On the road, through the landscape, in search of forest in Madagascar.

This post was written on Jan 24th 2015. It was inspired by my first journey into Kianjavato from the capital Antananarivo (200 miles) with Ed Louis in his Toyota Hilux.


As we leave the congested roads of the capital, the landscape suddenly opens out to reveal swathes of green wasteland, interspersed with vast rice paddies, baron grassland and discarded construction materials. As remnants of modern city life are left quickly in the rear view mirror, the landscape transforms into a monotony of treeless rolling hills and mountains far, far into the distance.

Antananarivo in the distance, 20 minutes out of town

Quaint wood and mud houses scatter in small patches along the roadside as we speed away. This land is populated far beyond my expectations and even in this treeless wilderness, signs of human life are constant.

Every hour or so we slow down onto a paved road into a few hundred meters of built up area. They seem to be a central place for the local villages around. Essentially there is a grocer, butchers and some practical stores, with a few restaurants. At one of the larger communes we stop for gas. Some scraggly kids begs for money and want my water bottle. I chat with them and they enjoy having their picture taken and giggling as they see themselves back on the camera. We also stop at one of the numerous vegetable and fruit sellers which line sporadic parts of the main road.

out of the car window a very quaint looking town (consisting entirely of this one road). the picture hides the dirt, grime and rubbish.

that whole stall would cost less than $50 for all its potatoes, carrots, courgettes and tomatoes

the main mode of transport in the country side if u have no car!

the larger town wehere we stopped for gas

As we forge on, small clusters of pine and eucalyptus trees are the only vegetation to be seen - apart from rice, corn and manioc fields. These tree species are exotic, mainly brought over from Australia. The endemic and native trees have literally been burnt out of existence. I find it ironic that these trees are planted only after they have destroyed the ones already there. I struggle to imagine just how these people cook their food with fire. Wood is not available for hundreds of miles around. The fact is that firewood and charcoal almost exclusively come from the small fragments of primary forest that still exists in parts of this vast island.

Further on and deep into the countryside the bumpy road swivels and meanders up and down the ongoing see of mountainous hills. One can only imagine the sheer beauty of this landscape, once coated in tropical forest just decades ago. The hills rise and fall in a fabric of small valleys, where rice paddies dominate the soggy ground. Its a stunning landscape even in its totally degraded state. I can compare it to north wales or even the Scottish cairngorms, except this landscape continues for hundreds of miles far into the distance in every direction. Hills upon mountains upon hills of grassland no longer productive enough to grow the basic crops.

paddies and hill mountains

The traditional agricultural practise named 'tavy', basically slash and burn, has charcoaled the once productive soil. Centuries in the past the burned land, which is cropped and harvested for 1 - 2 years, was then left for 15 - 30 years to recover its productivity. But these days with a growing population and lack of resources, land is burnt far too frequently. After 3 - 5 uses, the land becomes completely void of nutrients and is left for dead. In its place invasive grasses grow abundantly and this is burnt seasonally due to wildfire and also to sprout fresh life for cattle.

As we continue further east the villages are steeped deeper in traditional shapes and colours. The people are dressed more traditionally, some men look like real cowboys, with dirt stained scarves wrapped around there chests and faces shaped and blackened by the charcoal, their clothes a burnt brown and coloured by the deep red of the tropical soil. Women are draped in loosely fitting clothes and brightly coloured scarves which allow them to work in the heat on the fields but retain there feminine beauty. Everywhere faces are scared and moulded by an existence of hard sweat and grind, of working the fields and striving to find enough food and wood to feed themselves and there children.

Speedily out of the villages we scape through the mountain hills in our 4 wheel drive. Passing local buses struggling to move over the broken up road, which often brings travelling to a standstill. 8 hours into the drive and the landscape scarcely changes at all. Through the bright green of the grass, thick bellows of black smoke occasionally rise from freshly cut scrub and pine plantations. Sporadically, the eyes are excited by a large patch of tree cover, only to realise that these non native species will very soon be cut for firewood, leaving the landscape empty again. 

As my eyes wonder over the landscape i am lost in the realisation that the world over has either been through this transformation or is going through it now. The UK, which once had cut all of its forest, now only has has 7% forest cover. The European average is about 30%. Then Brazil, which looses huge swathes of forest each hour (areas unimaginable in size) and much for the pursuit of meat for the hungry western carnivores, such as myself!
And then places such as Borneo and the Madagascar, which will soon be completely empty of natural forest. Apart from the national parks, which a few unthanked people have spent there lives preserving. The rest of humanity, which benefit every day from the clean air and water the forests provide, simply carry on their daily vices. Impotent of the perilous way capitalism, and commercialism suffocates life on earth. Never before did it become so clear to me that if this blind way of living continues, life on earth will be a very different prospect for my children and their children. Perhaps its time to change.