The countryside of Ile Saint-Marie

Ile Saint-Marie's countryside is quite similar to the rest of Madagascar; most of - actually no pretty much all - of its native forests are gone, and are now replaced by introduced trees. Interestingly the eucalypt and pine plantations of the 'mainland' are nowhere to be seen. Instead, three other trees dominate the hillsides:

1. the symbolic Ravinala, the travellers' palm, which seems to grow incredibly quickly after the forest has been decimated.

2. a silver-green feathery tree that looks very much like a silky oak or grevillea, apparently with white flowers - its everywhere, and I don't know if it was planted for firewood, but it sure has taken over the joint.

3. Again, interestingly, another Australian import: the paperbark. This tree is grown for its medicinal properties, and I was very surpirsed to recognise it here.

I'm finding it increasingly distrubing that so many foreign species have been introduced here, at the expense of replanting native forest. In many places on the mainland there have been no attempts to reforest at all, the bare hillsides glaring down at you as you chug along in your taxi brousse. The zebu may like it, but I rarely saw any of them up there. I just don't understand it. The results are spectacularly destructive in other ways ... oh the landslides! The gully erosion! It's like the earth has opened up raw wounds as a cry for help. It really makes me feel sad.

But here on our sheltered little piece of paradise its easy to leave all that behind.