- The ongoing expansion of the port of Toamasina in eastern Madagascar is set to destroy 25 hectares (62 acres) of coral reefs.
- Tany Ifandovana, a Malagasy NGO, removed a small portion of these corals before construction began, and transplanted them to a coral island several kilometers away, as a way to ecologically compensate for the losses, at least in part.
- The NGO faces major challenges, including a lack of resources, little support from the port, and locals destroying corals around the island transplant site.
- “As an environmentalist, it hurt my heart to know that these corals were just going to be filled in,” Tany Ifandovana’s vice president told Mongabay. “Something had to be done.”
TOAMASINA, Madagascar — The landscape was primed for adventure during a mid-April visit to L’île aux Prunes, an idyllic islet selected by the NGO Tany Ifandovana for transplanting rescued corals. With its nearly virgin tropical forest and maze of trails, the islet, known locally as Nosy Alanana, has a well-earned reputation as a former hideout where pirates once supposedly hid their loot.
The reef where the corals originated was due to be filled in for the expansion of the port of Toamasina, a city on Madagascar’s east coast. The young NGO is trying its best, with few resources and little support from the port itself, to compensate for at least some of the ecological destruction.
“As an environmentalist, it hurt my heart to know that these corals were just going to be filled in,” Jean Maharavo, marine biologist and vice president of Tany Ifandovana, told Mongabay. “Something had to be done.”
Aerial view of L’île aux Prunes, 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) from Toamasina in eastern Madagascar. Image courtesy of Creocean.
The deep-water port of Toamasina is the largest and most important in Madagascar, handling 90% of the country’s international cargo flows. The expansion adds 25 hectares (62 acres) to the port’s initial 70-hectare (173-acre) footprint, with the ultimate goal of tripling the port’s capacity by 2026.
The port is surrounded by a series of coral reefs: Hastie Reef, Bain des Dames Reef, Grand Reef, Petit Reef, and the reef at L’île aux Prunes. To carry out the expansion work, part of the first two reefs will be filled in.
According to the environmental impact report produced by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), through which Japan is partly financing the Malagasy government’s port expansion work, there are around 15 different species of coral at Hastie Reef. A study by Maharavo, carried out before the infilling, indicates that Bain des Dames Reef is home to 46 species of coral, with coral cover between 60% and 90%. There are near-threatened species among the corals on both reefs, such as Pavona decussata, P. cactus and Acanthastrea brevis.
In an attempt to save these corals and compensate for the impacts of the port expansion,