Tsitongambarika (TGK)

Tsitongambarika lies in the Anosy region of south-eastern Madagascar, about 9 km north of Fort-Dauphin (Tolagnaro). The massif is made up of a series of ridges running south-west to north-east, with the Manampanihy river flowing north along its western edge; Mount Ivohibe, at 677 m, is one of its high points.

The forest was first protected as two classified forests, Tsitongambarika I (19,530 ha, 1965) and Tsitongambarika II (29,400 ha, 1970). BirdLife International listed it as an Important Bird Area in 2001, and Decree No. 2015-720 of 21 April 2015 created the present 58,597 ha Natural Resources Reserve. Asity Madagascar, the BirdLife partner, has co-managed the site with local communities since 2005.

The forest is the main watershed of the region. It protects the catchments of the Manampanihy and Efaho rivers, feeds irrigation downstream and supplies the municipal water of Fort-Dauphin. Neighbouring communities also depend on it for firewood, charcoal, building materials, bushmeat and medicinal plants.

Habitat

Lowland humid evergreen forest and sclerophyllous montane forest, mostly below 800 m. Unusually for south-eastern Madagascar, large areas lie below 400 m. At low elevations the canopy reaches 15–25 m, with Dracaena, Ilex, Oncostemum, Sorindeia, Syzygium and Tambourissa; at mid-elevations it is 12–20 m, with Macaranga, Oncostemum and members of the Guttiferae, Monimiaceae, Moraceae and Myrtaceae.

Key species

Birds: brown mesite (Mesitornis unicolor, Vulnerable), Madagascar blue-pigeon, Madagascar wood-rail, nelicourvi weaver, nuthatch vanga, red-fronted coua, scaly ground-roller, spectacled tetraka and white-throated oxylabes.
Plants: twenty palm species recorded on Mount Ivohibe in 2010, sixteen of them rare or threatened, making it a site of major palm significance; botanical surveys in the 2000s found at least seventy species new to science.
Other fauna: rare and often endemic lemurs, reptiles and amphibians. The Anosy mountains hold one of the two highest concentrations of globally threatened amphibians in Madagascar.

Main threats

Shifting slash-and-burn cultivation (tavy), illegal logging and timber extraction, and poorly controlled fires set to clear land for cattle pasture. Hunting and the collection of non-timber forest products are still at low levels but have begun to deplete some resources locally. Deforestation rates around the forest are among the highest in the country, and BirdLife International classes it as an 'IBA in Danger'.

Fire season

Most fires come from outside the forest: pasture-clearing burns and tavy fields that escape control and spread into the forest edge. Fire risk is therefore highest along the agricultural frontier around the reserve rather than in the closed-canopy interior.