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100 young African leaders research - Forward Malagasy Youth

The African Wildlife Foundation, in collaboration with the African YMCA Alliance, the World Scout Movement and the WWF Consortium, seeks to recognize and encourage 100 young African conservation leaders (YACLs) whose work promises to leave a lasting impression on the African conservation landscape.

In 2020, the consortium invited youth networks and conservation organizations to nominate young people under the age of 35 who have been actively involved in community, national or international conservation activities in Africa over the past three years.
 
Meeting with the 8 young Malagasy on this list:
 
VATOSOA RAKOTONDRAZAFY ANDRIAMAMPANDRY
I am an ambassador for traditional fishermen in Madagascar and a specialist in partner engagement and mobilization.
On January 28, 2021, I coordinated the launch of Alamino, Agora of landscapes and forests of Madagascar. It is a national initiative that aims to bring together the diversity of actors in Madagascar to bring out a strong common vision and succeed in regreening the country by 2030. For this year, Alamino is working on four themes: the fight against fires, reforestation, land tenure and territorial planning and education / awareness.
In May 2021 I was nominated as one of 6 International Ambassadors for the Mangrove Photography Award, an event that aims to illustrate the importance and diversity of life in our coastal forests, to engage the public in mangrove issues and stories, and to inspire people to take conservation action.
 
 
SAROBIDY RAKOTONARIVO
I am an environmental socio-economist at ESSA Forestry, University of Antananarivo. My research in the Forest4Climate&People project focuses on the social dimensions of conservation and restoration initiatives such as social impacts, benefit redistribution, and land tenure aspects.
I primarily interact with local communities surrounding protected areas to understand their decision-making and land use processes using experimental methods and semi-structured interview techniques. In particular, I seek to understand the political, socio-economic, and institutional factors that would promote more effective and equitable conservation and restoration policy.
My research highlights the complex conservation challenges facing many African countries, including Madagascar. I try to translate these findings into more accessible and useful tools for policy makers and to help conservation professionals become more confident and capable of understanding and addressing the social challenges of conservation.
 
RAHARIMAMONJIARIVELO FARAHERIJAONA
I have experiences and degree in tourism and environment. Also, I am a star in agronomy and I am a Conservationist, which is my daily life, my inspiration, my passion. I am also a youth leader-educator of the ICE Youth Volunteer Network and the ECCA Educational Club for 5 years.
As a leader-educator of ECI and ECCA, which is an association of young volunteers in Antananarivo Madagascar, working in different fields such as social work, education, leadership, rural development and environment. In the 3 years we have been involved in conservation, we have been focusing more on education and awareness raising, impacting these goals for our hundreds of children and youth members, but also for our community. We organize trainings, do recycling, networking with other environmental associations and in particular reforestation.
 
TIANA ANDRIAMANANA
I am the mother of two miracles and the partner of a great leader. I was lucky enough to be born and raised by the oceans of Madagascar. Thus, working with nature was an obvious choice when I joined Fanamby.
Fanamby is convinced that biodiversity conservation can only be done in a holistic way in Madagascar. With a team of 96 people present 24/7 in each protected area, we address conservation issues by building traceable and resilient value chains within harmonious protected areas to ensure sustainable financing mechanisms for remote village development while promoting responsible and local stewardship in the management of these protected areas. We establish a long-term partnership between corporate partners and local farmers involved in various sectors to build fairer economies.
Currently, 500 local communities are working with us on ecological monitoring and over 7,000 local farmers are benefiting from value-added markets through social enterprises.
 
MAX FONTAINE
I am 25 years old and the founder of Bôndy, a social enterprise that works in impact reforestation in Madagascar. My interest in conservation comes from the fact that the environment and climate change have a direct effect on humans. Moreover, Madagascar is one of the most vulnerable countries to the consequences of climate change and it is unbearable to see our country sinking in this catastrophic spiral.
Bôndy plants trees on farmers' plots in order to improve the living conditions of rural populations. We develop agroforestry plots that allow farmers to meet their needs in terms of food, energy and especially economic. We have planted more than 85,000 trees on 114 partner farms. In addition to the impact reforestation actions, we have allowed 1,850 volunteers to come and plant trees with us. This shows that Malagasy youth are willing to get involved in nature conservation!
So far, we have carried out our projects in the Analamanga region (the capital) but for the next planting season, we will have projects in 4 different regions of the island.
 
RIO HERINIAINA
I am a primatologist by training and project coordinator for the NGO Guides d'Andasibe, Madagascar. Through my research on lemurs in different sites in Madagascar for 10 years, I have concluded that the involvement of the local community is one of the sustainable solutions to conserve Madagascar's biological diversity. As the grandson of a forest ranger, I have been accustomed to living in nature since my childhood. 
During the last two years, with the involvement of the local community, we managed to inventory the Mahatsara forest (612Ha).  From a faunistic point of view, 7 species of lemurs, two of which are critically endangered, were observed during the monitoring of permanent transects installed in the forest.  Through local village patrols and awareness sessions, zero fires were recorded in 2020.  In addition, 18 ha of degraded areas are restored with 79 native species through community-based restoration.  These activities are part of the safeguarding of the forest fragmentation of Mahatsara, home to many endemic species of Madagascar.
 
 
TOJO RAMINOHARIJAONA
I am the founder of Media Click, the web agency that developed the Fako.io application, which is the first geolocation application for garbage cans, public toilets and cleanliness infrastructures in Madagascar.
The application was born from a personal experience, driven by a desire to keep our city clean. One year ago we launched the application in beta version after 6 months of development. The Fako.io app is currently available on Android and iOS. Since the launch, we have had a lot of feedback, constructive criticism and encouragement, which has motivated us even more to launch a new, more comprehensive version with new features. This new version is under development and we are working hard every day to launch it as soon as possible. Our objective is really to develop an educational platform in the conservation of cleanliness in all its states, while providing information and data on the infrastructure of cleanliness existing or to be realized (garbage cans, public toilets, recycling center, etc. ...)
 
ANDRIAMALALA NANTENAINA TAHIRY
I have a degree in Environment and Earth Sciences and have been passionate about conservation and environmental protection since I was a child. I currently hold the position of National Coordinator of the national Health Population Environment (SPE) network (or Madagascar Population Health Environment Network.
Being the lead of a national network since 2015, the work consists of bringing all the partners/organizations together at the national level, but also at the regional level, to promote a holistic approach to conservation that takes into account both the well-being and health of the local population with the protection of the environment.
The objective is to encourage conservation implementing partners to move away from sectoral action to an integrated/holistic approach to achieve more concrete results and added value at the community level and at their intervention sites.
By participating in the network's activities, conservation and health organizations identify opportunities for partnerships and the exchange of best practices to improve their scope of action and ensure a better impact on conservation but also on the well-being of the local population.