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PLANT A FOREST WITH US!

TSARASOA FOREST

As you will live here, I had to treat this part with great care. It's also as an example and I really wants to cover this eroded, barren hill with tall trees.

Stihl in the bush; pollution but perfect for trails and fire breaks.

To show to locals that deforestation isn't a malediction and that you can fight erosion. The Land can produce and support food growing all year round, it's barely a matter of organisation.

The grey water infiltration system waters a banana and papaya groove.

On Tsarasoa, I refused to reproduce the classic reforestation schemes; usually they're intented to produce wood for building and cooking and the fast growing varieties are terribly boring. I will not be an internationally recognized eco-lodge as I planted some trees imported from the outside but all of them do grow in the country.

Fruit trees are mostly new to the valley but if growing mangos, apples, litchis, oranges, pineapple, avocados and grapes all together is a crime, I accept to be condemned to severe fruit indigestions, ...
All species have been mixed but over one third of trees originate from the nearby forests. No lines, no order, I want to recreate a dense and messy forest groove, right here in beautiful Tsarasoa.

The first season gave excellent results with over 70% of success despite late planting (1,000 forest trees and 200 fruits) and poor rain season. The survivors are well established and start their seconth season springing up. In 2005, holes have been prepared earlier and were treated with a lot of natural fertilizer and we started planting way earlier, encouraged by 2004 results i planted 4000 trees and over 300 fruit trees.

Soavahiny, below Langela showing bits and pieces of the original forest.

The two major obstacles to those plans are administrative and logistics.

The land problems is unavoidable; as there are no clearly defined ownership rules and with multiple systems (traditionnal and administrative), reforest the land is a real challenge for rural communities.

As a general rule, planting a tree is considered as land take over and can lead to official ownership; that's why planting trees takes so much importance and is highly conflictual. Work with the fokonolona is compulsory so planting is not considered as an attempt to overtake new land, and without a sparkle (me!) the system inertia kill all individual initiatives. The main obstacle is the seedlings and how to get them. Every year I carry thousands of plants from Tananarive, 500 kms from planting zones!... Even solliciting all the local nurseries (private, confessional or governmental) doesn't function. Orders are late or forgotten, varieties are rare (mainly pine and eucalyptus) and one has to run around to get some good material.

My best source is the small group of malagasy, established along the road to Antsirabe, 27 kms south of Tana. They're so efficient that swiss cooperation is planning to build them, stalls and green houses.

But even with them, it wasn't enough. That's why I carved a new terrace in order to produce 5,000 more plants and set the goal to 10,000 trees for the 2005-2006 planting season.

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