Biodiversity protection using badges and yam plantations

Supporting community livelihoods and protecting biodiversity on the Montagne des Francais Protected area via tuber-based agriculture and wild yam collector registration.

Yams D. maciba on a table

The project was started on September 2022 and will finished on August 2024. The project sets out to implement and further test community collector registration as a means to reduce illegal or uncontrolled wild yam collecting in the Montagne des Francais following a successful small-scale pilot and two Darwin Initiative projects in the area.

Training and implementation will be supported by promoting tuber crop cultivation with communities to improve their food intake and livelihoods.

We will seek to discover if there are advantages to a multi-tuber crop system over yams alone in terms of production and resilience in Diana region where rainfall has become more unreliable.

The project will enable 12 communities and over 2500 people to take part in community conservation in and around a protected area raising their awareness of the value of biodiversity and its protection.

It will simultaneously improve their food security, incomes and resilience to climate change. It will also generate evidence to drive development and policy in Madagascar.

Paul Wilkin (RBG Kew Priority Leader, Ecosystem Stewardship)
Mamy Tiana Rajaonah (PI of the project, KMCC Livelihoods team Leader)
Avizara hermann Mikel Adakalo (KMCC Field Technician)
Fenonirina Rakotoarisoa (KMCC Itremo Protected Area manager)

SAGE Diego (NGO managing the Montagne des Francais Protected area)
DREDD Diana (Regional direction of the environment ministry)
Local authorities in Diego (District, Commune, fokontany)
Local communities
Local yam's cooperative in Diego

  • Twelve contiguous communities and over 2500 people of the Montagne des Francais PA will be enabled to reduce wild yam extraction in four threatened species
  • The wild population management work package will be submitted for publication in Madagascar Conservation and Development as a minimum
  • The same group of communities and their members will see increased incomes and food availability of 10% over two years and an immediate boost via provision of planting materials.
  • Data and evidence arising from the project will impact regional and national policy to increase resilience to climate change in community agriculture

The Guardian & Observer Charity Appeal Project Fund