By evaluating the health and number of Pandanus guillaumetti plants in the forests surrounding villages in
Madagascar, researchers studied the harvesting practices of village women and
how sustainable their harvesting is. The common name of this culturally
important plant is “Tsiriky”. Women weave the leaves of the plants together to
make mats, which are used to dry foods like cloves and rice. While women use
mats in their own homes, they are often sold as a means to generate income.
Tsiriky is a diecious plant and grows from 6-9 meters tall and 10-15 cm in
diameter at the stem. The youngest plants have the biggest leaves, but only
adults produce flowers and fruit. Therefore, one might suspect that the women
who harvest these plants would do so unsustainably. In order to investigate the
result of harvesting practices near villages in Madagascar, researchers
travelled to the areas and measured the density of juvenile plants and
branching adults per plot (stem/hectare) and how this information relates to
the distance from the village. Because terrain surrounding the village is
variable in ease of travel, they measured distance using minutes to walk to the
plot because some land is close to the village but still time consuming to get
to.
The
culture of the women who harvest these plants and make mats plays an important role
in discovering what is going on with the sustainability of the process. In the
Betsimisarakes ethnicity, women teach their daughters how to make the mats when
the girls reach the age of eleven or twelve. Some women walk up to eight hours
to sell drying mats, while some sell to traders who come directly into their
villages to purchase mats. In the average home, these spice drying mats usually
last about one year. Traditionally, sustainability is an important part of the
Betsimisarakes culture, but as these mats become more popular around the world
and demand increases, the women are often told that it is acceptable to ignore
this tradition in order to make more money. While collecting leaves, the women
often stay within their home village and territory in order to avoid conflict
with people in other regions. They do not harvest the apical leaves of the
plants in order to let them continue growth. From each tree, a woman only takes
two to nine leaves. While harvesting tsiriky is often a woman’s work, men are
brought along on rare trips to farther plots for protection and to carry the
heavy load a long distance back to the village.
The
findings of the study were actually quite surprising because it was discovered
that distance from the village did not have a significant impact on number or
health of plants except for those very close to the village where the number of
plants per hectare was fewer. This discovery is interesting because there are
several reasons that this may have occurred. Perhaps this proves that a culture
in which small villages are set up between large forests is beneficial because
there is plenty of room for people to roam and gather resources instead of
having to ship resources from rural places to more urban locations to be
produced or consumed. On the other hand, this conclusion may indicate that an
appreciation for sustainability rather than mass production results in better
relations between humans and the environment. Whatever the reason for this
environmentally friendly harvesting practice, the rest of the world could
greatly benefit from ideals like those of the women who harvest tsiriky in
Madagascar.
