Få steder på kloden er dyre- og plantelivet så enestående som på den store ø, Madagascar, i Det Indiske Ocean, og få steder forsvinder naturen og skovene så hurtigt under presset fra en dybt forarmet befolkning – men nu vil en lokal miljøvenlig gruppe sætte ind med genskovning.
ANDASIBE, 24 April 2014 (IRIN): An association of tour guides and community members at the Analamazaotra Forest Station, a protected area of rainforest about 150 km east of Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, has embarked on an ambitious reforestation project.
The aim is to educate local people about the value of preserving the forest as well as generating an income for 400 nearby households.
“We all studied to become tour guides, but wanted to do more. We didn’t just want to show nature, we wanted to participate in it,” said Justin Claude Rakotoarisoa of the Mitsinjo Association, which started as a community initiative to manage the Forest Station with the proceeds of (indtægter fra) eco-tourism in 1999.
The reforestation project, which started in 2003, is funded by international donors including the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Finnish airline, Finnair.
It employs about 100 local people – some as full-time tour guides and educators and others to re-plant the forest for a few hours a day.
“Often, when we talk to villagers about not cutting the forest, they ask for money, food and materials. We tell them we have no money to give them, but we do have techniques. It is a big challenge. You can’t just tell people not to cut the forest,” Rakotoarisoa told IRIN.
90 per cent survives on less than two US dollar a day
The Forest Station is one of the most popular tourist destinations on the island.
However, a protracted political crisis that started in 2009 with a coup d’etat which ousted then President Marc Ravolomanana, caused the number of international visitors to Madagascar to drop sharply from 375,000 in 2008 to less than half that number the following year.
The drop in tourist numbers caused more local people to turn to producing charcoal (trækul) and selling it on the side of the road, which forms the main national thoroughfare between the capital and the port city of Tamatave.
According to the World Bank, poverty levels have increased sharply as a result of the political crisis.
Economic growth has dropped to zero from an average of five percent per year prior to the crisis and over 90 percent of the population now survives on less than two US dollar (11 DKR) a day.
“Nobody thought about planting trees”
“People tell us that the forest provides them with their only income,” Rakotoarisoa said, adding:
“So we say that, when they are ready, we can show them how to cut trees and how to plant new ones. It is a long process, but we have some results. A long time ago, nobody thought about planting trees.”
The project teaches farmers how to cut trees in a more sustainable way for charcoal use, as well as agricultural techniques such as combining rice and vegetable crops in one field and making use of natural pesticides and fertilizers that boost yields (afgrøder) and decrease the need to slash and burn more forest.
Part of making the case for reforestation involves pointing to the negative impacts villagers appear to already be experiencing due to the loss of forest.
These include a lack of clean water supplies, and anecdotal evidence of rising temperatures and decreasing rainfall.
“Here in the forest, it never used to be hot, but now it is sometimes 32 degrees and there is no rain. This is because too much forest has been lost because of tavy (slash and burn agriculture = svedjebrug). When we point this out to the villagers, they start to understand,” explained Rakotoarisoa.
Restoring the forest
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/99983/small-steps-towards-forest-conservation-in-madagascar
Mere om Madagascars enestående dyre- og planteliv på
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_of_Madagascar
