From 12pm on Tuesday 22 April to 12pm on Tuesday 29 April this year, we ran our Green Match Fund campaign with Big Give.
We reached our target at 3.30pm GMT on Friday 25 April: thank you so much! You can still donate at: https://moneyformadagascar.org/online-donation-form/ and we will use the money to help Malagasy men, women and children lift themselves from poverty and hunger, and protect and expand the vital, vibrant Malagasy wilderness.
All money donated via Green Match Fund has been doubled in value, and will go to a programme at the heart of our existence and our work with the people of Madagascar – Resilient Forests and Livelihoods (RFL).
Our RFL programme demonstrates that development – people improving their lives and livelihoods through increasing their incomes – need not clash, and in fact can complement and strengthen the protection and (re-)growth of the environment of which we are all a part and on which we all depend.
And it is important.
Why do we need RFL?
The people of Madagascar live in and contribute to a truly breathtaking, spectacular, biosphere.
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, 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 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.
That’s where RFL comes in.
What does RFL do?
Our Resilient Forests and Livelihoods programme addresses these two huge and closely-related problems – deforestation and damage to the environment, and Malagasy people’s need to escape food shortage, poverty and its terrible impacts – head-on.
We work with Malagasy men, women and children, providing training, technology, expertise and funding to help them develop and lead innovative initiatives to increase food yields and incomes, lifting themselves from poverty and into the relative comfort they – like all of us – deserve.
And we are helping them take an active role in forest protection, restoration and replanting, creating jobs and community projects to safeguard forests, help them grow, and welcoming and protecting animals and plants, helping them return to areas in which they used to live.
Using agro-forestry, improved planting and fertilisation techniques, innovative approaches to plant-care and -use, and animal and wilderness protection, we are helping Malagasy people use their own ideas, talents and commitment to improve their lives and the environment in which they live, and on which we all rely.
We are helping them protect plants, severely-endangered animals including tenrecs, lemurs and amphibians, and birds, all by expanding and protecting their forest homes.
RFL proves and embodies a vital truth: development and the environment do not need to clash or compete with one another. We can help and are helping Malagasy people improve their own lives and reach their potential, while simultaneously protecting and promoting the wild, amazing ecosphere in which they live.
What do we need?
We are targeting a total of £30,000 in this year’s Big Give Green Match Fund, which will then be doubled thanks to our champion funder The Reed Foundation and pledges from two supporters. This means every £1 you donate will give us £2.
We will use that money to:
£18,000 – Train and support Malagasy farmers to develop agro-forestry on their land
£18,000 – Train and support Malagasy people in Climate-Smart agriculture
£15,000 – Build community capacity to protect and restore local forests and biodiversity
£9,000 – Restore degraded land for sustainable agricultural use
What can I do?
As noted, we already achieved our Green Match Fund target – thank you so much!
But if you still want to donate to the RFL programme, please do so here: your donation will be very gratefully received and will help Malagasy people lift themselves from poverty and hunger, and protect and expand the Malagasy rainforest, upon which we all rely.
Your donation will benefit:
Malagasy people who deserve as we all do to live in reasonable comfort, free from risk of malnutrition and harm: your donation will help us provide the platform from which they can increase their incomes, produce the food they need, and develop and manage their own initiatives and ideas. You will help change lives, absolutely for the better
The Malagasy rainforest and all the animals and plants within it (the Malagasy wilderness contains five per cent of all the world’s species of flora and fauna: 80 per cent of those are found nowhere else on the planet): your donation will give Malagasy people the means to protect and expand the forests, and safeguard the animals and plants it contains and supports
Everyone: the world relies on its forests. That includes all of us. Even if we did not have a moral responsibility to protect – or at least not be responsible for harming – the living things with which we share the planet, our rainforests provide air we breathe and are central to our hopes and efforts to reduce and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Your work and generosity will, in this way, benefit every person – every living thing – on Earth
Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading, and please help us give Malagasy people the platform they need to improve their lives and health, and protect and promote the magnificent ecosystem in which they live, and on which we all rely.
Malagasy
Cymraeg
Français
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.
We work with Malagasy men, women and children, providing training, technology, expertise and funding to help them develop and lead innovative initiatives to increase food yields and incomes, lifting themselves from poverty and into the relative comfort they – like all of us – deserve.
We will use that money to:
