MADAGASCAR

Hills reforestation 

The experimental agro-forestry project in which we have been involved since 2010 in Madagascar, aimed at managing and reforesting grassy savannah hills abandoned for decades to wild pastoralism, bush fires, erosion or shrub colonization, and where a percentage of the surface, inaccessible to mechanized work, had to be managed manually, represented a major challenge.

The ultimate aim being to re-establish the forest by studying, exploiting and optimizing every opportunity likely to enhance the project's degree of viability, with respect for the environment and a permanent quest for maximum autonomy as conditions, the latter inevitably dictated strong requirements in terms of fertilization generated by efficient waste management, the fight against run-off by channelling and recovering rainwater, and the consumption of products (seeds, seedlings) for the extension of plantations.

Agroforestry

Although the initial goal was to re-establish forest, we opted for an agroforestry project for a number of reasons:

• Firstly, because we had decided to clear the land before planting, so as to free the soil of all intruders (tall savannah grasses, bushes, stunted trees) with the exception of endemic plants.

• This clearing was to be useful both for marking out access tracks, defining future plots and acting as an effective firebreak in a country where wild pastoralism and bush and forest fires are traditionally king.

• We wanted to make the most of the available surface area by using every space for planting trials (trees, shrubs, low plants), thereby increasing the number of species tested.

• The planting trials were to last a minimum of 5 years.

• The division of surfaces would give priority to the most accessible and protected areas for agroforestry, while forest would be established in areas with more pronounced relief, at the edges and as hedges at the boundaries of plots, to create habitat areas for wildlife and a protective screen against the wind.
• Multiple tracks serving the entire area would allow access for mechanized work, while in steep areas, the creation of terraces would reduce the impact of runoff, retain water and facilitate maintenance and movement within the plots.
• In this agroforestry project, which required dynamic implementation, we included the need to promote local development by giving women priority access to service contracts including training, housing assistance and support for their children's schooling.

   

  We were able to work on a few vegetables, small fruit and essential oil plants, fruit trees for cultivation or essential oils, and forest trees.

Forestry

• Over the 12 species of forest seedlings integrated from 2012 onwards, while 3 of them were abandoned because they suffered from the dry season, 4 unplanted species appeared spontaneously: we chose to let nature dictate its preferences, while taking care to achieve our initial goal of establishing an irregular forest.
• The installation of beehives and the creation of a few ponds where we envisaged aquaculture mostly aroused the interest of a fauna very different from the one we hoped to attract, and this project was not completed.
• At the end of 2014 we received Ecocert certification for the agroforestry plantations, with the forest and steep areas set aside for livestock farming meeting the criteria of the Earth & Forests program

The latest inventory show more than 40 species, including 15 forest genera, of which 4 or 5 are the main ones, 10 crop species (coffee, spices, essential oils), 21 fruit species (trees and low-growing plants), and endemic shrubs and plants.

After depressure thinning  between 2 and 3 years, pruning and an initial thinning between 4 and 6 years, the barely 12-year-old stand has become a three-layered forest with abundant natural regeneration, from which we extracted this year, in second rotation, logs up to 50 cm in diameter.

These have been processed into 20 to 80 mm thick strips for furniture, parquet flooring, panelling and ceilings.

The many unforeseen and undesirable situations we've had to deal with - particular weather conditions (cyclones), accidental or deliberate disasters, having to fend off temptations that are never lacking or make up for our own mistakes - have taught us a great deal, while the quest for autonomy and environmental management, playing an important role in the project's viability, have been particularly useful.

This proactive reactivity has enabled us to develop a special kind of silviculture that we are now applying in other parts of the world.

By adapting to events without refusing to face them or claiming to be able to dominate them, we had to revise our plans on a number of occasions, but on the whole, we came out stronger for it.