Page 31 - World Airnews Magazine November 2020

DRONES

MADAGASCAR DRONE

EXPERIMENTS

By Rivonala Razafison

o achieve its ambitious large-scale
Treforestati on goals, Madagascar is
turning to the sky. The country will use drones
to plant trees in isolated areas. The plan is to
drop up to 400,000 tree seeds per day.
In a speech to the senate recently prime
minister Christian Ntsay mentioned the ac-

quisition of 10 drones to augment manual
tree-planting efforts by enabling coverage

of difficult-to-access areas. The purchase

will take place sometime this year.
The country aims to produce an average
of 60 million young seedlings per year,
focusing on native and threatened precious

wood species, such as rosewood and
ebony. It will also consider fast-growing
trees like paulownia and acacia, as well as
bamboo, according to Ntsay. with the more typical methods of plant- seed dispersers such as lemurs and certain

The government will engage citizens in ing saplings by hand and dropping seeds endemic bird species. For millions of years,
growing and manually planting trees at the from planes. The prime minister’s June these species, the majority of which are now

district and municipal level. announcement of the drone acquisition threatened, have helped forests reproduce

Since 2000, Madagascar has lost 23% of signalled this would become reality. without human intervention.

its forests. In total, 3.89 million hectares (9.6 “I sincerely think that it is an excellent and In terms of soil quality, Ratsimbazafy of
million acres) were lost between 2001 and praiseworthy initiative,” said Laza Randriam- GERP said he’s not very optimistic. Accord-

2019, or nearly 205,000 ha (506,000 acres) ifidimanana, an entrepreneur and founder ing to him, in many places Madagascar’s

per year, according to Global Forest Watch. of Threeshells Madagascar, an Antananarivo soil, besieged by fires for years, is poor in

Conservationists fear that if the destruc- firm specializing in cutting-edge technol- the nutritive elements necessary for seed

tion continues at this rate, Madagascan ogies. He said he had experimented with growth. “The success of reforestation is not

forests won’t survive longer than a few using drones for small-scale reforestation, as measured by the numbers planted, but by

more decades. a matter of personal interest. “The advan- the number of living trees,” he added.

“For we conservation professionals, tage of drones is that we have much more Similarly, Lily-Arison René de Roland,

to hear that Madagascar will once again feedback from testing and improvement.” national director of the US-based Peregrine

become a green island is one of the Although the government has not made Fund’s Madagascar project, said follow-
encouraging pieces of news,” said Jonah public the model of drone it will purchase, ing up on plantings was of paramount

Ratsimbazafy, a primatologist and general the ones best known for tree-planting were importance. This includes monitoring and

secretary of the Madagascar Primate Study developed by the UK-based start-up Den- maintaining seedlings and constructing

and Research Group (GERP). dra Systems (formerly known as BioCarbon firebreaks around reforested areas, he said.

In March 2019, President Andry Rajoelina Engineering). This system, used in Myan- Bushfires are a major factor in the destruc-

announced the goal of reforesting 40,000 mar since 2018, launches seed missiles into tion of Madagascar’s forests.

ha (99,000 acres) per year over five years. isolated areas lacking trees. Ratsimbazafy warned against the planting

The programme aims to reconstruct the According to the news site Turfu, these of eucalyptus, which are notoriously wa-
island’s green architecture and restore drones first fly over the target area to map ter-intensive, and pines, which he said can

ecological balance to a country confronted it and collect data on soil conditions and block development of young saplings and

by the challenges of climate change and topography. Analysis of the data informs “condemn” soils. For decades, people have
development. development of the interventions and con- planted these trees across Madagascar for

Last year, the country planted 41,065 ha figuration of the drones for aerial seeding. construction material, firewood and char-

(101,000 acres): 38,609 ha (95,000 acres) In Madagascar, conservation experts coal. They represent an economic asset but

on land and 2,457 ha (6,000 acres) of remain on guard. “The approach requires are colonizing many wooded areas, even
mangroves. rigorous sorting of the seeds according to conservation sites. This is also the case

After having experimented with drones the characteristics of the soil,” said Mamy with grevilleas, planted by aerial seeding in

to help with relief efforts during natural Rakotoarijaona, director-general of Mada- the late 1980s to reverse deforestation and

disasters and to deliver medical supplies in gascar National Parks, a quasigovernmental prevent soil erosion.
remote regions, Madagascar is now turning agency responsible for managing many At the time of this story’s original publi-

to drones for the environment. of the country’s protected areas. “Those cation, the MEDD had not specified which

In January last year, during the official adapted for low-altitude regions will never tree species would be planted by aerial

reforestation campaign launch, the govern- give the yields expected at high altitude.” seeding or where the drones would be

ment announced it was exploring the use Rakotoarijaona said that today mechanical deployed, nor provided details on the mon-

of drones in difficult-to-access areas, along planting techniques are replacing natural itoring of reforestation by drones. Q
World Airnews | November / December 2020
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