The Malagasy Story

I was the first to get off the plane at late night in Antananarivo, in the capital city of Madagascar. As the door of the plane opened, I was hit by a strong, thick smell. Those who travelled first to Madagascar also were puzzled with this smell. The experienced ones did not even realize this. I couldn’t imagine why I smelled this strong smoke. A researcher, who noticed my confusion, calmed me that I would smell this during my whole journey. The area is in fire. I thought that he was only exaggerating. Why would it be in fire, I asked myself? During the next few days I found the answer for my question: the forests are poured with petroleum and set on fire. In West Madagascar the savannas covered with baobab trees, in the South the spiny landscape and in the north and the east the lush rainforest are burning. The landscape is the most miserable during the night. The dark wilderness is colored with red spots, all of which represent an area of burning forests.

Madagascar's only passenger railway goes through the middle of the country, eventually reaching the east coast is currently operating in the original untouched lush rainforest. I have traveled through this railway line together with hundreds of local residents. Before the departure I thought that it wouldn’t be the last experience to travel through the dozens of bridges and tunnels which raise in the railway line of the rainforest. But one thing was completely missing: the rainforest. Of course, sometimes I had seen patches of it remnants. The burning of wood and black smoke from diesel caused a horrible smell in the air. Everywhere I looked, I saw smoke breaking into the sky from the horizon. They all meant burning forests. During the two day train ride I mainly saw glades of waiting to be harvested and sold timber, inundated rice fields and banana plantations. In the railway stations the train spent even an hour or more, so I hade enough time to walk around in the small villages. I couldn’t see people suffering from the lack of food. Almost everybody was in a good mood. As I saw they could produce enough food from the plantations. But a question went through my mind. Is it sustainable?

Logged wild trees waiting for transportation to the East coast ports, where they will continue their trio to China.

The island of Madagascar gives life to an unique fauna and flora system in the world. 80% of the spieces living on the island are endemic, which means that they cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The formation of this wonderful , unique wildlife started 80 million years ago, when the island became detached from the African continent, including an evolution which took place in a complete isolation taking advantages of specific features of the island. Thus appeared those mammals, reptiles, birds, insects and plants that can not be seen anywhere else in the world. This is a wonderful evolutionary development came to a turning point 1,500 years ago, when the first man took the first footstep on the untouched island. But how did the previously green islands become red for today?

To understand the environmental distruction of third world, thus of Madagascar, we have to examine the relationship between the individuals, the society and the nature. The child is at the heart of the Malagasy families. According to this there are 8-12 children in a family, which causes 3% of population growth and more than 50 % of child mortality as well. The current twenty-million population per year, which represents 600,000 new hungry mouths, in a country which is sad to be the world's 50th poorest country by the UN. Two-thirds of the society, so 13-14 million people make less than a dollar and a half per day. With this money the day to day support of the family could not be solved, therefore the families are forced to over- exploit the natural resources of the island. The primary task is the survival, and to provide right amount of food for the family. In such circumstances it is impossible to think long term. The long-term thinking is essential when we speak about the protection of the nature.

The 80% percent of the society works in the agriculture as farmers, working around the household. In the practice this means logging and burning forms of farming. After the extraction and the the burning of a wooded area, the soil remains fertile only for 10 years. During this ten years rice and crops can be grown. Subsequently, the soil becomes unusable, so that the farmers have to move and bring new areas under cultivation. If we compare the ongoing land use and the growing population a huge demand for land will appear on the limited sized island. The centuries of continuous and increasing burning agriculture has led to there, that the island has lost more than 90% of its natural vegetation. The island, on which the first man took steps, was almost entirely covered with woodland for now it is a bare , barren , red land and the size of Hungary. These areas are covered with grass, which is grazed by the zebus, an endemic African bovine which is the second most important food source for the locals. The remaining grass is burnt and by the end of the rainy seasons new grass grows over the ashes . The ash is an excellent nourishment for the growing grass but the soil is not able to recover, and within a decade, it runs out of nutrients.

Madagascar as a vast ecological heritage is a hot spot and carries responsibilities. If the plant and animals living here die, not only the island, but the whole world loses these gorgeous species. This was a terrible example , during my trip when I visited Ranomafana National Park , where I witnissed a rare lemur species, the giant bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus). This species of the lemur is unable to eat other plants than different parts of the bamboo in different periods of the year. This animal really depends on its environment and the environment depends on the humans. After my arrival a ranger from the National Park accompanied me to find a group of lemurs in the rainforest. The ranger shook his head and told me that it would not be easy. Only one team lives in the area and it has lost its last female a month ago. The species in this region is doomed. The only spawning group lives several hundred kilometers northeast. There are only three males in this group with no female left. The ranger shook his head again and sadly told me: you know it is because of the usual reasons. Usual reasons? Yes. Burning deforestation, poaching, decrease of living space, he sad. “My stomach was in my throat” and I was not sure that I felt anger , sadness or frustration. Maybe all of these together. Of course not just because it will be very difficult to find and take valuable pictures of the species, but the tragedy of them is not only the thragedy of the species, but the tragedy of Madagascar and Madagascar’s tragedy is the tragedy of the world.

A female ring-tailed lemur with her child.

One of the last of males of the giant bamboo lemur

Unfortunately lot of animals can not escape from the sudden fire front. A couple of inches of chameleons , rare geckos , reptiles , amphibians , nesting birds are unable to leave the area quickly . The majority of them burn inside the fire, which is lit after the deforestation of the beautiful, tall trees which are immediately used for the constructions. They do not have the chance to escape. The rosewood is exposed to the biggest danger which is very good because of its formability and the expensive market price . The mostly north - northeast - native plant species protected in Madagascar , despite of it there are unprecedented proportions in the extraction. The illegal loggers do not respect the boundaries of national parks breaks in even wilderness areas and for the multiples of an avarage daily earnings, they cut out a tree. In these cases the corrupt authorities turn their heads . False labelled containers are exported from the country to China , where the exclusive use of everyday items , furniture , home furnishing items made from them , and exported to European , North American market s. We could not imagine but purchasing a rosewood table lamp we cut out Malagasy trees which contributes to further decline in ecosystem.

This picture shows a Sifaka lemur. The habitat of the rare species is limited within the borders of national parks

The Parson chameleon. Due to its slow movement it can hardly escape from the burning forest.

Deforestation takes place on the island not only for agricultural purposes . Not only the locals can be blamed for the devastation. The exploitation of the island’s formerly graphite, but now zinc and cobalt mines, owned by Western European and North American countries, also wound the island of Madagascar. The profit-making companies totally ignore the environmental regulations just to produce the ore fields lying beneath the rainforests. And the locals are happy to work for an international company for a dollar and a half Aryary per day.

Several times during my journey I worked with local and international research teams. During a conversation, the question arose, where to go from here? Madagascar is going to be familiar with Haiti a nd the country becomes stripped-down to mother earth, which does not deal with sustainability and with a greedy manner lived up its resources. Would the country be more impoverished then ? This vision is not baseless at all. Over the past thirty years the population doubled , while the gross of national product ( GNP), expressed in dollars, does not change. The standard of living has halved, while the population has doubled. At the same time the number exploitable resources has radically reduced. We do not have too much reason to paint a positive vision for the country, which is beside the mentioned problems is striked by political crisis for two years. The president discovered that the world's great natural treasures are hidden in this country. Thus he began to increase the areas and the numbers of the national parks. Under the presidency of him he restricted and punished the illegal deforestation and burning of forests. It was difficult to gain permisions for the usage of the lands, which nowadays are easily handed out without any consideration. Because of his hard work the 3% of the national territory had been shielded, and he promised the trebling of those.

The new national parks have attracted tens of thousands of tourists, mainly from the former colonial country, from France. The opposing party was not willing to rely on the president 's, Mark Ravalomanana’s successes, so they draw the army on their side, and carried out a military coup. The president was forced to emigrate to South Africa. Hundreds of people died in street battles . The new leadership has rejected the radical increase in the size of protected areas and they eased the former combustion and land use restrictions. As a result smoke strikes the nose of the tourists getting off the plane in Antananarivo.

“Now it is too late to be pessimistic.” – sad one of the researchers who is working to replace the extinct giant bamboo monkey females with a comprehensive resettlement action in Ranomafana National Park. “Our mission is to teach people to realize that they can live in harmony and balance with the nature.” However, this is not an easy task . We have to present the values of Madagascar and teach them new agricultural technologies. From five to six times higher rice yields can be achieved with the new methods in a given area, than with their thousand-year old technologies. With this single method the territorial claims of the population could be significantly reduced. Fortunately, in many places in the country the population is beginning to realize that they can earn much more money for natural resources, tourism, conservation purposes, rather than with direct exploitation. The natural resources could be used in tourism. The standard of living visibly better around the national parks and the reserves, than in the bald parts of the country. A toursit leaves there thousand of Euros for rangers, accomodation, food and transport. Everyone tries to make out his share in the revenues. There are work and food out there for a seasonal income. Of course, only there, where local communities have recognized the economic potentials hidden in nature conservation. This is a good example for a small village in central Madagascar, for the story of Anja. The village is the longest and busiest road in Madagascar, is located near NR7. Before the military coup thousands of tourists had driven through this motorway. A local tour guide, Adrine took advantage of this frequented area a decade ago, and arranged the park to give jobs to the local people and hence to teach them the importance of conservation. Today 300 ring tailed lemur live in the reserve. They are not fed, hence the wild nature of the park can be preserved. The lemurs gain their food from the leaves, plants and fruits. So her initiative has been a success. The park's attendance figures surpass the individual state datas of the national parks run by the state, and it approaches the popularity of other national parks. Of course, a range of services grouped around the reserve. The r estaurants, hotels, crafts souvenir shops give prosperity and work to the locals. The agriculture is in harmony with the wild nature and with the fauna. The village is a prime example of the wise use of nature's endowments.

Year after year a growing number of Malagasy community begins to discover what the potential of nature is for them. Thanks to the international organizations and thousands of volunteers that a growing number of people could receive the message: Live in harmony with nature! Take advantage of the opportunities afforded by it, and do not burn it to the ground! I was surprised that there were local communities who planted trees to begin the reforestation program. Their work will not be easy . A rainforest could be cut out in a few hours, but it needs a minimum 200 years to grow out again, but there are some plants which need approximately 700 years to recover. The natural vegetation is reduced with 0.55% per year after year, which means 30,000 acerss, and little more than 300 acers of forests grow in the repopulated area, only in Madagascar. It is difficult to write an optimistic ending after these facts but we trust that the international pressure, international organizations and volunteers, state and local residents recognize the eco-tourism and conservation programs and the data may improve the current appalling with the help of them.

If we talk about biological diversity to a scientist, or a person who knows a lot about biology, they will defiantly think about Madagascar or the islands, biological hotspots in the World where the evolution - because of certain geological courses - went through in an abnormal way. That’s way a lot of interesting, endemic spices which can’t be found anywhere else in the World could be established in islands such as Madagascar, New-Zealand or Borneo.

Not enough that 80% of the 200.000 fauna and flora spices can be found only in Madagascar, further isolations can be observed after arriving to the island. Different coasts of the country have so different atmosphere that after fling from one part of the country to the other, the traveler has the feeling that he or she is in a total different country. Most of the rain rains in the East side of the island next to the Indian Ocean, because a big mountain comes from the North to de South does not let the clouds to the West coast. In West Madagascar the landscape is dominated by huge baobab trees, dry forests, and bizarre form of limestone. The overview from the air is colored by huge watered sugarcane circles. This atmosphere gives life to a lot of drought resistandable mammal, chameleon, and flora spices. This part of Madagascar is very similar to the classic African savannas.

The most interesting phenomenon in West-Madagascar is the bizarre limestone of the Tsingy de Bemahara National Park. The rocks are even higher than twenty meters, and they magic a lunar landscape to the eyes of the visitors. The life can always find the way for itself, from the brusting of the rocks trees and bushes grow up to the sky. The UNESCO added this wonderful place to the list of World Heritage in 1990. Not accidentally. Before arriving to the park, I thought that is would be an absolutely ordinary mountain trekking with a 25 kg weight backpack on me. I was wrong. As soon as I started the tour deep inside the mountain in a way marked by the fringed, sky-high rocks, it got me into its power. Suddenly the lights disappeared, and the air became cooler. The ranger followed a rope, in order not to get lost in the further then the eye can reach labyrinth. Without a guide, I was not sure, that you could ever get out of this place. – Told me with a big smile on his face. This statement was not baseless. The national park own 670 square kilometers. The way up to the best viewpoints contains several suspension bridges, and clambering.

In the desert dry South-Madagascar spiny forests and succulent flora system owns the landscape. This is the driest and the wildest part of the island and it is also the paradise of the fanatic flora collector’s. In 1990 there were 2, 4 million hectares of spiny forest in Madagascar. This number decreased to 2, 0 million hectare because of deforestation and wood logging. This spiny forests of the South give life to interesting, endemic spices. A lot of mammals and reptiles can live only in this atmosphere.

After landing in Tulear, South-Madagascar, my first way was to the ports. It took a few minutes of argument with the taxi driver about the cost of ride, and surprisingly the 42 years old taxi vehicle could start its engine very soon. It took only 10 minutes to do it. The crowded city was amazing, people from Pakistan, India, China, Africa, and of cause locals were everywhere. Everybody was dealing about something. Changing money, buying and selling staffs. After arriving to the port, I took a ship heading to Anakao. Anakao is a small village in the coast of the Mozambique See full of fishermen. While I was lying on the beach drinking a Three Horse Beer, and taking pictures about the sunset, I had a little time to think about what I would do in the following days. The locals advised me to visit the Tsimanampetsotsa Nation Park, which has a salt lake full of pink flamingos. It was not so far. One hour with a taxi and 3 other hours with a zebu-cart. I took their advice, so in the next morning; I was in the nation park. It was a paradise on Earth. Around the turquoise salt lake thousands of flamingos were eating and feeding the Youngers. After the dry season the whole colony flies to the Black Continent. Because of the fact that in this water there’s no crayfish the color of the nestlings are not pink but grey. The color of the pink flamingos is given from the color of the crayfish they eat.

After photographing the flamingos and the flora system in the South I followed my trip up to the North, travelling through the highland of Madagascar. The landscape in Middle-Madagascar’s highland is absolutely different from any other. Thousand meter high mountains with dry atmosphere and special fauna and flora system which cannot be compared to any other part of the country. I was travelling from the South up to the North-East with a bush-taxi for 10 days, stopping the trip for the most interesting national parks, strict reserves, and the places of interest. During the 1000 km long trip, I experienced the geographical zonation in a reduced way. As I would have read in a geographical book: desert – savannas – borderline – rainforests. As I was heading up to the North the landscape was changing a bit every day, day by day. The desert feeling was disappearing and an interesting borderline highland clime appeared.

In the highland of Madagascar I had the opportunity to work with an international researcher team. The team was researching the behavior of the ring-tailed lemurs because of the less and less life space, deforestation and the closeness of the people. They compared and contrasted their behavior, their paradise and hormone level in places where the local people were close to the lemurs and in a place where there the movement and the activity of the people are not so common.

According to the research, I was following a lemur group with the scientists for a few days. The behavior of the lemur’s amazed me. There took care of each other, they acted like they had been one family, they alarmed each other when a raptor, or a zebu holder entered their territory. They had almost the same agenda every day. They were playing and eating together in the morning, and sleeping in the midday. There was a followable hierarchy in the group, dominated by one female. In the group it was possible to spot characters, same as in the normal daily life. 17 individuals with 17 different souls, life’s, and characters. We could see losers, winners, optimistic and pessimistic, brave and cautions ones.

The scientist’s made and interesting consequence. In those territories where there were too many foods on the trees, because of a human impact, the lemurs usually gave birth to twins, which is not very common in the normal wildlife.

After travelling through the saddle of the mountains the clime changed suddenly. There was only a few kilometer difference between the dry and the rain forests, and only a few minutes of travelling. The quick change was ununderstable. The air suddenly filled with steam and it started to rain. From this time raining became the part of every day. As I had been in a completely different continent.

After reaching the rainforest, a whole new world came into my eyes. Never seen reptiles and mammal were hanging from the trees, interesting and huge butterflies, and colorful birds were flying everywhere. Bizarre insects were climbing on the leafs. I spent lot of weeks in the rainforest, but it seemed to be only a couple of days. From minute by minute I explored new animals and flowers. Orchids were hanging from the trees and paradise flycatchers were flying in the air. This biological diversity was amazing. It is also amazing that how many spices do the rainforests have, and inspire of this fact a big deforestation, logging for agriculture is on process every day.

Frogs of the rainforests.

A young indri is looking out of his mothers hug. Because of the endless deforestation and illegal hunting nowadays indri can only be seen in national parks.

The North-East rainforests give life space to most of the spices. At all genetic family levels, Madagascar’s primate diversity is even more striking, with five families and 15 genera found nowhere else. Compared this to Brazil, which is the richest country in the World in primate spices and subspaces with 133 and five families but none of the families endemic, ad only four endemic genera out of eighteen. For Madagascar 71 lemur spices recognized, and 63% of them are considered threatened with extinction, according to the latest IUCN Red List assessment, carried out in Antananarivo, Madagascar in 2005. 11 spices are Critically Endangered, 17 are endangered and another 18 are Vulnerable. This high rate of vulnerability is caused by illegal hunting, deforestation, logging, slash and burn agriculture, and the high population growth. Madagascar is also demonstrated clearly that the primate extinctions are a very real phenomenon and not a figment of the conservationist’s imagination. Eight genera and at least sixteen spices of lemurs already have gone extinct on this island since the arrival of the first immigrant wave about 1500-2000 years ago. Many other spices – not only lemurs – could disappear within the following decades of rapid action is not taken. Today the major threats to lemurs include deforestation due to slash and burn agriculture, logging, fuel wood collection, charcoal production, mining, and the seasonal burning of dry forests to create cattle pasture, and sometimes even capturing lemurs as pets. Sadly the hunting of lemurs as a source of food in now emerging as a major problem in many areas.

And these lines were about only the primates, an equally large problem facing the chameleons, geckos, rare birds and insects as well. Such as a special hidden character with wonderful leaf-tail gecko that is able to completely imitate the patterns of certain trees to escape the attention of its hunting birds. Just as interesting, and rare creature the orange thorn- spider (gasteracanthinae family), whose hard shell is comparable to crab, which are located in close spikes. The shell also provides protection against bird hunting him. Here you will find the largest chameleons in Madagascar is a chameleon parsonii (Calumma parsonii), which is a huge size, greenish-yellow color and enthralled the tourists to find it. This chameleon can live only in the only north and east of primary rainforests of Madagascar, so the further fate depends on the extraction of rainforests. The island's natural values are immeasurable. Even with the help of our t oday's acquaintance, and technical background, we can also read news reports monthly in Madagascar recently discovered primate, chameleon, and spider spices. It is therefore important to get more attention, and protection given to this special region of our planet.

Before travelling to Madagascar I thought that this place will be absolutely different from any other part of Africa. The misery is sure smaller, the cities, the streets and the markets of the cities are less chaotic, than In Africa. I also thought that this place is not so exiting, wild and dangerous. On the first day, I had to admit, that I was wrong. Madagascar absolutely belongs to Africa. With all of its beauty, wildness and hardness. It was almost impossible to find a good quality road, public transport has never existed, and in one car we can see ever twenty or more people. The batcher in the markets makes the fly cloud towards from the meat slowly and bored. The time seems to be slowed down, nobody is in a hurry, nobody nervous. Most of the houses were built in 1000 year-old traditional style. They are made of cane and bush. Brick made houses are common only in the highlands and in the cities.

There is one big difference which appear for the experienced traveler. Compared to other third world nation the people of Madagascar are friendly, take caring, however they keep distance. In other African countries usually the European or American travelers are surrounded by a big group of locals, not respecting the private space. Compared with this, in Madagascar, the locals said from an acceptable distance with a big friendly smile on their face: Salama Wazah, welcome stranger !

The population of Madagascar is an interesting mix of the African and Indonesian ethnic groups. The archeologists say that the first immigrants crossed the Indian Ocean with small boats, about 1500-2000 years ago, arriving from a long trip from Malajzia. Scientists reconstructed the boats of the first immigrants, and surprisingly they determined that it was possible to cross the Indian Ocean with rudimentary navigation technology.

According to another theory the first wave of he immigrants came across the way South-India and East-Africa on foot. Around the coast a stronger African impact can be seen than in the highlands, which can be thanked to the African immigrants. During the time more and more immigrant wave reached the country, which caused an interesting multicolor ethnical mixture in the population. With one of these waves the merina society arrived to the island about 500-600 years ago and settled down in the highlands of the country, where they can be found even today’s.

Although Madagascar is one of the poorest country on Earth, (according to a UN research Madagascar is the 50th poorest country) it is even not possible to find big groups of mendicant people. Even after photographing the locals for a long time, they usually don’t ask money. For me it was very suppressing because I experienced that in India the white travelers are being surrounded by a big group of street children, asking money sometimes in a very aggressive way. I had a some discussion with Malagasy locals about this phenomenon and all of them said that it is honorific for them if a wahaz (stranger, white people) takes a picture about them or about their family. Sometimes they feel that offering money is hurtful for them. They would rather accept a friendly discussion or sometimes a loaf of bread, some food. Very often a simple bottle of mineral water is the best present for them, because they can reuse it in a lot of ways.

In highlight places which are visited by a lot of tourist, I experienced that the teeth of the children are much worse than in isolated areas, because a lot of tourist give candy to the children, but they don’t have the opportunity to wash their teeth. Most of the guide books advise not to give candy to children, but only a few of the travelers take care about it. I saw a lot of times that the local children had a fight because they couldn’t distribute the candy gotten by the strangers.

Travelling in Madagascar is amazing. Locals try to give life and force to move30-40 year’s old vehicles with techniques never seen by European and American travelers. It is a very common phenomenon that there is no start-key in the car, and the driver tries to start the car with touching two cables. Unfortunately this method often does not work, that’s why most of the time we started our driving trip with pulling the car in the road with a group of locals till the engine started. It is advised to take a taxi in bigger cities. Once I was travelling in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, the taxi stopped. We ran out of petrol. This was very common, that’s why it didn’t surprise me. The suppressing thing was that the petrol tank was a 2 L mineral water plastic bottle placed next to the gear shift. The engine got the petrol from this bottle through a plastic tube. The driver changed the bottle to another full of petrol, and we could continue the trip. I have never seen anything similar to this before. The locals cannot afford to travel with private taxi, they use shared bush taxies, taxi-brousses. The bush taxi „system” is an amazing method, somewhere in the borderline of the total chaos and usefulness. In every big city we can find a bush taxi station, where arrive and leave bush taxis half scheduled and half without any organization. But how can it work? I wanted to get to Balambao from Ronohindra. I thought that if I wanted to know how the people living there, I had to live in the same way as they did. That’s why I declined travelling with an own car, I used the services of the bush taxi almost everywhere in Madagascar. It was said that a bush taxi will leave the town tomorrow morning to the way of the capital city. It was good for me, so I booked a place on the bush taxi. This meant that I gave money to the driver, owner of the car, and he promised that he would pick me up tomorrow morning from the road. At the time of the departure only the half of the minibus was full. This actually means that 16 people were sitting on the 10 available sitting places. The minibus driver wanted to put at least 30 people to the 10 sitting place, that’s why he started to run circle on the town to collect more and more possible quest. After 4 hours of waiting he got the wanted number of traveler, 30 local people and me, the only European. So we started to go. After 200 meters, the army stopped the car, and asked the driver to show them the med kid. One painkiller was missing from it. Not the whole painkiller box, but one tablet. This problem caused another hour of waiting. The driver and the soldiers were arguing about the punishment. Of course not legal punishment. No one wanted to pay the official fine. Finally the driver gave 1 dollar (2000 ariary in local money) to the soldiers, so we could continue the trip. All in all it took 9 hours to travel 190kms. The trip was unforgettable. There were 31 people sitting in a few square meters. Everybody was singing, laughing, smiling. There were two babies lying next to my leg, and tree little guys were sitting on me. I haven’t experienced anything like this before.

Hurrying and nervous are unknown words in Madagascar. This is Africa. Here everybody has a lot of time. It is not a problem that the bush taxi lates 4-5 hours. Because of this nobody will get angry. Mora, mora! Relax, relax! Say the locals, before, during and after working. The whole island is under a mora more feeling. Time has a completely different meaning this part of the World. As a European it can be weird and sometime annoying that everything goes much more slower.

Children are in the center of the Malasy families. The family's love and respect for children is as much a part of their culture as a slow and relaxed lifestyle. In a family it is not uncommon that there are even a dozen of toddlers running around. The huge number of children has practical reasons. One of the most important reasons is that the children in the family represent a very important work power. The smaller ones are working around the house, the olders usually cut the trees, or work in the rice fields or helping their parents. The increasing number of the population nearly 3% annually, which is a country of 20 million per year represents 600,000 new mouths. Since the island's resources are finite, and the natural vegetation cover more than 90% have already been lost, and rice is grown in almost every palm area, a large number of population can make sustainability and environmental problems.

The children love and respect is very important in addition to the ancients respect as well. Madagascar's ancient belief is influenced by African and Asian impacts and this makes it very special, totally unique in the world. In the island, despite the big number of ethnic groups all of the people speaking the same language and had the same belief before the colonialism and the Christian missions. The principal of t he ancient belief is the power of feeds on dead ancestors. The cult of death in their interpretation is the celebration of life. The ancestors have huge power, which is added to the life of the family, and in this case it gives power to the daily routine. Power of the ancestors, the razana, has considerable power, and it can change, identifies the everyday of the Malagasy families, communities. Death is considered to be not the end of something, but a big change in their life. Because of the death the dead people will have immortal power. They call it razana. The property of the ancients considered being inviolable, that’s why the family never sells the house, or the field of the grandparents. When the family or the community meets misfortune, they consider it mostly the power of the ancient dead, attribute to the wrath of razana. In this case, the family must devote a zebu bull to regain the confidence of the ancients. A lot of rural people believe in a god called the secondary, which is normally located between gods and humans. That god lives in certain trees, rocks, rivers. The people are waiting for help from the spiritual world, they go to selected sites, and there pray to the God. They believe that the prayers who are in trance are held by spirits, but for certain tribes animals, for example crocodiles can be often possessed by spirits.

In the Malagasy culture taboos - in local language of Fady's - play a very important role. The word does not mean completely, the way we used to. Fadys relate rules to the everyday life and belief and it means that some activities, such as pointing, movement, or mealtime is forbiddened to do there. Western Madagascar for several days, I walked with a guide in Tsyngy Calcareous National Park areas. He was very nice ranger, he was an intelligent, and he told be pretty much about his homeland. Once I pointed out with my finger to a bird, and I asked him what the name of this bird was? He became very angry. He seemed to be mortally offended. I did not understand cause of his problem. It is forbiddened to point with an index finger, this is a taboo here, a Fady - he said. I read about this before, but I had no idea that they so really pay attention to these habits. The game warden was so offended that we barely spoke during the time we spent together.

The taboos are not intended to limit the freedom of Malagasy people, it is more likely to be developed in the course of history, to ensure the regulation of life, and mark a happy way of development for the community. Not all of the taboos are good, there are very cruel ones as well which the Christian missionaries tried to cancel from the mind of the population, but in many cases, however, they still exist. In the Antaisaka ethnic group the twins count as a taboo. According to the tradition, twins must be killed or left alone in the woods after their birth. Of course, this is prohibited by the law, but in a couple of cases today, however; also take account of this ancient taboo. They can’t kill the twins after their birth, because of the law but after their natural death the community doesn’t bury them to graves.

The Malagasy people are very close to nature. 80% of the society is in the agricultural sector work, which represents that mostly everybody is farming. Therefore they are in a daily contact with nature. Yet a huge problem emerged between the nature and the population. According to the undeveloped agriculture with thousand years old production methods and according to the continuous and very rapid population growth the required space of the population has been increased. The area for the agriculture is taken away from the wild nature.

The finite of the natural resources conform to the general public a huge threat, since it is not sustainable in the everyday lives of a closed-off island. The lack of state provided, central education, lack of school buildings, and truancy, illiteracy makes it very difficult to teach environment protection and sustainability to the people of Madagascar. In the dry months, in the west and south part of the country , which is likely to be mostly savanna and desert , people often struggle with food shortages . In this case, of course, they eat almost anything that is edible . It does not matter that it is a world unique and rare species of turtle or lemur. The family should be given to eat , the children cannot suffer the lack of food . Therefore, of course, no one to blame . Who would act differently ? Madagascar is facing a major challenge . The state needs to set up the population to a sustainable career . From Western Europe and North America, dozens of volunteers are walking around the country to teach the local people the most important things : defend against malaria , cholera, how to achieve 5-6 time more rice in the same , family planning , to protect themselves against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases . The task is not simple , but important . In the villages where the volunteers , speaking the local language, explained to the village leaders the importance of school construction , the new rice and other crop cultivation and land management practices , have a visibly better quality of life .

2010, Antananarivo, Madagascar, Lantai-Csont Gergely