is approximately 9.7% of the property value. The average cost MGA 60,000 ($USD350), which is more than the annual wage of many farmers. If parents die, applicants must start process again. It is costly and lengthy to determine who owns a parcel of land and all inheritors must be identified. Once a land certificate has been issued, the recipient(s) must pay taxes, which many people cannot afford. Further complicating the issue is that often people who do not have a legitimate claim to the land are the first to come forward with a claim.

Malagasy NGO Ny Tanintsika works with communities on local projects to reduce poverty and improve conservation. One of their projects works with the poorest and most marginalised people assisting them to grow food crops using sustainable methods. Beneficiaries have mostly borrowed land from family, neighbours or acquaintances, and continued access to land is insecure. Beneficiaries run the risk of other people claiming ownership of land and crops produced.

Ny Tanintsika is working to secure formal land tenure for these households, though it is proving a complex and arduous process. They are in the beginning stages of assisting communities to set up local land offices to help smallholders receive land tenure certification or title deeds (part of the Malagasy government’s National Land Tenure Reform Programme). Once a land office is set up in a commune, the community is tasked with managing the office and setting fee charges for the service. Ny Tanintsika is currently applying for funding to establish the first land office in one of the communes that they work, Ankarimbelo in the central highlands. If successful, they will expand this to other communes in their sphere of influence. If you would like to donate to this worthy cause, please visit https://www.justgiving.com/feedbacktrust/donate/