FOREST LANDSCAPES REFORESTATION

Nursery

To obtain the plants needed for the reforestation, there are two options: production in a nursery or purchase. The purchase seems to be a bad idea. On one hand, the cost of a plant if we buy a big quantity can be interesting. Moreover, in the context of an ecological restoration of the forest landscape at the project scales actually, ie a real regeneration of native forests; the species that we will buy might be of foreign native species or just inappropriate species.

Thus, it seems more expedient to set up our own nursery to produce young plants from seeds and cuttings from the residual fragments. The plants thus obtained are of species and genetic strains already adapted to local environmental conditions. In addition, a nursery located on the site has other advantages for the successful acceptance of the project:

• Important diversity of species;
• Gross cost less per plant;
• Control of young plants availability;
• Smaller expenses and transportation logistics;
• Job creation for a direct benefits to the rural communities;
• Possibility to extend the activities of the nursery to produce food-producing species (fruit trees, eucalyptus, truck farming).

Reforestation Mechanism

  Reforestation projects, as well as failures, are plentiful in Madagascar. The main constraint is that soil is completely impoverished and eroded by tropical rain and fires. It is not possible to simply "plant trees, without a well-considered process to enable a long term success of reforestation activities.

   The mechanism of reforestation that we choose is based on recent advances in the field of ecological restoration. It consists of three phases:

• Establishment of firewalls buffer zones that consist of species resistant to bush fires (eg succulents);
• Planting rapid growth pioneer species to create a microclimate by creating umbrage and a beginning regeneration of soils by the appearance of a rhizosphere, associated with the planting of fruit trees (mango, papaya, banana etc. ...) which have quickly cycles, and can bring in organic matter. This step also helps reduce streaming phenomenon and thus prevent soil erosion.
• Planting of endemic species under the pioneer species, once the soil is ready. If conditions are favorable, this step can be realized one or two years after the planting of pioneer species.

The choice of species and their density will be initially based on the criteria of adaptability to the types of soil, and then in order to promote the greater diversity than possible by using plentiful flora families.

Adaptive Methodologies and Community Ecological Monitoring

   For the success of reforestation project, it is important to evaluate the actions undertaken and the choices taken. For that, a community ecological monitoring will be set up. It will monitor the growth of trees planted, the soil evolution and biodiversity of flora and fauna in space and in time, and both the reforested and natural areas. First, the monitoring system will be based on the training of community workers in a simple method of ecological monitoring, based on geo-photography, with continuous coaching throughout the project to ensure the reliability of data. All data will be processed in a innovated GIS system, enabling decision making based on data fields, satellite data (ortho-photography and fires), geological, pedological, hydrological and hydro data.  

 
This decision tool will thus permit us to know the effectiveness of different strategies of plantings which species or another, to eliminate the wrong strategies, and thus keep the best ones. But this tool will also be useful for the monitoring and evaluation of actions undertaken by localities, according to financial and human resources.