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Blog by MBP Volunteer, Sierra

 

Sign

 

We are entering into the rainy season, and I have begun to learn that with the heightened rain not only do the mosquito population increase, but the lychees ripen. As the rains come, lychee pour and bamboo falls. It’s the trend every year. As we excitedly await the fresh, flowery and tasty fruit, we also watch our monitoring sites lose patches of bamboo. The more and more the lychee ripen, the more bamboo is cut. Why? Why does the bamboo that normally is left alone for the lemurs to inhabit suddenly get chopped down and disappear by the acres? Because bamboo is used to make the lychee baskets. Bamboo is everywhere here. Its strong yet flexible enough to weave into baskets quickly and the lychee business is fast and booming. Already some of the trees have been picked clean of their lychees. They are carted off to larger cities, like Ranamafana, to be sold in larger markets, in the baskets made with bamboo. When you drive along in a taxi brousse, they are stacked high with baskets. Each basket weighing close to 13 lbs only costs you 3000 AR. They are relatively cheap and unbelievably delicious.

But the fruit comes at a cost, and watching the bamboo disappear hits closer and closer to home as they cut down the bamboo that skirts the homes of the bamboo lemur groups we study. It’s something the guides are all too aware of. They aren’t discouraged though. I think it makes them more determined than ever to protect the animals they spend their lives watching and learning. If we come across people in the forest while we are monitoring surrounding areas, they go up and talk to them. They educate them about the lemurs and how they are good not only for the forest, but for people due to the tourists that come to see them. They tell them they should be proud to have these lemurs live here.

The guides also pushed for making signs telling people of the lemurs that live in the bamboo. They hope, by making these signs, people will learn and understand to better protect the forest. We just recently got our first one commissioned and it looks great! The guides are very excited and already know exactly where we will put it in the next week! All in all, we will have a total of 15 signs posted throughout our research site and in the monitoring areas. It has been such a great learning experience watching the guides push to educate the surrounding people, and watch as the community shows pride for the lemurs that live near their home. It’s our hope, that through these signs and education by the guides, the community will begin to protect the forest and the lemurs more and more.

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