I recently spent a few days in the rainforest in the Moramanga District of eastern Madagascar where our Size of Wales project is based. With the help of Size of Wales we hope to establish a new reserve in Mangabe that will allow people to continue to use the forest while also protecting the best bits for future generations.
I took experts from the University of Kent into the forest in search of the Golden Mantella frog. It was a little late in the season, and in the day, to find these striking amphibians but after a few unsuccessful searches of some forest ponds we eventually found a few Golden Mantellas….as well as some unwanted passengers.
You can watch the video of our day out in the forest here.
Whilst passing through Moramanga town I called into the Madagasikara Voakajy office and was greeted by Lenari – their indri mascot. He does not yet quite have the cult status of Cochyn or Cyril the Swan but it is an attempt to raise peoples’ knowledge and pride about the unqiue lemurs in Madagascarand to address the problem of illegal hunting that I featured in my previous blog.
Back home in Wales, an environmental education day was held at Treborth Botanic Gardens as part of Bangor University Science Week. It is great to hear that the Welsh Mountain Zoo had a stall there getting people involved with Size of Wales and our Madagascar project. The zoo is now home to a troop of lemurs from Madagascar and the zoo staff and members are doing what they can to conserve lemurs in their natural habitat by supporting our project.
The recent partnership between The Welsh Mountain Zoo, Size of Wales and Madagasikara Voakajy is good news for the threatened Mangabe forest. Thank you to all the support coming in from Wales.
To help protect the rainforest where the lemurs and golden mantella frogs live please donate what you can to our project in Madagascar.
Richard Jenkins, from Llanelli now lives and works with his family in Madagascar.
Comments are closed.