All our projects

Madagascar (Nationaal Park Kirindy-Mitea)

Trees for All has carried out a pilot project on Madagascar to help protect and restore unique baobab forests. We did this together with our partner, Dry Forest, and the local community.

Status: Completed project

Restoring and protecting rare baobab forests

Madagascar is home to unique forests of baobab trees that occur nowhere else in the world. This beautiful nature is critically endangered by logging, forest fires and unsustainable agriculture. Only 3% of the original forest remains, and this has major consequences for both people and nature.

For example, fertile agricultural land is being further depleted, making it difficult for people to grow food and to survive. Moreover, the search for new fertile land often takes place at the expense of remaining forests. All sorts of plant and animal species are also threatened with extinction, including the iconic baobabs and the fossa – a predator that lives only on Madagascar.

This is why we carried out a pilot project in collaboration with the local organisation Dry Forest, contributing to the restoration and protection of Madagascar’s forests.

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You will be kept informed about your trees with Track & Trees.
You will receive an invitation to plant your own trees during a tree planting day.
You will (optionally) receive a mailbox tree. We get trees from you, you get a tree from us!

The pilot in numbers

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different tree species

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extra jobs

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planting period

The characteristic baobab trees: of the 8 existing species, 6 occur only on Madagascar. They are critically endangered, like the rest of the forest.

Our contribution to this project on Madagascar

Dry Forest is helping the population of Madagascar to plant new forests, to protect forests and to use land more sustainable. As part of the pilot, Trees for All has contributed to the following activities:

Reforestation in Kirindy Mitea National Park. Where forest has disappeared, native trees have been replanted, including four different baobab species that are typical of this region.

Sustainable forest management. We supported the restoration of the community forests around the National Park and the development of sustainable management plans for this important buffer zone.

Forest protection. In each village community, full-time jobs have been created for villagers to protect the community forests and the boundaries of the National Park.

New tree nurseries. We supported the setting up of two new tree nurseries to enable the local population continue to plant trees in the future.

Education and awareness. Dry Forest pays a lot of attention to education in schools about the importance of trees and forests. The children also help in smaller tree nurseries around their school.

Extra income. Around 70 people have jobs thanks to the various activities. In addition, Dry Forest distributes (fruit) trees in the surrounding villages to provide extra income.

The people of Madagascar are closely involved in the project and help out, for example, in the nursery, with the planting and with the protection of the forest.

Our partners

In this pilot project, we worked together with Dry Forest: a local foundation dedicated to reforestation and forest protection on West Madagascar. Dry Forest also helps residents use their land in a more sustainable way, in order to maintain existing forests as far as possible. In recent years, Dry Forest has grown from a volunteer organisation into a foundation with ten people in permanent employment. And best of all, the employees all come from the region itself. So it’s a truly local initiative!

The planting locations

The pilot project has been carried out on West Madagascar, on the western side of the Kirindy Mitea National Park: in the villages of Ambararata, Antsira and Marofihitra. The trees have been planted both in the protected National Park, as well as in the neighbouring community forests.

More trees, more impact

This pilot project is not the only project we’re supporting on Madagascar. Since 2022, we’ve been working with the Zazamalala Foundation on reforestation around the Menabe Antimena National Park. On one of our project visits, we came into contact with Dry Forest, which works on reforestation and protection a little further on in the region. We were impressed by their effective and community-based way of working, and decided to enter into partnership with them. By supporting several projects around the two most important protected forests on Madagascar, we can then increase our impact in the region even further!