The south of Madagascar is an arid, isolated place, where small wooden huts dot a vast, desert landscape of prickly-pear cactus and solitary baobabs. The southern tip of the world’s fourth largest island lies just below the Tropic of Capricorn, where limestone plateaus and ochre earth stretch across vast expanses of remote wilderness. The southern region is one of exotic wildlife, stark beauty and fascinating traditions; and though it is an intriguing place to visit, it is a not an easy place to live. Food shortages are common, water is a scarce resource, and poverty and malnutrition are rife.

It is a place where three Malagasy tribes dwell and often converge: the Mahafaly to the west, the Antanosy to the east, and the Antandroy in the far south. Acres of spiny forest cover most of this region: an alien landscape of thorny succulents, finger-like Didiereaceae and woody tree euphorbias. Here one can still see sifaka and ring-tailed lemurs roaming wild, sharing space with the radiated tortoise, hissing cockroach and hedgehog tenrec. Within this forest, the Antandroy tribes have made their ancestral home. Translated as “Those of the Thorns”, the Tandroy are a resilient, cattle-herding people, with striking African features, who have survived for centuries in this desolate landscape.

The Road to Ifotaka

It was in the Androy region that a group of seven Durham University students from the United Kingdom set out on a two-month expedition in 2001. Though Madagascar has been an environmental “hot-spot” for decades, the spiny forest has been largely neglected in conservation efforts.

Under the guidance of WWF (World Wildlife Fund for Nature) the students were encouraged to take their expedition to the rural commune of Ifotaka, situated in the spiny forest. Though pressure from charcoal production, livestock grazing and agriculture has led to extensive deforestation in the region, significant areas of forest still remain. Many of these areas are banned from being used by the traditional ‘fady’ (taboo) of the Tandroy, for whom the forest holds a deep spiritual and cultural significance.

The Durham expedition team worked alongside Malagasy students, focusing mainly on ecological and anthropological research and education. Building off the work of previous Durham researchers, the team were supported by the British Ecological Society, the Royal Geographical Society and the BP Conservation Program.

Owen Beaton, a graduate in Ecology from Durham, joined the 2001 expedition team as a voluntary advisor. His interest in Madagascar was first piqued during his time at university, where he first learned about Madagascar’s unique history: “It seemed fascinating to me,” says Owen, “that humans evolved in Africa, and yet it was only 1500-2,000 years ago that the first people were believed to have settled in Madagascar.” Read More...