Sweet Potatoes For Southern Madagascar

The Continent could do more for Madagascar writes Okello Oculi

‘’Where is Madagascar?’’ was a question asked a student calling herself ‘’President Andry Rajoelina’’ by secondary school girls mates participating in a leadership programme. They were shocked that in Africa Nations Cup holding in Cairo, Egypt, Madagascar had defeated Nigeria’s ‘’Super Eagles’’ team by two goals to zero.

Madagascar’s national football team, is named ‘’BAREA’’ after a bull used in a manhood testing ritual of a young man holding on its neck as its irritation increases with duration. The absence of reports about its exploits meant that Nigeria’s media had not pricked the public attention when it defeated Egypt by a 1-0 score in Tananarive. On April 17, 1960 the team had startled its own public by whipping Congo by a whopping eight goals to one.

Madagascar sits 250 kilometres off the coast of Mozambique. Geologists date its break from the African landmass to 15 million years ago. It is the fourth largest island in the world at 582,000 sq.kms. Its break from Africa accounts for ‘’95 per cent of its reptiles and 89 per cent of its plant life existing nowhere else on Earth’’. The Polynesian section of its population joined its native African people by arriving on an ocean stream from Indonesian group of islands.

The rare plants, including commercially valuable wood trees, reptiles, forest tree- trumping animals, and turtles, attracted to Madagascar a high flow of poachers posing as tourists. Customs officials at European and American airports dealt with a virtual epidemic of rare resources smuggled under ingenious and often cruel ways.

Multinational corporations, including those from Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil, have ruthlessly exploited timber trees. Phillip Boyle, as Britain’s ambassador, told Nicole Winfield of Associated Press that ‘’495,000 acres of forest a year are lost in Madagascar’’; and that, by 2040,’’most of the damp forest will be lost’’.

The cutting down of these trees without the requirement to plant new ones to regenerate felled ones has led to severe soil erosion through loss of cover against heavy tropical raindrops. It is probable that reports by ‘’Catholic relief Services’’, (an agency of American bishops), about corruption of officials by multinationals drives desperate poverty of the masses of rural communities. Rural farmers lose fertile soils for food production. There reports must have reached Pope Frances in the Vatican.

Conscious of Catholics constituting 35 per cent of Madagascar’s over 25 million population, combined with his passion for protecting the environment urged Pope Frances to pay a visit to the country. In a speech he bluntly told President Andry Rajoelina, thus: ‘’I would encourage you to fight with strength and determination against all endemic forms of corruption’’ by officials accused by Transparency International of allowing ‘’illegal logging, mining of gold and sapphires, and exportation of lemurs’’.

Various agencies have also shown concern about reversing the horrendous destruction of natural resources in the island. These include World Wild Life Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society and Conservation International. Between October 2013 and September 2016, they spent 2.25 million US Dollars to support the participation by the public and Civil Society in a programme for ‘’preserving Madagascar’s Natural Resources’’.

They congratulated themselves for being, among other objectives, able to ‘’strengthen Madagascar’s national knowledge-base on timber and reptile harvest and trade’’; as well as, strengthening media investigating and reporting these crimes without getting killed by syndicates
On May 5, 2021, South African Broadcasting Corporation reported that a horrendous famine has been ravaging Southern Madagascar. In Ambovombe District, 27 per cent of children under five years of age are severely malnourished. Some 80 per cent of 1.3 million people in the region (about 750,000 people) are reduced to eating locusts, ‘’raw red cactus and wild leaves’’, according the United Nations World Food Program.

Prolonged drought, soil erosion, deforestation, ‘‘unprecedented drastic sandstorms’’ covered crops and grazing areas with sand lasting for the last five years had prevented food production. By September 2020, families had eaten all their food stocks including what would have been planted when the rainy season arrived in November/December 2020.

Most African countries have been indifferent, ignorant or preoccupied with massive dislocation of hundreds of thousands of farming households into camps for internally displaced and dehumanised people. It is not clear if countries with large Catholic populations (such as Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Uganda), have been mobilized by the Catholic Relief Services (based in Madagascar for five decades), and their Catholic clergy across Africa.

The African Union has not shown visibility in mobilising support for defending Madagascar’s deforestation and despoliation or promoted ‘’investigative media coverage of illegal activities in national newspapers, radio and television programmes’’ across African countries; and externally. African tourists rarely visit to enjoy the country’s rare flora and fauna and, thereby, join in defending them against poachers and thieves.

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The African Union has not shown visibility in mobilising support for defending Madagascar’s deforestation and despoliation or promoted ‘investigative media coverage of illegal activities in national newspapers, radio and television programmes’ across African countries