Climate Action Madagascar Project #63491

Reforestation 2.0 in our villages in Madagascar

by Zahana

Reforestation 2.0 in our villages in Madagascar

Project Report | Mar 10, 2025
Reforestation a tradition for celebrations

By Markus Faigle | Volunteer

Reforestation for the xmas celebration

The end of year holidays is a source of different feelings including memories, pain and joy.

For Zahana, since its creation Christmas is a special event in the villages and children have been waiting for it with excitement all year long. It is the only occasion of the year for them to receive gifts.

The 2024 Christmas celebration was held this time in Fiarenana.

As it has become a Zahana tradition, the official celebration was supposed to start with the planting of trees. For almost 2 decades now reforestation has become a part of all official celebrations, such as International Women’s Day, Independence Day or Christmas. It is the ‘new normal’ for our Zahana communities to plant trees by involving the entire community first, before returning to the villages for the more traditional festivities like dances and music.

The biggest challenge to this plan was there was no rain for these last days and the committee was on the way to change the schedule for the communal reforestation. Fortunately, like a wonderful surprise, rain fell the night before the event. It was raining all night long, what a relief.

Everyone participated to the reforestation and the remaining rain from last night is enough to water the young trees for days. We could not have wished for a more perfect day for our community reforestation effort.

The reforestation kick-off was followed by a series of activities organized by teachers and committee of leders, such as Christmas carols, communal lunch, followed by different shows and presentations by children and adults.

Seeing kids singing christmas carols and performing different dances are a great source of happiness. These kids never realized how hard their living situation is. They are happy and they know how to share this infectious sweetheart feeling with the spectators. We are just thankful, may they stay blessed and keep in mind what they learnt from Zahana to improve their living conditions.

It all ended with the sharing of gifts, the most beloved moment for the children. This time kids got as gifts: cup, noddles, candies, cookies and clothes. All students (224) had gotten sandals at the school commencement, but some were still left and became part of Xmas gifts, with the luckiest even getting basketball, or even football boots.

We from the village wish you all happy new year.

Everybody joined for communal reforestation

Rain water for the seedlings

Watering the seedling with rainwater

Dancing during the celebration

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Dec 27, 2024
Endemic trees for reforestation

By Markus Faigle | Volunteer

At the National Forestry Center

We just launched our Reforestation 2.0 in our villages in Madagascar Project as a follow up for our reforestatiuon efforts in the next two years. The 2023 numbers in this report are also part of the project you helped us get fully funded. Thank you.

Mamy, the gardener from Tsaramandroso and Donné, our Zahana agricultural expert from Fiadanana, were both in the capital of Antananarivo to attend a training at the national forestry center.

This training is a new approach for tree nursery with a special focus on endemic trees. We also took advantage of the opportunity and bought more seeds of endemic trees from the national forestry center for our reforestation 2.0 program. Endemic trees, suitable for our region and climate will be a new focus for our reforestation efforts. They were told that endemic trees take more time to grow, that’s why they are valuable and need special attention.

Mamy has been chosen to be part of committee of leaders. He is like a role model in his village. His wife is acting teacher at the EPP (public primary school) in Tsaramandroso. She provided a training for our all of Zahana teachers to update their knowledge to fit the government program as required.

A quick summary

Tsaramandroso took the first place in number of trees planted and use of the improved cookstove. The representative requested solar lamps for the village to avoid petty thefts during the night as some ducks and chicken from the microcredit program were stolen in the darkness.

Report on reforestation 2023

Trees planted: 5877

Tsaramandroso        2264
Fiadanana               1123
Fiarenana                1284
Analakely                 1206
Total                        5877

Improved cookstove used in households:
Tsaramandroso 90%
Fiadanana         71%
Fiarenana          54%
Analakely          65%

A note: During the meeting everyone has been asked to share their one experience on awareness. This one was the funniest example of raising awareness through behavior without saying any word (from Mamy.)

Mamy’s little story: He lived in Tsaramandroso for many years. He was the first man to wear pants and having a haircut while other men wore short pants and long tousled hair. Seeing him like this, the others started to put on pants and cut their hair making them ‘nice looking’ as he remarked. Maybe his size gives him a charisma too, he is taller and bigger than the most in his village.

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At the National Forestry Center

We bought endemic tree seeds for reforestation

At the National Forestry Center

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