Tropical reforestation, a volunteer perspctive, Madagascar

Welcome interested people! This post describes my experiences and explains how The MBP project practises reforestation in Kianjavato, Madagascar. If you find this kinda awesome, maybe you should volunteer and have a ago yourself!

This is only a brief summary of some of the main practical elements to planting trees, it in no way reflects the amount of good will and co-operation both from volunteers and especially the Malagasy community.

me and the staff from the largest resident tree nursery (they have a wiked sense of humour!)

My 7 month experience working for this NGO was very positive and life enhancing. I had a fantastic time, learnt lots about life, and myself and got really fit. It took place in a small collection of hamlets surrounded by disturbed forest distributed along a well paved highway in Kianjavato. The rolling hills, which characterise the tropical terrain here, are scattered with several bamboo species and 2 extravagant species of palm. Settlements, shaggy ferns, grass, cassava, or dry rice constitute the majority of space in between 2 small fragments of forest which are the target for the project. Rice paddies swell in between the slopes and lemurs bound in the remaining forest. A small NGO runs a conservation project to research lemurs and hopefully connect the 2 forest fragments.

In the distance you can see the forest which surrounds the mountain. This is the largest patch of forest for 200 miles.

The second, smaller fragment of intact forest.

My job is to help plant trees for the project in the surrounding area. Local land owners allow this to happen because their land in no longer productive enough to grow crops on. There are 2 - 5  volunteers on the reforestation team at any one time. Our main job is to overlook 6 tree nurseries, keep them stocked and guide the planting of 200,000 trees a year.

There are 2 contracted Malagasy nursery staff and 5 women in each nursery who do most of the practical nursery work. A huge team of other Malagasy men and women help us make all other aspects of getting the trees in the ground happen. 

worked closely with this awesome guy, Lamela

seeds, we need s lots of them, these are either collected from the forest (seasonally), collected from roadside and private land or bought from large national suppliers.

The seeds we collect from the forest are slow growing and hardwoods. This is what the climax community of the natural forest is mainly structured from. They only grow in specific conditions, preferring shade.

Many forest species ready for packing and planting

Pioneer species grow very quickly in disturbed and open areas. In 5 years a pioneer tree can reach 8 metres in height and a considerable circumference 50 dbh (cm2) - that’s crazy in temperate terms. We plant about 5 different exotic pioneer species, such as Acacia. All are nitrogen fixing to help improve the soil. Once there is a canopy, the shade environment will be favourable for those slower native forest species to grow.

Preperation and storage of the seeds is important, the latter being difficult with basic facilities. Rats, insects, fungi and bacteria continually eat our stored seed. Before sowing the seeds are soaked (in hot/cold water) or scarified to speed up germination. Scarifying means opening up the seed a little so that the sprout (cotyledon) can easily come out.

Some seeds are tiny and numerous with thin protective layers, these don’t need to be scarified. They are generally pioneer species. Bigger seeds often have a very hard coating (forest species), such like a walnut (containing ample protein inside). These can take months to germinate so careful preparation is required. 

digging tree roots out of our germination box

Germination chambers (about 30cm deep) with a mix of compost and local sand (from the side of a river) is the medium of growth. Once the first true leaves have grown (after the cotyledons) the seedlings are ready to be transplanted in to plastic pots.

Once transplanted seedlings require a different medium made from compost sand and red soil, to harden them up.  We transplant them all into small plastic pots.

The second critical material is Compost, ours comes from what are basically community waste piles. Some projects use top soil but that means stripping land of its fertile resource and it is not abundant. Organising compost production has taken, and continues to necessitate, lots of hard work and organisation. The fact we have enough to supply all 6 nurseries is a fantastic success of this project.

Unfortunately the compost comes full of plastic, metal, batteries glass and non-decomposed wood bits. The rubbish is separated from the organic material and then we have our germination and potting medium. Unfortunately the rubbish is all dumped at the side of a road or down a gutter. There is no government system for any kind of waste disposal. 

a typical steep and bare planting site

Planting happens after seedlings have been growing in pots from anything from 3 weeks to 3 months. The team estimates how many seedlings are ready from each of the 6 nurseries so we can plan logistics of the planting event. This happens a week in advance:

-         We hire men to dig holes

-         Each is filled with a compost mix 

-         More men are hired to transport the seedlings via basket to the planting site, each holds 25 - 30 seedlings.

Somehow the barefooted men carry 100 seedlings each over hills and through rice paddies to the often steep planting site.

these baskets are very heavy - it took me 3 months of training to be able to lift a basket a short distance!

Baskets of seedlings being unloaded road side, taking only one at a time up a 25 minute hill climb

-         Women plant 100 seedlings each. Its hard work in over bearing heat and or rainstorms, sometimes with small children on their backs. Often the planting  is rushed so that seedlings are not rooted in properly, many die in transport

-         Finally the plastic pots are collected 

After all this teamwork and organisation to nurture the seedlings, I estimate that 60% of those seedlings will die. The seedlings are simply not strong enough to survive in a  competitive grass and heathland. environment.

Unfortunately this is due to the project being underfunded, but as it grows more attention will be put on increasing the mortality rates in the field.

The generic fern which covers most land area and grows quicker than tree seedlings

Enga,  a strong exotic pioneer growing well