Return to Ankarana (North of Madagascar, DIANA Region), managed by Madagascar National Parks, for a follow-up of the activities carried out within the framework of the Special Intervention Fund in September 2022. With funding from FAPBM, a mission of mixed special brigades was dispatched there to put an end to the exploitation of an illegal sapphire quarry and to the illegal logging in the vicinity of the hard core.
If underground sapphire quarries threaten the Ankarana caves, deforestation threatens ecosystem services. However, the Ankarana massif is an essential site in the ecotourism of DIANA region.
When a mixed brigade mission sparkles of a crisis
Mobilized in case of exceptional pressures, the Mixed Special Brigade missions under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development bring together members of the Joint Control Organ (OMC), gendarmes,law enforcement officers, judicial police officers, concerned ministerial departments, park agents, local authorities andrepresentatives of local park committees (CLP). Generally, the missions of the Mixed Special Brigade are dedicated to continuously securing a pressure perimeter. Thus, the agents are required to walk at least 3 hours per day and campin the park.
Adjmal Mantsoor, a Madagascar National Parks ranger since September 2021, tells us about his first mission as a Special Mixed Brigade. “The objective of the mission was to apprehend illegal sapphire miners. On November 14, 2022, we decided to take them by surprise. We arrived at dawn. We arrested 14 people and seized a generator that was being used for drilling. We concluded the mission with an inventory of the seized goods. The case of the 14 people arrest is quite exceptional since usually information leaks on the planning and routes of the missions and the offenders manage to leave the scene before the arrival of the patrols.”
The arrest of these 14 people led the surrounding populations of Ambodrofeno to set up a roadblock on RN6 main road on the same day. Park agents were threatened. The authorities subsequently suspended all military incursions into the protected area to ease tensions. The Special Mixed Brigade mission had to be stopped after 5 days.
A regional task force for sustainable solutions
In the face of public protests, a mission to set the 14 prisoners free was conducted in the village of Ambodrofeno after one week. The military authorities took the opportunity to remind people of the park limits (buffer zone and hard core) and to raise awareness of the prohibitions on hard core areas. A few days later, OMC members sought the support ofthe Minister of Livestock and Agriculture who was on a mission in the region. He reiterated the rules concerning theformal prohibition of exploitation in the hard core and the park boundaries. He encouraged the communities to give up the exploitation and to turn towards agriculture, by offering seeds.
An extraordinary meeting of the extended OMC with the Park Governorate decided to take the matter up to theregional level. A regional task force, operational in the first quarter of 2023, will have the difficult task of reflecting onsustainable solutions to the illegal sapphire mining in the protected area, and on the best way to allocate the availablemeans.
“While waiting for sustainable solutions, we continue patrols in the park, avoiding the sapphire quarries, to preserve the safety of the agents. On the other hand, we keep on monitoring the areas of illegal logging. We were able to intercept 40 trees felled recently,” concluded Amidou Djaovita, director of Ankarana Park.
