Winning ideas from Madagascar
A project to conserve Madagascar's tapia trees and revive its wild silkworms has won US$110,000 ( 100,000) in the World Bank's 2005 Development Marketplace Competition. Tapia trees (Uapaca bojeri), prized for their edible fruit, are home to the wild Malagasy silkworm. But in recent years, the species has almost been wiped out as farmers felled huge numbers of these trees to grow food crops and provide grazing, and communities over-exploited the silkworms to make fabric. Ny Tanintsika ( our land ), a Malagasy NGO working in land management and community development issues, is using the cash to replant 1,000 ha of tapia forest in the Amoron'i Mania region of southeastern Madagascar. Local communities are also learning to breed wild silkworms and market the silk. Over 14,000 villagers and 150 silk weavers are participating in the programme, and predictions are that their incomes will rise by up to 40%. Another Malagasy NGO, Bush Proof, has won $150,000 ( 125,000) in the World Bank contest to provide clean water to rural and coastal areas. The low-cost technology, known as well jetting, uses a high-velocity stream of fluid to cut a hole in the ground. A hand pump is used to draw water out of the well. The Bush Proof project expects to provide drinking water to more than 15,000 villagers, with the potential of scaling it up to reach 1 million people. At present, only 14% of the island s population in rural areas has access to drinking water.
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| Format: | News Item biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
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Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
2006
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/48069 https://hdl.handle.net/10568/99629 |
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