(English) Resilient Forests and Livelihoods: 30 months report

Miala tsiny fa tsy mbola misy amin’ny teny malagasy ity lahatsoratra ity.

With just six months remaining of the Resilient Forests and Livelihoods pilot period, we are delighted to report our programme’s progress to date.

Money for Madagascar has helped restore and reforest hundreds of acres of Malagasy rainforest, and empowered thousands of Malagasy people to lift themselves from poverty and hunger, while protecting the vibrant, vital forests which surround them.

Our Resilient Forests and Livelihoods programme began as a three-year pilot in October 2022.

As it approaches the end of that ‘trial stage’ this September, we are delighted to report its excellent impacts so far.

We launched RFL to help Malagasy men, women and children overcome the challenges which face them, as well as to protect and expand the Malagasy rainforest and the animals and plants within it.

These targets are desperately needed, and closely connected.

Almost 90 per cent of plant and animal species in Madagascar are found only here, and the island contains five per cent of all the world’s species of flora and fauna.

But Madagascar has the world’s fourth-highest rate of deforestation.

It has already lost 80 per cent of its natural areas and loses around 200,000ha. to deforestation each year.

The current rate of deforestation, if unchecked, could lead to the complete loss of Madagascar’s forests within 40 years.

And more than 600 Malagasy plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.

Not only is this unacceptable because those animals and plants have as great a right to exist as every person does, it is also a genuine crisis because we all – including every person – depend on our forests for survival.

And Malagasy people, too, face serious existential challenges.

The country’s population is one of the world’s poorest: 79.9 per cent of Malagasy people live on or below the global poverty baseline of £1.73 per day. Eighty per cent rely entirely on agriculture for their income and survival.

Even though Madagascar is one of only four countries recognised to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits (a ‘carbon sink’), the country is experiencing some of the worst impacts of the carbon catastrophe to date, including drought, flooding and the permanent loss of fertile soil due to extreme rainfall events.

The reality facing most Malagasy men, women and children is that food shortage, hunger and its impacts, including stunting in nearly 50 per cent of children due to malnutrition, are not just a threat, but a reality.

Understandably, one way they try to improve their lives is by removing forest to access more land, and produce more food.

Resilient Forests and Livelihoods responds to both these serious challenges.

We provide Malagasy people training, information and the equipment they need to increase their access to food and their incomes, both by using innovative farming methods and by engaging in new income-generating initiatives.

And we provide them with the opportunity to lead the protection and expansion of the rainforest, including the animals and plants for which it is home.

These include Dynamic Agro-Forestry (DAF), which helps people retain fertile soil, produce more food and expand the forest with plants which can generate an income, as well as forest stewardship, training positions and plant cultivation roles.

We also set up savings and loans groups, in which Malagasy people pool their money, fund initiatives they choose and share in the profits and successes which come from the group’s decisions and investments.

And as of April 2025, with six months remaining of the programme’s pilot, we are delighted to report significant successes.

These include:

• The reforestation of 225 hectares, 185 more than our target for the pilot

• 7,284 people benefitting from climate smart agriculture (CSA) – 4,284 more than our target

• 79 hectares and 1,155 households using and benefitting from DAF – 14 hectares and 1,080 households more than our target

• 212 Savings and Loans (Community Savings) Groups with 4,412 members, 156 more groups and 3,332 more members than our target

You can learn more about Resilient Forests and Livelihoods here, some of the people who are benefitting from its training, support and equipment here, and specific RFL projects here.

And if you would like to help us continue to enable Malagasy people to lift themselves from poverty and hunger, protect and expand the rainforests, and benefit plants and wildlife across the world, please do make a donation if you can.