Ho avy: Keeps Growing for the Future and Growing High Permaculture Research Institute

Ho avy: Keeps Growing for the Future and Growing High

Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres — by Martina Petru February 22, 2010

Editor’s Note: This is an update for the Ho avy project. Previous update here.

Days have been blown away like autumn leaves, it feels, by strong winds that have been finally bringing some mild cyclonic weather and needed moisture in this high summer time in SW Madagascar. It’s mid February: hot times – times of growth; growing native trees from the spiny forest; growing subsistence crops.

And how refreshing has it been when the temperature dropped a full 10 degrees (from 40 to 30ºC) and even to a record low of 27 ºC at night, the lowest record in the last couple months, which is truly a pleasant feeling. We’ve had 50mm of rain during the second rain storm since Christmas, enough to plant rice, yet not enough to plant corn, manioc, beans, squash, melons or native trees to our reforestation sites. We are holding off for now and hoping this will happen with the next substantial rain storm so as to assure seedling survival.

The great challenge has been keeping healthy in the hot weather and unsanitary rural conditions. Overheating, water contamination and swarms of flies are more of a daily problem for the villagers and us than ever before. Outbreaks of sickness have been proliferating and spreading with an average of every 3 out of 5 children sick in each family with sick bellies, respiratory and sinus infections. A couple of weeks ago an 8 year old boy lost his life after 4 days of being sick, complaining of stomach pain. Life has been hard, yet the villagers keep their spirits up and keep up with dedicated work….

The lack of rain during the ‘official’ rainy season has been a continuous struggle for the villagers. The farmers’ survival adaptation seem to be the extensive channeling of the only source of water for their rice fields – the Ranobe Lake to a large area of new fields created on the lake edges. FIMPAHARA has been splitting their time between work in their rice fields and work in tree nurseries and ho avy activities.

At the end of January we have completed a training seminar for 20 adult FIMPAHARA members and 20 youth members ranging from age 4 to 16 years with practical sessions held in our extensive nurseries filled up with over 4,000 new pots, planted with nearly 65 species of both native and cultivated tree species, fruit and medicinal trees. Till now we have planted over 10,000 pots with almost 100 different species, 80% of which are native trees raised from seeds, sustainably collected in the Ranobe forest. We are very pleased by this account and also have initiated the first trials to grow the native species from cuttings for fast vegetative propagation.

The growth in our nurseries has accelerated with the recent rain – all nurseries and the forest sanctuary look lush and green and beautiful and so does the forest. We have made our nursery into an interpretation botanical garden, labeling the planted trees and seedlings and regularly monitoring their growth. Abundant wildlife has been emerging after the rain, especially reptiles. Collaborating researchers working currently on forest biodiversity surveys found our sanctuary to be by far the most diverse from all of their survey plots around the Ranobe forest and lake – Recording 12 species of reptiles along with 22 frequently recorded birds species during our morning counts, and these are not yet the final counts.

Fresh growth in the nursery after the rain and subsequent hot days seems to make a paradise for a lot of insects and we have noticed vast amounts of caterpillars chewing on sprouting field weeds and slowly crawling into our nurseries. One needs to put up with few caterpillars if we want to see the butterflies, right? (And we’ve been seeing some spectacular ones). Yet we are searching and testing for all possible sensitive and herbivore control using extracts from locally grown insect repelling plant species, such as neem and katrafay. Nursery maintenance is an on-going job in responsibility and FIMPAHARA are taking a great lead here.

Besides intensive nursery work we have been concentrating our energy on building our reforestation station, a center for reforestation education and practice. Our two biogas digesters have been producing gas and garden beds and fences are now set up which has been a big theme to go forward with so we can plant food when the rain comes. For the next months we will launch into environmental education and forest regeneration surveys.…

PRI