Southeast Passages: Blue Ventures / Blue Forests

Baobab in the southwest forest

Note: For those of you who read my blog (because I shamelessly email the link, maybe?), I know, it's been a while (15 months). Update: I spent 7 months of 2016 in Bogor, Indonesia but wasn't inspired to write a lot - I worked as deputy director for a landscape management project, about 3 steps of the ladder away from the actual landscape (i.e. in an air-conditioned at a desk behind a computer - highly reminiscent of my last Canadian job).
Casting around for the next job, I made the conscious decision to choose one that offered a technical field work aspect and have been incredibly lucky to land a position with Blue Ventures in Madagascar as their Blue Forests programme lead, advancing work to ensure sustainability in coastal mangroves. So here's how things are going....

Dry forest in southwest

Hotel in Befandefa, a village in Baie des Assassins

Village in southwest - note the fence; constructed from mangrove species

Village outreach, consulting on mangrove reforestation areas

Another source of income - seaweed cultivation

Village of Andavadoaka

So far, the first two months of my new job has involved a lot of traveling - Antananarivo, Toliara, Ambanja, Andavadoaka and surrounding villages, with possibly Mahajamba and Belo sur Mer lined up in the next month. All with the aim of familiarising myself with the several sites at which Blue Ventures operates. BV has been in Madagascar for over 10 years, primarily focused on improving fisheries sustainability in coastal communities. But, as with any environmental issue, it’s all connected, and for the last four years additional resources have been targeted towards management of bordering mangrove forests which have been depleted for building supplies and charcoal production. Mangroves, for my non-forestry readers, are multi-functional ecosystems, fringing ocean and riverine systems in the tropics and sub-tropics. They provide nurseries for small fish, crabs and shrimp, and protect coasts from wave-action erosion and more severe events like cyclones. There are 8 species of trees found in Malagasy mangrove forests; comparatively few compared to Indonesia, with about 35 different species; all fascinating plants which are able to grow with their roots in salty water.

Shoreline in Andavadoaka, village where BV has an office

Tree nursery in southwest, Cordylla madagascarensis seedlings

Outplanted seedling, southwest

The Blue Forests program is centered around communities close to the coast, primarily dependent on fishing for their livelihoods, which either have tenure over the mangroves or have a path to tenure, and depend on them to provide building materials for houses, fences and boats. Tenure is key, because it allows communities to continue sustainable harvest from mangroves; in an attempt to stop people from outside the area cutting trees in the mangrove forests the Malagasy government has made harvesting mangrove trees illegal.

Our role is to facilitate communities to build management plans that include provisions to set aside protected zones and areas for sustainable harvesting, to monitor natural regeneration and to hold planting events to reforest the most seriously degraded areas. And, to relieve demand for wood, we’re also helping to establish alternative wood plantations outside the mangrove zone, planting species that can be used for charcoal production; another environmental issue that demands a broader solution. Most Malagasy use charcoal to cook, other forms of energy being unavailable, unreliable or too expensive for the average family. If there were significant investment in affordable green energy sources, the threat to mangroves would decrease accordingly.

Tree nursery in northwest, Acacia seedlings

However, charcoal production is also an important source of income for many villagers, who are living close to the poverty line, many earning less than $2 USD a day.

Heading out to plant seedlings

Options? Northwest Madagascar is humid, warm and leafy, which offers the potential to grow fruit crops, cinnamon, and other plants to replace cash earned by charcoal, as well as to develop beekeeping, producing mangrove honey. In the extremely dry southwest, options are more limited, but BV is supporting a trial beekeeping operation and alternative fuel wood plantations, expanding the paths to increased income for families whose primary source of food and money is fishing.

Beehive

Village consultation for health programme

Along the trail to a village in the northwest

My brain is swimming with all sorts of new information after these first 2 months - I’m hoping to go back to my base in Toliara and process a lot of this before sorting out how I can be effective in the job. Not to mention several other items on the to-do list; improving my French, picking up more Malagasy, finding a place to live and figuring out how to shop the markets. If learning keeps you young, I’m quite the baby now.