Berenty Reserve: A Research Site in Southern Madagascar

Abstract

The forest reserves of Berenty Estate were established by the de Heaulme family in consultation with local Tandroy clans, beginning in 1936 when the de Heaulmes founded a sisal plantation beside the Mandrare River (Jolly, 2004). Some 5000 ha of spiny forest were felled, but 1000 ha remain as original forest reserves. The reserves comprise several different parcels, including a spiny forest parcel called Rapily and two large areas of gallery forest, Bealoka (100 ha) and the main Berenty Reserve (200 ha). These two gallery forest reserves were natural “islands” of extremely rich habitat formed by ancient oxbow lakes or an entire river arm. The forests are dominated by Tamarindus indica, the tamarind tree (Figures 3.1 and 3.2). Berenty has the semiarid climate of Madagascar’s southern domain. Only along rivers with their high water tables can tamarind forest survive; elsewhere, there is the surreal succulent vegetation of Madagascar’s spiny forest. (Figure 3.3). Originally, the gallery forest was divided from the spiny forest by the steep banks of the old riverbed, easily traversed by lemurs, but with sharply different vegetation at top and bottom of the bank. Now the reserves are almost wholly isolated by sisal fields. The “islands” of gallery forest might seem too small to matter for conservation, but two overflights of the Mandrare Valley in 2004 showed that they are the only gallery forests remaining below the headwaters, except for two much smaller sacred forests near Ifotaka and a tract of tamarinds across the Mandrare River from Berenty that has little undergrowth and sparse canopy (Jolly, pers. obs.). Elsewhere there are isolated tamarind trees but no actual blocks of this forest type. Southern gallery forests are clearly one of the most threatened forest types of Madagascar (see Sussman et al., this volume).