The Arivonimamo area in central-highlands of Madagascar is home to a Malagasy population of nearly 19,000 with almost 80% living in poverty. The average family income is £170 per year, subsisting on farming rice and on traditional weaving of wild silk from the cocoons in the forest, Tapia fruit, mushrooms and medicinal plants.
This ancient forest of Tapia trees, habitat of wild silkworms, was once a real forest, now it’s just remnants, fast disappearing, unable to withstand the needs of locals who fell the trees for needs for firewood, agricultural fences and wooden tools, home building materials and roofing timbers. The goal is to planting of buffer zones of eucalyptus and pine to provide firewood and building timber. Without a buffer zone of fast-growing utility trees to serve the local needs, the Tapia forest will fully vanish, along with its edible fruit, medicinal plants, mushrooms and wild silkworms. This will include the production and planting of 1500 seedlings of eucalyptus and pine over a two hectares area.