Dear Yan Xie,

We are pleased to start something with you regarding a project for relieving the food crisis in the south of Madagascar. After discussion within the group, I come back to you with some ideas. As you can see from the web, the situation can be very hard in several areas as some people have resorted to eating insects, wild roots or mixture of clay and tamarind juice. Because of the drought and the irregularity of the rainfall, there is a severe reduction in staple food production and decline in livestock herd and health condition. So we think, the immediate action to brink famine for this year should be to organize directly donation on food to alleviate the direct impact of shortage on the population, for this year. 

The main challenge is somehow to combine rapid response with a coherent action plan that encompasses long-term sustainable actions in a coordinated way. As you know, in this kind of situation, it is fundamental to build a climate-resilient agricultural livelihoods for the long term, in balance with the local biodiversity, to better mitigate and fight against the climate change. The areas impacted by the drought in south of Madagascar is quite large and people tend to exploit natural resources as in response of the food crisis. Some protected areas have been highly impacted as some their woody plants were illegally exploited for producing charcoal for instance, or also turtles were massively massacred. So as you suggested, perhaps it will be to focus some actions in the protection of the biodiversity of the following southern protected areas : Tsimanampetsota lake, Beza Mahafaly, the arid parts of Andohahela and Andatabo Tsinjoriaka. Although rich in plant diversity, lots of local endemics, these areas experience now high decline in their biodiversity so we need to make efforts on their protection but also on raising awareness among the local people.

But overall for the semi-arid zone in south of Madagascar, it will be necessary to develop agrobiodiversity project for anticipate food shortage in the feature, with short cycle crop such as sweet potatoes, sorghum or corn. If there is a possibility, it is recommended to provide seeds adapted to local conditions. The situation in the south is mainly based on edaphoclimatic conditions so it would be good to improve water avalaibility with production from wells or from drilling operations in the villages. If we can pushforward also the activity in the future, it might be interesting to move towards the development of pastoralism, with sheep and goats in particular. All these can reduce the pressure on the environment and can help the region to alleviate the negative impacts of the climate change.

I hope we could help to progress in this topic. Please let us know if there is additional thing we can do.

All the best

Joro

Dr Mijoro Rakotoarinivo

Ma?tre de Conférences

Mention Biologie et Ecologie Végétales

Faculté des Sciences, Université d'Antananarivo

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