Madagascar: the grassroots community denounces the grabbing of a portion of the Tsiazompaniry forest
Ranomafana National Park, in the south-east of Madagascar (photo illustration).
© Laetitia Bezain / RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
In Madagascar, the grassroots community has been dispossessed of its management of a portion of the Tsiazompaniry forest, located about 80 kilometers southeast of the capital.
While the latter has been protecting the forest for nearly twenty years, several dozen hectares have been ceded to an individual after a judgment by the Antananarivo Court of Appeal.
Civil society organizations committed to safeguarding the environment denounce this decision, which they consider "
absurd
".
Advertising
Read more
With our correspondent in Antananarivo,
Laetitia Bezain
While the Ministry of the Environment renewed, in December 2021, the management contract for this forest for ten years to
the grassroots community
, the decision of the Antananarivo court – 10 million ariary fine and the order to leave the field – is incomprehensible to the 200 members of the Tsarafara grassroots community.
“
The case went before the Ambatolampy court three times and we won each time,
reports Arthur Mahery Andriantsarafara, the president of the grassroots community.
It is thanks to the community that the forest has been preserved.
At the moment, we are in difficulty because we have funding for a tourism project, but since we can no longer enter the forest, it is at a standstill.
The population, which supports us, knows that the forest is very important.
It has a great impact on the production of peasants, it attracts tourists, etc.
Telling us to leave the forest is like taking away our rights and part of our life.
»
The benefits brought by this forest which borders Lake Tsiazompaniry do not only concern local communities, specifies Ndranto Razakamanarina, the president of the Alliance Voahary Gasy, a platform which brings together organizations committed to the protection of the environment.
“
This part of the forest also supplies water to the city of Antananarivo.
This community has already learned everything: management, conservation, restoration of the forest with coffee trees, eucalyptus, indigenous species.
So all this knowledge will suddenly disappear.
That's why together, all of civil society, we try to defend this case because it could become a kind of case law.
»
Civil society plans to appeal to the Court of Cassation.
►Also read: Madagascar: the civil society movement Rohy launches a new media
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_EN
Madagascar