A Francophone Adventure

We arrived at Soa Zara and were welcomed by Jacob, the Dutch founder of the tree planting project. He reminded me of Max Verstappen, the Formula 1 driver, with his firm talking and efficient striking that didn't accept any weakness of himself.
He explained to us, why he founded this project in the first place, and listening to him made me extremely sad.
All the high plateau we drove through from Ranomafana to Ambalavao and Ranohira had been jungle 50 years ago. All the massive mountains that interrupt the landscape in between and are now completely blank, we're full with trees 150 years ago. If there is no change, in 2040 the southern region of Madagascar will be a desert. All these trees were cut by people, first because of the French Industrialization, then because of the locals' need to feed their Zebus. Where ever a tree stands, no grass can grow, so they cut the trees. However, when there are no trees, they can't give leaves to the soil and their roots can't hold it. So, whenever the heavy rainfalls arrive, the soil gets washed away by them. That's why the rivers are always muddy in Madagascar. Because the soil is washed off by rain. When it gets into the river, it'll end in the sea, and then it's gone forever. As Madagascar is a country on sandstone, there isn't a lot of soil, only about 2-3m in the southern region. Underneath you get the stone. And plants can't grow on stone. The soil gets very dry in the meantime, so that it's extremely hard and looks like stone itself. When the rain comes, the soil can't take all the water and, as I said, is washed away. The grass that the Zebu farmers love that much, they burn it whenever it is dry, so that new green can grow. However, by burning the old grass, all the nutritions from it leave as smoke with the wind, and the soil didn't get anything new to add again. So the grass will grow there multiple times, but after a while the soil won't have enough seeds or power anymore to grow anything. So the Zebu farmers have to cut even more trees to get more land for more grass that will last a couple months. This short-term thinking makes me furious and I don't get it. But then again... I get it. They're not educated, they just want to survive and they don't have the long-term sight that we have, because of the science we have access to. Oh, and I don't want to be a hypocrite, because even with all the science and knowledge on our hands, there are still enough western people who dismiss the fact of climate change and we still don't do enough to stop it.
So, hearing all this from Jacob, made me want to cry, but this doesn't help anyone, so I'd rather help his project. He shows us some trees former G Adventures travellers have already planted. He showed us a huge tree and told us that it was planted about 4 years ago, then he pointed out another tree of the same species that was rather small and didn't look so fit. "This one is about 5 years old. It can't grow that easily because there isn't enough soil underneath it. Some tress get lucky, some trees don't. About 1/3 of all the 180.000 hectares we own aren't useful for planting trees anymore because of the missing soil."
Uff. That's tough. Hopefully, our little piece of land would still have enough soil to grow our trees. We began the work and Seb and I planted three trees each, naming them Aluna, Andrea, Siegfried and Renata, Stefan and Olivia. Crossing fingers that they would grow up lucky.
To plant 65 trees with 10 people took not enough ten minutes and I would have happily planted trees the next 2 hours. But I guess that it was more of a symbolic act then a real tree planting action. Tourists like us should talk about these problems and projects to solve them, so that others would come, help and donate. Jacob and his team is planting 300.000 tress this year, next year they are planning to do 1 million. They get help from the government by the way, they help them with all the scientific things like when is the best time to grow this tree where, etc. But they don't fund anything for the project. Oh, and I didn't talk about the Lemurs yet. The Ranohira village is next to the Isalo NP, which houses some kinds of lemurs. As they have less and less trees their too, they've searched for other habitats which made them come into human cities, where there are lots of predators like cats, dogs and... Humans. They might have got caught by people who sold them to some rich kid from Russia or the UAE. There, the lemurs get accustomed with human food and can't go back into the wild like that. They were living alone in a 1x1x1m cage as well, which makes them unsocial and usually not very fit. Lemurs like that sometimes get rescued by the Malagasy government or other organisations and have to be taught to live in the wild again. Right now, Soa Zara has 14 lemurs like that in their care that can't be visited by tourists. They try to remind them about their natural instincts again to finally put them into their natural habitats again. But if all the trees are cut before that can happen... Well. Soa Zara tries to recreate their habitats by planting trees so that in case of more migrations of desperate lemurs, they could find peace and safety in their trees.
After cleaning our hands, we had a little snack buffet, watching the sunset and ants stealing our popcorn. Then Jacob told us about yet another project he's starting at the moment. Currently, he's building a restaurant that will have the following benefits: For every drink bought there, a tree will be planted, and for every meal purchased, a school kid from Ranohira will get a meal, too. With that, he wants to help the poor school children that won't have breakfast nor lunch because both their parents gone, to get something into their stomach. The fathers are working on the fields, whereas their mothers go to the last remains of the river to wash clothes. So in that regard, he's also building a washing station in the village, so that the women won't have to go to the river and wait for their clothes to dry. When they can wash their clothes in the village, they'll be home more, so they can feed their children more and get to spend more time with them. This may help the children to study more easily and therefore better, which makes them more educated with better chances of having a better life. So, you see how many small things intertwine and connect to a huge amount of problems that need solving.
I'm glad, that I could be a small part of a good project like this.Read more