Threatened biodiversity in Madagascar

At present, SEED is undertaking three projects which focus on the protection of biodiversity in Madagascar. Project Ala works to protect the habitat of endangered lemurs; Project Palms is conserving 6 Red List palm species in Sainte Luce; and Project Oratsimba is protecting lobsters from overfishing.

Project Ala (which means forest in Malagasy), focuses on the conservation of endangered lemurs, such as the Southern Woolly Lemur and the Anosy Mouse Lemur, through reforestation in the Sainte Luce Littoral Forest (SLLF), located in the Anosy region of southeast Madagascar. Since the completion of Phase II, SEED has focused on expanding the corridors by replanting 33 Acacia seedlings in July 2022, and 5,113 native seedlings in February and March 2023. The most significant risk for the SLLF corridors is fire. In order to tackle this issue, communities surrounding the area trialled a prototype beater, with the 2023 January survey indicating that 90% of households in the surrounding area had already used fire beaters to put out fires. Cameras have also been installed in the corridor after a successful trial, to monitor the corridors and help with lemur observations. In November 2022 a Thomas’ Dwarf Lemur and four Red Collared Brown Lemurs were observed.

Project Oratsimba has continued to build the capacity of Fishery Management Committees (FMC) in Sainte Luce and Elodrato through training sessions and workshop facilitations. A successful pilot saving scheme for the Sainte Luce FMC has been established, and as of June 2023 1,000,000 MGA has been saved to meet individual saving goals. There has also been an increase in the average catch for fisheries in the communities of Sainte Luce and Elodrato. Lastly, there has been greater community engagement and awareness raising activities, thanks to a series of community cinema screenings, youth education sessions and mass mobilisation events.

Thank you again for your continued support, enabling these projects to thrive in southeast Madagascar.

Madagascar is one of the world’s highest conservation priorities, supporting approximately 5% of global biodiversity. The Anosy region, southeast Madagascar, is renowned for containing some of the few remaining viable littoral forests, supporting unusually rich and diverse plant and animal communities, including 13% of the island’s native flora.

However, the littoral forest faces a variety of challenges. Irregular rainfall and droughts reduce groundwater sources, increasing its vulnerability to fire. A highly impoverished community of 2,600 people depend on the forests for natural resources. Unsustainable logging, fragmentation and degradation continue to endanger the survival of the ecosystem, including one of the world’s most threatened group of mammals, endangered Lemurs.

To overcome these challenges and increase habitat connectivity, the Ala Programme, with the support of local stakeholders, has planted five biological corridors to connect Sainte Luce littoral forest remnants with a larger protected forest fragment. Progress has been made through the monitoring of native seedling survival rate; increasing to between 58% and 74% for seedlings planted in May 2022. The use of camera traps was trialled, aiming to record the presence of lemurs in the Corridors. An image of an Endangered fat-tailed dwarf lemur was captured on the edge of a Corridor.

Since June 2022, Project Ala has focused on bush fire prevention and mitigation, preparing for the upcoming planting season. In four communities, the team conducted training sessions and awareness-raising events, and distributed fire-fighting materials such as fire beaters made from locally-sourced materials. These efforts have contributed towards protecting the SLLF, surveys show the fire beaters are being widely used and that fires are being reported to forest management bodies.  

Thank you again for your continued support, enabling this vital work to be carried out in Southeast Madagascar.