Protect the Mangroves!

We've been working on the 'Sainte Luce Reserve Mangrove Regeneration Project' 
which has been really rewarding because we've managed to move it on significantly during my two months.

Thousands of mangrove propagules have been planted along the banks of the River over the last 6 months and a big part of their success will depend on education and publicity.

Two of the biggest threats to the young seedlings at the Reserve are tavy, Madagascar's practice of slash and burn, and wake from the only motorised boats in the area belonging to a smart lodge up the coast.

To tackle the second issue we've written to the helpful owner of the lodge with a report, written by me and translated into French by my volunteer colleague, explaining the project objectives and results to date. We've also made signs which the launch drivers will hopefully see and adhere to. This involved a rather painstaking stencil and paint job plus hammering together the boards....it all takes rather longer than you expect when you have to hand make double ended nails! Finally we were ready to put them in place, one to the north of the Reserve which we took by boat...

... and the other to the south which we could reach on foot. 

Tackling the tavy is more difficult but as education through the schools seems to work well we formulated a lesson plan. This involved me enacting a tsunami and a large fish keen to gobble up small fish! To increase the hit rate we also designed and printed leaflets which could then be taken home by the children and hopefully looked at by the adults. 

We had great fun one afternoon when the headmistress of the closest school said we could come along and run a lesson on mangrove conservation. It was actually a day off at school so the students had to come in especially; I think they thought we were bringing sweets with us based on the enthusiast rush into the classroom:

The whole school, 100+ pupils, managed to cram into a single classroom... this is half of them! 

There were some incredibly detailed and accurate drawings of mangroves, really talented.  

The final part of the lesson was a song written by our guides at the Reserve who are frustrated singer / song writers waiting to be discovered! With Rene on the guitar and a lot of repetition we encouraged a great sing along and even heard it being sung  and hummed as we headed home....success! 

Ravenala Madagascariensis

A hugely distinctive and gloriously majestic tree, the ravenala, or travellers' palm, has been a big part of my horizon for the last couple of months.

Depicted on the 100 Ariary note (2.5 pence!) and also on the state seal, it's a very useful fast growing tree. 

The trunks are used to make the walls of the houses. This is then being prepared... 

... and the leaves for roofing. A work in progress in the village. 

Nerd facts about the ravenala palm: 

- it isn't a palm but it's said to be related to the banana 

- it's called the travellers palm because thirsty travellers can mine the base of the leaves for stored rain water

Snakes!

We've had a rather exciting time of it recently with some up close and personal encounters with snakes. Although they don't have deadly snakes in Madagascar, it's difficult to trust that or put it to the test!

Most evenings there's a call of, "snake", as one of us just avoids treading on one of these chaps who we regularly see around camp at night.

You quickly get used to carrying a torch as they're not very quick to move off!

On a recent night walk we saw this fellow, a tree boa, who stayed hanging out on this branch for the next day and night.

We go to bed pretty early here what with early starts, physically tiring days and limited electricity. Unusually I heard excited chattering at about 10pm a couple of nights later and, on investigating, found 2 big eyed guardians who where sharing their bungalow with the tree boa who looked a lot bigger extended along their wall. It was encouraged to leave but I don't think either of them had a good night's sleep!

Last Saturday my neighbour was cleaning his bungalow; trying to evict a persistent mouse who wanted to set up home. Having been woken up weeks before by a mouse biting his big toe he wasn't keen to share! Whilst cleaning he saw this 1m+ snake that seemed to be struggling to find his way out or perhaps he was hunting the mouse!

While I was working in the vegetable patch I saw this very brazen snake. I think it lives here as I've seen it a few times; I disturbed it inflagranté with a mate on one occasion! I wandered away for a couple of minutes and returned to find him constricting a skink which was then swallowed whole, fascinating, if a little macabre, to watch.

The final snake excitement was when I was on my own early one morning walking in the forest and happened upon this boa digesting right across the path. The approximate size of his meal looked suspiciously like a fat tailed lemur!

No dramatic stories to this snake, it's just rather gorgeous and we've only seen it once. I spotted him on one of our night walks.

Team Madagascar

I'm living in a fairly closed community, only due to its remoteness and because it's difficult to get to (I haven't taken orders... it isn't that life changing!). I think, strangely, it's what I like best and least about my time here.

Fortunately I get to share it with some lovely, fun people. I'm one of two volunteers, the other being a 19 year old American lad, who's also half Burkina. Obviously we're culturally and generationally poles apart but he's proving to be a great companion.

We live with our guide Rene who is also, most importantly, our interpreter. He's super cool and spends his spare time playing and writing music. He occasionally gets a break from us and Ludovic replaces him.

There are also 2 guardians and they swap out every fortnight which shakes it up a bit. Their main responsibilities are security, keeping the forest paths clear, chopping firewood, watering the veg patch and collecting water for the camp. Here are Nambini and Dodo after their rounds in the forest...

Each day a couple come in from the local village which is about an hour by foot and canoe, in all weather. Sana cooks and Solo is responsible for the canoes and is also the oracle on all things in the Reserve, being the longest serving member of staff... and occasional camp barber. 

On Sundays the guardians, Rene, Malick and I are left to fend for ourselves. Sunday lunch, which is always a bit of a treat.. spaghetti rather than rice, is usually prepared by me and Malick and  accompanied by a tasty courgette and tomato sauce!

Occasionally we need extra labour to canoe in supplies or when felling and chopping the non endemic trees. These guys are supernaturally strong, carrying tree trunks on their shoulders through the forest paths; amazing. 

The work squad:

Amazing Madagascar

Lemurs and chameleons!

The Working Week

I'm becoming dangerously used to a snooze in the middle of the day! We work 8-12am and then 2-5pm which leaves 2 blissful hours in the middle of the day for lunch and a siesta; perfect. The working week is Monday to Saturday with Sundays off, although, if we feel we've had a productive week, we give ourselves Saturday afternoon off as well!

The work varies and we're pretty much left to manage and organise ourselves with just high level objectives shared at the beginning, during my induction.

The work is split in to:

Maintenance - making sure existing paths and buildings are holding up. This is the team painting the dining hut and also fixing the roof of my house. Everything rots or is eaten so quickly here.

Conservation (of the forest) - which includes collecting seedlings nurturing them and planting areas that need regeneration. There are also several introduced Filao trees (Casuarina) that need to be removed.

Conservation (of the mangroves) - to the west, the Reserve is bordered by 2km of river and there is ongoing work to regenerate the banks by planting mangroves and we have been continuing that with survey work, report writing, signage and education.

Wildlife - continuing habituation of the lemurs at Sainte Luce which is a great excuse to walk in the forest early in the morning and at night to cover the diurnal and nocturnal species. There's a fairly resident group of Red Collared Brown lemurs, the only diurnal species, who we get to stalk quite often! I've noticed a marked reduction in the level of noise when we see them now which, in my lay person's view, means they're becoming more comfortable with us..... although it does make them harder to spot!

We regularly see Southern Woolly lemurs and Fat Tailed Dwarf lemurs on the night walks and occasionally we see these cute Gray Mouse lemurs.

We're also adding to the list of species seen at the Reserve and have managed to add 3 bird species with photographs. We saw this lovely Pitta-like Ground-roller roosting during a night walk.

This black crowned night heron was one of three we saw from the canoe one morning. Even our local guru and canoe guide had never seen them before so it was great to capture them on camera.

While walking the forest one day we found a giraffe necked weevil and they're not supposed to be here so that was a surprise and something for the Reserve to publish to the wider community.

In February I was up at 5am three mornings a week to walk the beach at dawn looking for any sea turtle egg laying signs. We never did come across any but we were rewarded with some stunning sun rises.

Projects - things that we can think of that would be useful. We've had great fun designing a board game with flash cards to help the staff with their English and us with our Malagasy. Also we've built an extension to the tree nursery and this is us passing and tying in the roof.

Education - we're putting together a lesson on mangrove conservation for a couple of the schools nearby, well a half hour canoe trip and then a 1km and 4km walk! 

Sainte Luce Reserve

Sainte Luce is a fragment of a fragment of littoral forest, which is coastal rainforest, now in short supply in Madagascar. There are only three fragments left down in the south east of the country and unfortunately on the largest of these Rio Tinto have been granted mining exploration rights in their quest for ilmenite (the mineral that, makes products such as toothpaste white).

To reach the Reserve we headed out of Fort Dauphin in a 4x4, loaded up with a week's vitels for the camp, for the initial leg, the 65km road trip..... well I say road:

Two and a half hours later we stopped, in the middle of nowhere, at another rickety river crossing with 2 dugout canoes waiting to transport us onwards:

After about 40 minutes of paddling and having been asked to stop wriggling so much, as I tried to look right, left, back and front all at the same time, we arrived at this rather smart looking dock:

Good things continued to happen as I was offered this lovely little bungalow which makes a much more comfy home for the two months than my tent:

Although small, the Reserve exists to protect several acres of primary forest which extend down to a picture postcard beach to the east, with the tranquil, meandering Elimont River wrapping around the rest of it.

We generate solar power which is enough to charge torches and phones and give us light in the evening, provided the sun has been shining in the day! I haven't heard a motor here at all which is blissful. The overriding sounds are the ocean which is pretty powerful on this coast and then the cicadas, crickets and frogs. Oh, and the other is thunder, wind in the palms and torrential rain on the tin roof of the dining hut - but it is the rainy season!

Madagascar

I'm now in Madagascar; a dream come true. I don't really have any preconceived ideas except that it will be different and I will see things I've never seen before.

Arriving in Antananarivo (Tana), the capital,  I stayed in Ivato, near the airport, as I was flying down to the south east early the next morning. I had to venture out to dinner, a 15 minute walk accompanied by the hotel guard to show me the way. We threaded our way through narrow streets busy with people and lined with small wooden houses, many doubling as shop fronts. The people are an intriguing mix of Africa and Asia (their forebearers coming from Indonesia/Malaysia 1000s of years ago.  When I walked into the restaurant I could have been in France... the decor, the menu, the bar. The meal was delicious accompanied by a tropical downpour thundering down on the roof and windows reminding me where I was. I didn't know that, due to a power shortage, electricity is switched off between 7-9pm, (and 9-11am), every day. Now I had to negotiate, in total darkness, streets that had turned into rivers, competing for the dry ground with a lot of other people. Fortunately at a particularly tricky section my friendly guard found me and by the weak light from his 'phone we completed the journey.

My destination the following day was Taolagnaro, previously known as Fort Dauphin. I stayed in a lovely bungalow looking out over the Indian Ocean with stunning sunset views from the garden sofa and from the bar 2 doors down! 

I had my orientation for the project and also had a chance to wander around the town. 

The market:

Oyster sellers:

Fort Dauphin is famous for the oldest building in Madagascar, a 1504 fort, and lobster, most of which is exported. Pirouges, dug out canoes, litter the beaches and they use them with sail and paddle to fish but without outriggers which looks pretty unstable to me.

Next stop Sainte Luce Reserve...

Moving on Up

I flew via Nairobi to Antananarivo (Tana) in Madagascar and was spoilt with this wonderful view of Mounts Kilimanjaro and Meru.

Then I had my first views of Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world. Although, now I've experienced the state of the roads, it can feel like the largest island in the world!

Lack of sleep, rather than presence of alcohol, is responsible for the odd angle!