Madagascar.

The Tsingy de Bemaraha.

The Tsingy de Bemaraha was first made a strict nature reserve in 1927 by the French and this law was upheld by the young Malagasy government in 1966 when they decreed that all 152,000 hectares of the Bemaraha plateax should remain within the strict nature reserve area aready set up. Roland Albignac, a local UNESCO coordinator began the nomination process in 1987 of adding the Tsingy to the list of World Heritage Sites and was sucessful in doing so in 1990 when the Tsingy became Madagascar's first classified site. A budget granted by the German government meant that UNESCO'S Man and Biosphere program could put in place a more effective conservation team which worked towards preserving the Tsingy itself and ensuring that surrounding areas were assisted in reaching sustainable economic development without exploiting the reserve in the process. However the Malagasy director of this project realised that the only real way of preserving this incredible site was to open it up to ecotourism. Ecotourism would help to provide a budget for the running of the reserve instead of the Malagasy having to rely on grant aid each year. However there was a problem here because the Strict Nature Reserve designation does not allow for ecotourism but after a four year battle the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park was created in 1994 thus allocating some 72,500 hectares of the original World heritage site to tourists and ecotourism. This national Park came under the auspices of Madagascar's National Association for the Management of Protected Areas (ANGAP) and the EU became the financial backer for ten years up till 2007.

So what is it about the Tsingy that makes it so important to so many people? Well it is a unique ecosystem on a unique island for starters. The strange limestone rock formations present are the result of very specific physical and chemical conditions and combined with surface and subterranean erosion they all lead to what is an "other world" experience for the visitor. You really do feel out of place in the Tsingy, like an alien on a new planet. Movement is extremely difficult and downright dangerous in many areas. There are plants, insects, reptiles and mammals which have adapted themselves to life in the Tsingy. Some of the plants are succulent, like cacti, to enable them to survive the long periods of drought at the summit of the Tsingy. There are Kalanchoes and Pachypodiums and Commiphoras growing in the highest most inaccessible places and deep in the canyons. Those living deep in the canyons have the benefit of more water collecting at lower levels but the lack of light means they have to stretch upwards towards the sky leading to elongated stems and branches which only help to lend to the weirdness of the place. Less well known about the Tsingy is the vast cave network beneath it. This network of underground caves,streams and rivers is part of the reason for the Tsingy in the first place. While the top layer was being eroded by rain, wind, sun etc. the underground layer was protected by a middle layer of harder rock and thus was eroded in a different fashion. Water trapped within this lower layer slowly made its way through abundant limestone fissures and over time enlarged these fissures into cracks and then into galleries. As all this was going on the erosion from both the top layer and the lower underground layers gradually worked away at the hard middle layer which eventually collapsed forming the deep canyons we know today.

It is also possible that the Tsingy may have some of the highest recorded temperatures on Earth. One reference lists temperatures of over 60 C but does not give the details as to what method was used to record this. As we have already been to Al Aziziyah in Libya in 2006, which holds the record for one of the highest temperatures ever recorded, and now we have been to the Tsingy, it appears that without having any intention of doing so we may have inadvertently visited two of the hottest places on the planet!

Please click on the photos link opposite left to see our images of the Tsingy de Bemaraha.