{"id":9485,"date":"2024-10-25T12:49:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T10:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.madamagazine.com\/?p=9485"},"modified":"2025-02-08T17:35:01","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T16:35:01","slug":"reservat-berenty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madamagazine.com\/en\/reservat-berenty\/","title":{"rendered":"Berenty Reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Berenty:<\/h3>\n

The name of the reserve means \u2018many eels\u2019, alluding to the once abundant fishing grounds of the Mandrare River. Berenty is one of the most visited protected areas in Madagascar.<\/p>\n

Location:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Berenty reserve is located 82 kilometres west of the coastal town of Tolagnaro (French: Fort Dauphin) in the far south of Madagascar. From Tolagnaro, Berenty can be reached in two to three hours by off-road vehicle via the RN13. In Amboasary Sud, about 10 kilometres from Berenty, the road turns off onto a side road. It takes three days to get to Tolagnaro by car from the capital Antananarivo, but the last few hundred kilometres are practically off-road and, depending on the time of year, difficult to predict. Domestic flights directly from Antananarivo to Tolagnaro are more practical and save time. Taxibrousse are not recommended, especially in the south of Madagascar.<\/p>\n

Information about the protected area:<\/h3>\n

The Berenty Reserve has a relatively small area of only 2 km\u00b2, which includes spiny forest, gallery forest and savannahs. The entire reserve is surrounded by sisal plantations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Berenty’s tree nursery: native plants are grown here<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the Second World War, Marthe de Heaulme worked as Sister Gabrielle in a small social centre of the Sisters of Mercy order in Amboasary Sud. Her brother Henry de Heaulme<\/a> also emigrated from La R\u00e9union to Madagascar and acquired a plantation near Toamasina on the east coast. Several years later, in 1936 to be precise, Henry de Heaulme and his brother Alain acquired a 10 km\u00b2 concession near the Mandrare River from the French<\/a> occupying<\/a> power<\/a> in Madagascar. Some of the land was soon cleared for sisal plantations, but the largest contiguous forest area was left untouched. This later became today’s Berenty Reserve. Henry de Heaulme lived on site for many years with his wife Marcelle Bellier de Villentroy.<\/p>\n

In 1963, the American primatologist Alison Jolly<\/a> was the first to discover the Berenty reserve, which was not yet open to travellers at the time, for scientific studies. She researched the reserve’s ring-tailed lemurs<\/a> and, with a large number of publications, ensured that Berenty is still a popular object of study today and that ring-tailed lemurs are among Madagascar’s best-researched lemurs<\/a>. However, it was not until the 1980s that Berenty was opened to private travellers – and promptly became a magnet for visitors. The anthropologists Georges Heurtebize and Sara Fee finally founded a small museum about the Antandroy tribe<\/a> living in the area. Today, Berenty is privately owned by Didier Foulon and Claire de Heaulme-Foulon.<\/p>\n