Dispatches From The Field

20 June 2003 -- Chris Golden

After breakfast around 7:15, we started off on our hike. We first walked to Ampijoroa to pick up Fernande who is one of the “responsables” for conservation for ANGAP at Ankarafantsika. Our team, being well-versed (and available) on the subjects, has agreed to train these biodiversity specialists throughout the summer. We hiked though a few forest fragments we’ll be studying in the upcoming weeks and did some on-site planning of our activities. It was a 15 km morning. Most on the team didn’t think they could get used to hiking such long distances so regularly, but we really like it. In addition to sweating a lot in the forest, we’re continuing to collect a long-term, thorough biodiversity dataset for Ankarafantsika.

We finished our work for the morning hike and headed back for lunch. After lunch, Martel and I met to discuss the plans for the education program. It has been very frustrating trying to get all of this arranged as Madagascar has a seemingly endless and unhelpful system of logistics and activity. We’ve met with 6 people already and we still have to meet more people to have my project fully accepted. It is revealing that to accomplish a goal, you have to go through such a long process to even begin and proceed.

In addition to this, it seems as though not everyone in a leadership position in Madagascar has their priorities straight. When Martel and I proposed bringing the schoolchildren into the park for a tour on 4 separate occasions, there were a few differing responses as to what I would need to do. The Malagasy staff from ANGAP said that I would only need to pay 25,000 FMg total (about four bucks) for each school visit into the park. However, the advisor to ANGAP, a French foreigner who obviously sees money as the bottom line, dictated that I would need to pay over 2.5 million Fmg for my park visits and treat each child as a separate tourist.

In summary, the technical consultant wanted me to pay the Park about $600 to educate local schoolkids about the park and its conservation. Even though ANGAP says in their mission statement that education of the local villages is a primary objective, this guy wanted to charge me to take schoolchildren into their own backyard. This was so frustrating to me, but finally, after long discussions and negotiations, the director of the park overruled the opinion of his colleague, giving us the go-ahead for our education project! Nothing happens quickly in developing countries, it seems.

Perseverance, pays off, though. We’ll get to bring 150 schoolkids into the Park – in partnership with the National Park Service - every week through August to teach them about the plants and animals and why they should be protected. The process has not been, and will likely not be, easy. Keeping our eyes on the overall, bigger-picture goal of conservation will make it easier to do what is necessary to push this project through to successful implementation.