It’s just over 90 miles from Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, to Andasibe National Park on Route Nationale 2 (RN2), the highway to Toamasina, the main port on the east coast. If the weather is clear and the traffic light, you can reach Andasibe in two hours; for my colleagues and I, traveling to a UNICEF seminar, our outbound and return trips both took three hours. Trucks hauling fuel and containers wheezed up the hills; every few miles, we came across one stranded by the roadside, its driver sprawled across the open engine, or the trailer precariously jacked up, teetering on the edge of a cliff. Almost all freight to the capital and highlands is transported on this road. The single-line railroad the French colonial government built along the route could carry heavy freight, but the truck owners’ cartel has put pressure on the politicians to withhold funding for maintenance and the track has fallen into disrepair. We saw only one train.
From Antananarivo’s so-called ring road, the surreally named Boulevard de Tokyo (presumably built with Japanese aid), RN2 rises through the hills. The rice paddies stretch out over the bottom lands and the lower slopes of hills where farmers build terraces; water flows from springs into the terraces and then, through channels or pipes, where flow is controlled by sluice gates, to the lower paddies. In the fields, wood-fired brick kilns stand like sentries, and large stacks of rough red-mud bricks line the roadside; in several places, the granite outcrops have been gouged to quarry stone for road and home construction.
As RN2 descends from the highland escarpment, the hills on either side are clear cut or covered with second-growth eucalyptus forest. A hundred years ago, old-growth forest extended over much of the highlands and northeast, but most has been destroyed by slash-and-burn agriculture and the cutting of timber for charcoal, firewood and home construction; perhaps as much as 90 per cent of the island’s original forest has been lost. The French planted the fast-growing eucalyptus to provide fuel for the railroad and steam engines used on plantations, and today these trees are the main source of charcoal. It is estimated that 95 per cent of Malagasy households, including those in urban areas, use firewood or charcoal for cooking and heating. Along RN2, the trees are cut down to their stumps, and the wood slowly burned in earth ovens to produce charcoal. Sacks are piled by the roadside; the local price is about $2, making it worth the trip to transport charcoal to Tana where it fetches $6 a sack. The eucalyptus stumps soon sprout again, but it is a stubby new growth. Any wildlife that once lived in these forests has fled or been hunted. Only in the protected areas of the national parks do the eucalyptus trees and native varieties grow high, providing shelter and food for wildlife.
Today, mining poses a deeper threat to the environment. For many years, foreign investors shied away from Madagascar, deterred by political instability, corruption and poor infrastructure. What was the point in building a mine or factory if the politicians were going to nationalize it or grab the profits? Or if there were no roads, reliable power supply and skilled workforce? Recently, multinational mining companies have started to exploit the vast and largely untapped resources. At Moramanga, the Ambatovy nickel and cobalt mine, built by a Canadian-Japanese-Korean consortium at a cost of US$8 billion, claims to be the largest-ever foreign investment in the country and one of the largest lateritic nickel mines in the world. The ore is strip-mined and sent to a preparation plant; the nickel and cobalt ore slurry is then piped underground for 136 miles to a processing plant and refinery south of Toamasina where it is separated and loaded onto ships.
Critics say the government granted the mining license with minimal study of its potential impact. Rather than employing and training local people, the company brought in a foreign workforce (mostly South Asian and Filipino) to build the mine and pipeline. The influx of foreign workers and money transformed Moramanga, a regional market center, into a boom town, its streets lined with import shops, hotels, restaurants and karaoke bars. Rents soared, forcing local people to move out of town. Crime and prostitution levels increased, with teachers reporting that most teenage girls had dropped out of school. There was more money to be made working the streets than working the rice paddies. That went for the men as well as the women. The streets of Moramanga are crowded with brightly-painted pousse-pousse bicycle rickshaws. The drivers, who rent their machines by the day, must hustle hard to make money.
The tourism industry, while less destructive than mining, is changing the country in other ways. There are two types of tourists. One heads for the beaches and tropical islands; there are direct flights from Paris to Nosy Be (Big Island), the largest and most developed resort area off the northwest coast. The tourists never see the urban sprawl and poverty of Antananarivo, or the rural central highlands. The second type comes to see the lemurs and other wildlife in the national parks. They stay at tastefully designed lodges with manicured gardens where diesel generators provide back-up power, the showers always have hot water, the juice is freshly squeezed, and the buffet offers a mix of European and Malagasy dishes. Andasibe National Park has half a dozen lodges catering to foreign tourists who come in small parties (no large buses) and sit at dinner tables reserved for “Wild Madagascar” or “Jungle Adventure.” Then they go off to see the lemurs.
My colleagues and I did too, on an afternoon break from our UNICEF workshop. You don’t have to venture too far into the jungle to find your photographic prey. At the Wakona Lodge, most lemurs live on a small island in a river (a 30-second canoe paddle from the parking lot). They do not hide in trees but bound out of the undergrowth to greet you, climbing on your head or shoulders in the hopes you brought bananas. This is wildlife at its most accessible. Most of these lemurs were donated by people in Toamasina who had kept them as pets. I’m sure they’re happier living on the island than in cages but calling this “Wild Madagascar” seems a stretch. However, it’s enough for many tourists who don’t want to walk too far to get their photographs. They can go home with stories of the jungle and make donations to wildlife charities to protect Madagascar’s biodiversity. They may not think much about the people of Madagascar or economic or social conditions. The national statistics for poverty, health, education, safe water and other indicators are woeful, but also tedious and easy to ignore, especially for tourists on jungle tours. Poor people are not nearly as cuddly as lemurs.