Dispatches From The Field

4 August , 2003 -- Ted Gilliland -- Veloma

After spending a month and a half conducting research, interacting with the villagers, and working with the fossa team, I left the field station in Ankarafantsika today. I’m on my way back to the capital city, Antananarivo, to catch my flight home. I start my first year of college at Duke in a few weeks, and I need to get home with time enough to see my family and get things ready for school.

It’s challenging to leave when the same problems I saw when I got here are still ubiquitous as I am leaving. As we drive, to my right is a vast, treeless savannah pitted with massive erosion gullies. The savannah and erosion gullies stretch as far as the eye can see and both are results of the massive deforestation in the area. Out the left side of the car I can see the same thing, only it’s on fire.

We can save Madagascar. I don’t say these things discourage people from believing that, but it’s important that we understand the scope of the problem. We don’t try to extinguish forest fires with garden hoses, and we don’t expect a single platoon to fight a war.

People like us make head way with these problems every year, and his enthusiasm is contagious. When we first met, Luke said, “Dream. Come up with wild ideas because without them, there will never be any major advances.” A year ago, I would have though coming to Madagascar was wild enough an idea, but now saving Madagascar seems an appropriately wild idea.