BlogForest Conservation
Author: Roxanne Parker
Forest Conservation in Cyclone Season
As I wait it an airport for my final fight I wanted to write about my best bit over the 5 weeks volunteering. As I had little electricity on the island I don’t have many photos so I have to just write what I saw.
It’s had been Monsoon season and the rains had been relentless for 10 days. The bridge connecting Turtle cove, the small beach by our camp where boats could dock with food & supplies had been washed away in the night as the island was hit by a cyclone and the main port in Hellsville on Nosy Be had been closed for four days making it impossible to get supplies to the island. New volunteers had been stuck in Hellsville for days and arrived with soaked back packs as their boat from Ankefi to Hellsville had started to sink in the storm, and they had to transfer to a rescue boat.
The red earth of Nosy Komba ran down the hills like streaks of tears mixing with run-off rain water creating endless streams and rivers that zig-zagged across the island. We’d left camp at 6.30am. I was the last female volunteer left in the forest conservation project that week (in fact I was the only forest volunteer left on camp that week!) and Menja, one of the Malagasy forest guides & I had set out to survey wild lemurs for the morning.
The hikes to the top of the island are a sheer incline scrambling over the slippery red mud, rocks and fallen banana trees as we weave in & out of the plantations. “Malagasy Ice” Menja laughs wickedly pointing at the lethal red slippery mud slide that has enveloped the path ahead.
A taboo, to cut such a tree. The villagers have many Faddys which vary from community to community & it would be impossible as a westerner to know them all as they differ between family’s and some are a faddy to tell their faddy!
The Maki (Lemurs) grunt contentedly like pigs over-head and I make notes as they watch us, noting numbers, sexes and if they are mature or juvenile as they travel from tree to tree, feed on their favourite jack fruit and sit companionably on tree branches grooming each other.
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