The challenge

The Makira National Park and Masoala National Park landscape is one of Madagascar’s last remaining great rainforest wildernesses. An estimated 20% of all Madagascar’s famously rich endemic biodiversity is found there: it holds the highest lemur species diversity of any protected area and many of the known amphibian and reptile endemics. The surrounding region is also known for its high quality vanilla and cloves.

For the farmers who live at the parks’ periphery, these forests provide important ecosystem services – offering a source of irrigation and maintaining soil fertility – as well as providing forest products for daily household use. However, these same forests are at risk of conversion to agricultural land, with about 1,500 hectares lost per year. As depleting forest drives corresponding losses in farm yields, the cycle of degradation continues.

The project

Lead partner the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), with the support of Partnerships for Forests, is developing a social enterprise in Maroantsetra, in northern Madagascar’s Analanjirofo Region, to provide farmers with access to international markets and fair prices for forest-friendly commodities including vanilla, cloves, and cocoa. By ensuring traceability, quality control, and training for farmers, the project aims to conserve biodiversity and protect important forests in the Makira-Masoala landscape.

The new social enterprise will build on the successes of an existing cocoa agroforestry pilot implemented by WCS, which has supported around 400 farmers to improve farming techniques and diversify their crops. To expand impact, this next phase will aim to connect these cocoa farmers and others in the region to global markets, where they can secure better prices for their produce. Filling a current gap, the project will forge partnerships with global offtakers to create the first community-based export enterprise in the region – first with cocoa, and then expanding into other value chains like vanilla and cloves.

Through its commercialization, the business is hoped to become an influential force in the landscape, helping to make farming systems more sustainable and profitable so that farmers can become protectors of their forests.

Expected impact

Economic and social value: Through sustainable agroforestry, the pilot will support more than 1000 farmers to access new markets and premium prices for forest-friendly commodities, aiming to increase incomes by up to 241%. Aiming to be at a commercial scale by 2024, the enterprise aims to export 100MT of cocoa and develop other premium commodity value chains.

Current Impact

Environmental value: The project will directly regenerate 30,000 hectares of farmland within the Makira National Park buffer zone, sequestering around 200,000 tons of CO2 equivalent, and bringing more than100,000 hectares under sustainable management.

P4F support

Partnerships for Forests will be providing technical assistance and funding towards three main areas: supporting and testing the business plan, setting up the new commercial enterprise, and supporting in running the enterprise.

Future potential

This initiative is an opportunity to protect one of the most valuable landscapes in the tropical belt by leveraging support from private sector players for nature-based solutions to the climate crisis. Beginning with the cocoa value chain, it can open international trade in other forest-friendly commodities including vanilla and cloves in the future.

While WCS’s field team is based in the southeastern edge of the broader Makira – Masoala – Antongil Bay (MaMaBay) landscape and currently manages the Makira Natural Park (stretching across circa 600,000 hectares), the broader landscape and seascape includes circa 1.8m hectares and is rich in forest-friendly products (including, potentially, vanilla and coffee). WCS is currently working with UNESCO to declare the landscape as a Biosphere Reserve, which could build upon the conservation enterprise model which P4F has supported. 

There is also scope for scaling beyond the Makira-Masoala landscape through the WCS Madagascar Program. This aims to ensure the long-term conservation of the country’s unique biological diversity, with a focus on activities in priority landscapes and seascapes.

Additionally, the community-based social enterprise could provide a solid proof of concept that can be replicated further both across Madagascar and beyond. This could work particularly in landscapes that have been zoned as special production areas, whereby the production of specific commodities is incentivised and/or partially subsidized.