[LUM#11] Made in Mada
Auriane, Raphaël, Isabelle and Sabine, students in the Ecology and Biology of Organisms (EBO) at the University of Montpellier, took advantage of the summer to do humanitarian work in Madagascar. It was an opportunity to work with the local population to improve respect for resources, and to travel off the beaten track.
" When we arrived and the people at the airport heard about our destination, they looked at us with big eyes! " recounts 21-year-old Auriane. Nineteen hours by bush cab and seven hours by boat later, the four students landed in Analalava, a small coastal town in north-west Madagascar.
Raphaël, Auriane, Sabine and Isabelle organized this project with Opti'Pousse Haie, an association founded by young researchers from Reunion and Metropolitan France, with the aim of creating, in close partnership with a local association, a community-managed marine protected area in Analalava. Criss-crossing the region by pirogue, the four Montpellier-based researchers took part in village assemblies to discuss the damaging effects of certain aquaculture practices, while proposing solutions for better resource management.We talked to them about reproduction calendars for fish species or the types of nets to prioritize," explains Auriane, " then the inhabitants chose what they wanted to apply or not in their village."
Three areas of work
On site, the students organized their work around three main themes. The most important involved raising awareness of sustainable agricultural practices, in particular agroforestry: the association of trees and crops with the soil. " The idea was to identify the species cultivated by local farmers and foresters in order to create a theoretical database accessible to all," explains Raphaël. Local residents were also able to follow experiments carried out in situ, such as compost-making, crop rotation and legume associations.
Second: education. Using an educational kit developed by IRD researchers, and with the help of the association, Auriane has been able to raise awareness among youngsters of the richness of the region's ecosystems: the reef, the seagrass beds and the mangroves. A sometimes complex task, given the country's socio-economic difficulties. " We had to adapt the kit because there is a lot of illiteracy in Madagascar, and class sizes can be as high as 40 children, aged 8 to 16".
"Lots of little touches"
The third and final focus is the restoration of Madagascar's mangroves, "one of the most dynamic ecosystems on the planet because it stores so much carbon", explains Raphaël, but threatened in particular by the use of mangrove wood for heating and construction.
Beyond their mission, Auriane, Raphaël Isabelle and Sabine were able to discover another way of traveling and exchanging: " Everywhere we went, people offered to put our tent in their garden, to give us something to eat. It was full of little kindnesses like that! It was an experience that, in addition to planting trees, also planted the seeds of a long-term relationship.
For interested students, the Opti'Pousse Haie association is regularly looking for international solidarity volunteers.
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