Our partner-in-education, Susie from Conservation Fusion had a genius idea make the walls of the Lavavolo Dream School out of reused plastic bottles filled by the local community with trash. Alas, it was going to be hard to get the bottle there and to find enough trash to fill 6000 bottles. So she built the school like normal people do. After talking about creating a school with bottle walls and the MBP’s need to isolate … Read More

Blog by MBP Volunteer, Julia   Our next find was a sleepy, tiny kingfisher. I was probably more excited about it than anybody else, because this wasn’t the common kingfisher we see darting over the river near KAFS sometimes. It was one of Madagascar’s pygmy kingfishers, tiny and bright red-orange all over, fluffed up roundly on a branch as it dozed for the night. These little red birds are not apparently that uncommon, but this … Read More

Blog by MBP Volunteer, Julia   Even between four vazaha (foreigners) and two guides, the first half hour of our walk revealed no lemurs at all. Undiscouraged, knowing that we had plenty of time and plenty of forest left to cover, we turned our lamps down instead towards the ground. It was disappointing at first. I was surrounded by a chorus of “ooh!”s and “wow!”s. Sheila and Adam took out their cameras and started snapping away … Read More

Blog by MBP Volunteer, Julia     Our path took us along one of the transects the varecia team usually walks, that is to say, straight through the woods and up the mountain. It had been a drizzly kind of week, so the trek uphill was difficult and slick, just muddy enough that the ground felt the slightest bit unstable under our feet. What felt like solid footing could at any second shift and slip … Read More

Blog by MBP Volunteer, Julia   It was like the mirror of a normal workday, routine happening in bizarre reverse. Instead of driving to Kianjavato under a lightened sky and birds waking up, chirping as we rumbled along, we took the trip at dusk. By the time Sheila, Trevor, Adam and I faced the entrance to Sangasanga, the town was washed in twilight. The air was buzzing, as usual, but with a slightly unfamiliar quality: all … Read More

Blog from MBP Volunteer, Adam Photos courtesy of Adam     I recently accompanied seven Malagasy guides from the Varecia team on a 20 day expedition to Lakia and Simone forests, outside of Kianjavato commune. Our goal was to survey for Varecia variegata and other lemurs in these forests. It was an incredibly rewarding experience, and I’ll tell the story about one of the forests, Lakia, here. We took off from the town of Andonabe, … Read More