The central highlands of Madagascar have faced tremendous deforestation over the past few centuries, largely due to burning for agriculture and livestock. A result of such intense land use has been the manifestation of collapsed hillsides and deep erosional gullies known as lavaka. Lavaka translates to the word “hole” in the Malagasy language. Up until recently, lavaka have been considered a negative socio-economic consequence of deforestation – and for good reason. As they form, huge volumes of soil can dislodge from the hillside and dump down on fields below, destroying generations of labor in a matter of days. 

But I had heard something different about lavaka. While sitting in an undergraduate geography course at McGill University, our professor said that farmers in Madagascar might actually be using lavaka to *improve* food security. Surprised by this seemingly impossible plot twist, I decided to apply for a research grant to learn more. 

I received my grant and left for Madagascar in October, 2013. I spent the next 3 months riding dirt bikes around the central highlands with my local field collaborator, Ando. We spoke to farmers who had lavaka on their property and asked questions about how they were living with them. Along the way, we discovered a fascinating agricultural adaptation that was catching on across the highlands. 

Farmers told us that over time, lavaka can turn into fertile pockets on the landscape where nutrient-rich topsoil, water, seeds and other forest products get trapped as they tumble down during rainstorms. Recognizing the high concentration of trees and organic matter that started growing inside the lavaka, farmers began to plant their own crops inside the lavaka, too. The result? A novel, emergent form of agro-forestry that challenges conventional ecological wisdom, and pushes us to adopt more nuanced perspectives around degraded, shifting landscapes.

Mature lavaka with terrace agriculture

This is a much older lavaka, probably 100+ years. The farmer who manages it has implemented terrace agriculture all the way up its inner façade. He is growing at least 12 different kinds of crops on these layered fields, and even has a small pond near the top where he is raising fish. The age, slope and elevation of this lavaka are unique - not all lavaka can be turned into such a complex agricultural system as this.

Blog posts from my time in Madagascar, written for National Geographic’s Voices from the Field:

“Scarred” Hillsides in Madagascar May Actually be Agricultural Gold Mines

OCTOBER 17, 2013

My guess is that most people will look at the above photo and have a hard time identifying anything positive about it. It is clearly a deforested landscape, pockmarked with erosional features that in many ways resemble tragic scars, metaphorically as much as physically. Referred to by locals as “lavaka”, literally translating to “hole”, these massive erosional gullies now make up just as much of the central highland landscape of Madagascar as its rolling hills and beautifully maintained rice fields. Read full article for National Geographic's Explorers Journal

Madagascar’s First Elections Since 2009 Coup Revive Democracy

OCTOBER 31, 2013

This past week, Madagascar held its first presidential elections since the 2009 military coup that overthrew the government. Despite having 33 candidates in the running and much concern about how it would all play out, the process was remarkably calm from where I stood in a small village schoolhouse. Read full article for National Geographic's Explorers Journal

Reforesting Madagascar’s Highlands: A (Poetic) Lesson From Nature

DECEMBER 7, 2013

For decades, Madagascar has been the recipient of millions of aid dollars and countless multi-national projects that aim to reduce the wide scale deforestation across the island. But, as I've begun to witness, there might be an important natural process happening quietly alongside the re-seeding madness. Spoiler: it's free!  Read full article for National Geographic's Explorers Journal

Journey Behind The Lens: Dodging Madagascar’s Plague Outbreak

DECEMBER 16, 2013

Despite its ghastly reputation (and understandably so, for it killed off 1/3 of Europe's population during the Middle Ages), the bubonic plague today isn't as deadly as it once used to be - thanks to the arrival of penicillin and other modern antibiotics. Although the bubonic plague now only exists in very few and isolated pockets of the world, Madagascar is the country in which the highest number of annual plague-related deaths are reported each year. The hot spots tend to be in remote villages and prisons. Read full article for National Geographic's Explorers Journal

A Christmas of the Coastal Kind

DECEMBER 28, 2013

It was 7:04am Christmas morning when I looked at my watch. Not that time mattered while I sat in a dugout pirogue with two local fishermen off the western coast of Madagascar fishing with a line and hook, but it was Christmas day after all, and I wanted to mentally note this particularly unique setting in which I currently found myself. Read full article for National Geographic's Explorers Journal

Severe Erosion Reveals Earth’s Treasures

JANUARY 10, 2014

When I began my fieldwork on lavaka back in October, my first blog post was titled, “Scarred Hillsides in Madagascar May Actually Be Agricultural Gold Mines”. While my fieldwork has proved this to be true in many cases over the last three months of my research, what I didn’t know was that lavaka can, in some instances, be literal gold (and other precious and semi-precious stone) mines. Read full article for National Geographic's Explorers Journal

Behind the Scenes: The Good, the Bad, and the Unforgettable

JANUARY 28, 2014

Behind every adventure…is an adventure. Or at least that was the central lesson of my field research over the last four months in Madagascar. While I consider adventure inherent to fieldwork to begin with, I often found the details behind each excursion just as (or sometimes more) entertaining and colorful as what I was setting out to accomplish in the first place. A few of the more memorable moments… Read full article for National Geographic's Explorers Journal