Launching workshop of the Demand for Restoration Project

By Sanda Anjara RAKOTOMALALA

After months of online exchanges on technical and administrative matters, the whole team of the Demand4Restoration finally gathered together for a 4 days workshop in Antalaha to officially launch the project. We finally could have put a face on the now familiar names on email signatures and got to know each other and our organisations better in the beautiful settings Antalaha and Sambava with picturesque sea-view to the forests and school gardens.

The workshop was set to deepen our common understanding of each subproject’s goals, approaches, and their linkages. As the team is composed of research organisations and practitioners, it was refreshing to merge different perspectives and experiences in order to brainstorm and design our research approaches and activities for this project.

Field visits were also part of the workshop and particularly fueled our inspiration. We have seen different types of restoration activities through visiting  4 sites: the Macoline botanical garden and Leper’s school, SAVABE restoration site in Andrapengy, the military’s tree planting site in Amoronala, and The school garden in Sambava. It reminded us of the importance of restoration and the challenges in Madagascar. Particularly, the Macoline village and the School Garden highlighted how ecological restoration is deeply linked with social implications and can yield so many benefits both for biodiversity, the environment in general, and especially local people’s wellbeing. As for Macoline, it was deeply touching to see how restoration there leveraged social reintegration of former leprosy patients and their families.

We parted with the nostalgia of green SAVA but with clearer ideas of the next steps and tasks our team will tackle to advance our work. Some are set to visit restoration sites and meet with key people and some will further develop their research designs.