Community Management of the Tapia Forest in the Amoron’i Mania region


The tapia tree or Uacapa bojeri is the main food of the wild, endemic, Malagasy silkworm borocera madagascarensis or “landibe”. The tapia forests are the last vestiges of the original vegetation of the highlands following the ravages of bush fires, felling and the invasion of other species such as eucalyptus and pine. In the tapia forest of Ambohimahazo (one of our intervention areas) the scale of the timber exploitation and bush fires reached such a point that the wild silkworms disappeared because of habitat loss and fragmentation.

This tapia forest has been heavily degraded despite being the last remaining wooded part of this area of “tanety” (high plains). While the tapia tree is resistant to fire because of its thick bark, regeneration is not assured because the saplings are not fire resistant. The protection of the forest is now a priority. Furthermore the forest harbours many riches such as fruits, medicinal plants and mushrooms.

How do we help the community to protect the forest?


We currently work with 21 grassroots communities interested in helping to manage, protect and reforest more than 15,000 hectares of this endangered region and our field workers also work to consistently identify households keen to become involved in this process.

We support these communities by:
• Carrying out careful planning and providing equipment to effectively reduce bush fires. (Bush fires are a major threat to silk production in Amoron’i Mania so we set annual targets for areas where fires are most frequent)
• Giving technical assistance for reducing clearing
• Managing the removal of pines threatening the tapia (this is also a great benefit to the cutter who can earn a good income from selling the pine wood)
Last year we helped the community to: reforest 50 hectares of land, install over 155 km of firewalls and to ensure the removal of 60% of pines in the tapia forest region.

 

We also help these community households to produce silkworms, bringing them a further source of income as these can then be sold to women weavers. We support this by:
• Providing equipment for silkworm production (building nurseries for seedling pots and installing wire mesh cages where worms can settle)
• Demonstrating best methods of seedling, transplantation, patching and maintaining the nurseries (and we also assess collection rates of the silkworms to draw up plans for improved production)
In the last year we trained 200 households on new practices for protecting the forest and for the breeding of wild silkworms.
This project is supported by FFEM (Fonds Français pour l’environnement Mondial), The Global Environment Facility / The Small Grant Program (GEF/SGP) and Programme Saha – Betsileo / Intercooperation Suisse.