Studying a Dr. Seuss Forest

One of the spiny trees whose uses I forget, but just reminded me so much of  Dr. Seuss that I had to take picture

Over the last 3 days, we camped in Andohahela National Park, in Parcel 2, which is the transitional forest between the dense, humid forest to the east, and the dry, spiny forest to the west.  The 10 Americans and 10 students from the Centre d'Ecologie a Libanona (sorry about the lack of accents) or CEL came along with us.  CEL is sort of the only accredited university in the Fort Dauphin area, so the Malagasy students that do really well in high school but don't have family in Tulear or Tana (the capital city) don't really have any other options.  They were all really nice, and they had done the fieldwork inventory project that we did before, so they were like extra guides for us. On the ride there, we stopped at an agricultural project which exports medicinal plants, including one that is being used for cancer research in Europe, and we ate pure sugar cane! It was really tough and you mostly suck out the juices and spit the fibers, and naturally addicting and tasted really good, but was definitely too much after a while.

The waterfall and pool where we swam

The first day, we hiked around the tourist circuit trail, and actually saw some tourists, which was amazing.  It was a really great path, with little signposts and a bunch of different species of lizards.  The heat was fairly dry and intense, but the hike wasn't too strenuous.  I saw my first baobab, which was SO cool, and we saw one that was growing out of an old baobab that had fallen down, so it was like a right angle of baobab.  There are no species of cacti endemic to Madagascar, but plenty has been introduced, and some species are very invasive.  Over 80% of the plants in the park have a use for the people, either medicinal or artisanal.  We saw ebony, three different kinds of aphrodisiac (mostly just legend that those actually work), plants which cure malaria, and others that can straighten hair and you can use in shampoo, and of course several species of aloe.    Our walk/hike took us to an amazingly beautiful natural swimming pool at the foot of some waterfalls.  The water was refreshing and the rocks were hot and the water coming off the waterfall was warmer from coursing over the rocks, so it was the closest thing any of us had to a warm shower in a long time!
The next day, we did our field study in four groups of five students each, mixing the CEL students with Americans, and one guide each.  We surveyed 10 m by 10 m of fairly thick forest/bush, identifying and counting all the plant species in our plot, and trying to get the uses of any plants with the help of the guides.  The language barrier was really hard for this part, because not only had we never done anything like this, but all the people that spoke Malagasy were at least somewhat experienced, so we felt even more like dumb Americans than usual in the beginning.  Luckily things improved as everyone got used to each other, and we ended up identifying 35 different species in our plot, 34 of which were endemic!!  We had some ebony, a tree bark that you can bathe in that tightens sphincter muscles in the body (anti diarrheal, female lemurs rub up against it after birthing to tighten vaginal walls again), and anti-malarial plants.  One of the new professors, who is Malgasy but studied at UMass Amherst, said she did a similar field study in New England, and found only 5 different kinds of trees in an entire forest, and we found 9 in one 100 square meter plot!

Our field study group (Jess, Isaiah, Theo (a CEL girl), me, Sylvan the guide, and Frederique, another CEL student)

In the afternoon, we visited the village just on the edge of the park, and saw some more evidence of the lack of emphasis put on education in the more rural areas.  There was one teacher, one room in one schoolhouse, and 100 children in the village.  They had a church, but also sacred areas where the house of someone who had died used to stand.  You can't throw things in this area (trash, etc) or defecate near them.  The same goes for the Tamarind tree which stands in the village as a gathering place.
That night, after our 8th consecutive meal which included rice, we danced and sang with the Malagasy students, which mostly meant that they sang and we all danced.  It was kind of like being around a campfire dancing and singing but imagine not knowing any of the words, but everyone around you knows what's going on.  When we slept, it got really really cold (meaning 40 degrees fahrenheit), which apparently hadn't happened previously, and the teachers were all sure that this was a sign of climate change, which is pretty scary.
On Sunday, we're going to another national park for a couple days to do lemur ecology, so hopefully my next post will include some pictures of lemurs!