Mongabay Series: Conservation in Madagascar
D’ANALAMAZOATRA NATIONAL PARK, Madagascar – Madagascar’s tourism industry, hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, has taken its first step towards recovery. On 5 September, the quasi-governmental company Madagascar National Parks (NPM) reopened all 43 spaces under its direct responsibility. The government legalized the reopening of all herbal spaces and cultural sites from the following day.
Government officials and members of the tourism sector attended a rite of reopening on September 5 in front of the local workplace of the NPM and the Visitor Center of Analamazoatra National Park in eastern central Madagascar, one of the country’s iconic parks. the local community, which counts on tourists for their income, after months of hardship in their absence.
“If I could throw a dance party now, I would,” Christin Nasoavina, director of a group of 110 local guides, told Mongabay, right after the ceremony. “The last time I accompanied tourists inside the park on March 15th. “
To make a stopover in parks, nature lovers must comply with fitness protocols: they are prohibited from touching animals, they must maintain a social distance and wear a mask for the duration of their stopover. limited to four, compared to 8 previously, and teams will have to stay 10 meters (33 feet) away. Visitors will need to go through a medical examination and provide their contact details to match the emission tracking, and MNP is expected to then tap its stopover to check if they have stayed in shape.
Protected areas controlled through NPM account for just over a third of the country’s nearly 7 million hectares (17. 3 million acres) under protection. other people in the form of consultant fees, accommodation, meals, transportation, etc.
Visitors disappeared from the country after March 20, when the government imposed a state of physical emergency in an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus, Madagascar prevented flights abroad and imposed closures in major cities, adding Antananarivo, Toamasina and Fianarantsoa, and later. The main roads closed to travelers, ingesting the settlements that have the cities for their fundamental needs Restaurants, hotels, nightclubs and other collection sites closed until September 17, the virus had inflamed another 15,925 people in Madagascar and killed 216. according to government figures.
Outside of protected areas, tourism is important for local communities. The impoverished country, one of the poorest in the world. “About 90% of the local economy is related to tourism. Many residents, estimated at 14,000, depend on the arrival of visitors for their income,” said José Claude Solomamiarivony, deputy mayor of the town of Andasibe, at the gates of Analamazaotra National Park.
Nivoarisoa Razafimahatratra, a widow, has been promoting food to domestic and foreign tourists for years at a stand in Andasibe. He told Mongabay he was suffering from selling a quarter of the food he had prepared before the pandemic. park to reopen for months, ” he said. ” Hopefully the return of tourists will make a difference quickly. “
The park guides are among the most affected by the lack of tourists. “A lot of them have had to take on new jobs. Some charcoal producers,” said Solomamiarivony, who said they were legally cutting eucalyptus trees on the plantations to make charcoal, not illegally. jungle.
“I experienced the crises of 2002 and 2009,” said Nasoavina, head of the Guide Association, referring to the political upheatics of 2002 and a coup d’am in 2009 in which tourism decayed and he resorted to plant development to survive. But I this one is the most devastating. “
The country’s National Federation of Guides estimates that by 2020 about $5 million in third-class earnings would be lost if pandemic-induced restrictions continued. In June, the organization predicted that losses would peak at $2. 7 million if tourism resumed in September, Madagascar’s tourism peak. Season.
Even with the reopening of the parks, the effects of the fitness crisis will have an impact for a long time. In Andasibe, five investors in the expansion of local tourism, driven through national parks, spent massive sums to build new hotels. paintings because of the pandemic.
MNP, for its part, will have to reduce its staff. ” We have to fire some employees,” mamy Rakotoarijaona, executive leader of MNP, said in a post-reopening assembly. “Even if there was no crisis, our annual income is not enough to cover our expenses. “
Analamazaotra National Park and the nearby Mantadia National Park were under less stress during closure than other protected areas in Madagascar. As tourists and park managers were forced to stay in their homes and the local population experienced even greater economic difficulties than usual, a number of them suffered illegal logging, hunting and fire. “Day and night, we constantly take care of the park during those long months of closure, as doctors did with their patients,” Marcel Rakotomandimby, an NPM agent in Analamazoatra, told Mongabay.
The day after the rite of reopening, on September 6, President Andry Rajoelina announced a series of additional measures to particularly ease restrictions across the country and repair the tourism economy. of those connecting northern spaces where coronavirus cases remain high, they can reopen until mid-September, which they have already done.
The representative also said that foreign flights will resume to Nosy Be’s tourist destination in the northwest from early October and that his team plans to reopen the country’s major foreign airports before the end of the year. Domestic flights resumed in early September.
Madagascar’s parks will not be able to resume their activities as before until all those aircraft have begun landing, even in the protected beampingaratsy domain in southeastern Madagascar, where blockades have had minimal effect, as the site only admits researchers. , not tourists, according to Tovondriaka Rakotobe, national representative of the French NGO Nitidae, who manages the site. “His return awaits the resumption of foreign flights,” he told Mongabay.
Cover image: A guest undergoes a medical examination before Analamazoatra National Park in central-east Madagascar on the day of reopening on September 5 Image through Rivonala Razafison.
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