The journey southwest from Fort Dauphin passes through the bustling market towns of Soanierana, renowned for its abundance of fruit, and fried-food hotspot Manambaro. Cross the wide, tranquil Ifaho river, and drive along broad, tree lined avenues. Pass by cyclists heading to town laden with huge sacks of charcoal, or a casual pillion rider sat […]
In early 2018 I was back in my second home, Madagascar, to get my fix of sambos, lemurs and other wildlife. Once again I had the pleasure of spending some time with SEED Madagascar’s conservation programme in Sainte Luce. SEED provide unique volunteering experiences working with the fabulous endemic wildlife and people of Madagascar – […]
Perhaps naïvely, I didn’t think the situation was anywhere near this bad. In fact, of the 13 lemur species I saw last year in Madagascar, only one is listed as “Least Concern”, i.e. the green slice of the pie chart. Most of the rest are listed as Endangered or even Critically Endangered by the IUCN […]
Part two of my adventures travelling from Antananarivo to Fort Dauphin with my friends Emily and Tom. Catch part 1 here. Leaving Andringitra and the mountains behind, we went on to Fiarantsoa by 4×4, then met our driver for the next few days, Mamy. A jovial, chatty guy, he was also a careful driver and […]
For the last two weeks of the January Pioneer scheme, we once again joined the Azafady Conservation Programme (ACP), to help out with the research and other activities there. Always a popular placement with the volunteers, it’s also one of my favourite parts of Pioneer – spending time in the beautiful littoral forests of Sainte […]
We started from Azafady’s Sainte Luce campsite shortly after dinner, under the slowly darkening sky. This evening we were heading to forest fragment S8, almost an hour’s walk away, to do a night transect looking for lemurs. Azafady’s Conservation Programme (ACP), carries out a number of these every month to monitor the lemur population, amongst […]