Madagascar - Former industrial site of Mantasoa

House of the French engineer Jean Laborde
South Tomb of the French engineer Jean Laborde 
Blast furnace Longitude
South Cementing oven
South Bassin Queen RANAVALONA I (1828 - 1861)

The "Old Industrial Site of Mantasoa" is a historical, cultural and tourist site integrated in the local and regional development, constituted by a set of monuments in stones, in wood which compose the industrialized industrial city built by Jean Laborde (1800 -1878), a Frenchman in the service of Queen Ranavalona I (1828-1861). The site "Soatsimanampiovana" meaning the immutable beauty, is the name given by Jean Laborde to this working class city. The latter was the first of Madagascar producing iron, cast iron, powder and various items, glass, soap and terracotta pots ... The site is composed of several buildings in stone, brick and wood.

Madagascar - Catholic Church of Ambodifotatra

The Catholic Church of Ambodifotatra is the coronation of Father Pierre Dalmond's ten years of evangelization missions (1837 to 1847) in Madagascar, mainly to Saint Mary, Nosy-Be, Tulear and the Comoros, Mayotte. It is the first permanent Catholic church built in Madagascar, a historical monument located on St. Mary's Island off the east coast of the Analanjirofo Region. Dominating the bay and facing the Ilot Madame, it is built on a hill and is 35 meters long, 10 meters wide and 12 meters high. It has a pointed belfry below which is the sacristy with three windows and a door. It is a building made of freestone, granite rubble using as binder laterite mixed with gravel and sand. Later, the stone walls were reinforced and kept fixed by a heavy iron frame. The building has a main door to the north and six arched and glazed windows on each side of the two lengths. Inside, the vault of the nave is supported by marine wooden frameworks. The altar is made of cast iron plates cast in the arsenals of the French navy and presents rosette motifs separating bas-reliefs from saints in medallion frames surmounted by crosses. At the back, a 19-step staircase leads to the balustraded platform above the main door. The church has retained its original use and function, a place of worship for Catholics.

Madagascar - Nosy Lonjo d’Antsiranana

The site of Nosy Lonjo is a mixed site. It is located in the far north of Madagascar in Diégo-Suarez Bay, Ramena Commune, Antsiranana District. Nosy Lonjo is an island of volcanic origin, conical in shape of 122 meters high and an area of ​​4.5 hectares. It consists of nummulitic limestone beds detached from the mountain called Montagne des Français. The islet is covered with a vegetation composed of baobabs typical Adansoniasuarezensis and mangroves. It is populated by a diverse fauna including bat bats "fanihy" (Eidolondupreanum, Pteropusrufus). This islet has a particular aspect to the view. From a distance, it gives the image of a four-legged animal sitting; When viewed from close up, the summit of the site seems to present the head of a sleeping man. Nosy Lonjo is a picturesque natural site, preserved by its cultural vocation. Like all islets off the northwest coast of Grande Terre (Madagascar), it serves as the burial place of the late Sakalava sovereigns, so sacred. It is also a place of worship to the ancestors by the traditional ceremonies "Fijoroana" still practiced by the populations.

Madagascar - NOSYnakà (Sahamalaza, Nosy Hara, Nosy Tanikely, Lokobe, Ambodivahibe, Ankarea, Ankivonjy)

The northern part of Madagascar is home to a unique mix of marine habitats due to their variable physical and oceanographic characteristics from east to west. The site covers the continental shoreline at the edge of the shelf, encompassing many types of bays and islands. To the east, the narrow, steep continental shelf translates into deep, narrow bays with canyons leading to deep water, where there are strong upwelling such as Ambodivahibe bays. To the west, a shallow broad band crisscrosses the coast with a fossil reef at its end, currently at a depth of 70 m, housing large berry systems such as Sahamalaza. On both sides, the bays contain mixed habitats of coral reefs, mangroves and seagrasses, like Nosy Hara where these different types of ecosystems meet. Off the west coast is the shallow submerged Castor Bank, with the edge of the bank at 30-50 m and shallower depths of 10 m.

Madagascar - Southwest Malagasy, Country Mahafaly

The proposed area is a mixed property both natural (I) and cultural (II). (I) The Mahafaly Country, like all of the southern part of Mada-gascar, is a rugged sub-desert region with a strange plant landscape adapted to drought and heat and which seems to belong to another world: leafless trees, drills without shade, thorns everywhere, succulents of all kinds, euyres-trees or candle-trees with thorny and spindly candelabra spurious euphorbia with caustic latex, puffed baobabs in the shape of bottles, pachypodium blistered, plants most of which are found nowhere else in the world ... (II) At all times, the inhabitants of southern Madagascar, and especially the Mahafaly, were able to take advantage of this hostile and thorny nature of vegetation for the defense of their villages that are then built in the middle of an impassable tree belt "thorny." It is also in this context that we find a traditional art form particularly characteristic of Madaga Scar, which at the same time forms part of a cluster of ritual practices: the Mahafaly funerary art. This funerary art is composed of tombs (large square edifices of 10 to 15 m on the side, 1 m to 1.50 m in height, consisting of stones roughly cut-lées on the external parts and rough stones piled in the internal part covering the funerary compartment); stone leyes dresses in the middle of the main facade and at each corner of the building; octopus trees which are planted against the edifice, on both sides of the main facade; aloalo which are carved wooden posts from 1.50 m to 1.80 m high planted on the top to the east and finally skulls zebu sacrificed at funerals that can last semainés and some familiar utensils of the deceased. The aloalo have geometric sculptures a day on their was and figurines carved at their summit evoking the personality of the deceased, goods that were dear to him, scenes of everyday life or zebus or birds ...

Madagascar - Site and Rova de Tsinjoarivo

Tsinjoarivo has both a natural site of great beauty (I) and a historic site of the nineteenth century (II). (I). Perched on a peak of 1675 m altitude, the site of Tsinjoarivo dominates the vast horizon of the great forest of the East which extends for more than 100 km towards the sea and overhangs the other the bubbling falls of the Onive river in a great din of water and in an atmosphere of rainbow mist. (II) .In 1834, Queen RANAVALONA I (1828-1861) decided to build on the peak a rova ​​(that is to say a royal enclosure with various constructions to make it a country residence and a place of residence Later, the courtyards of the Kingdom of Madagascar stayed there several times: RANAVALONA I in 1840, 1842 and 1856, RANAVALONA II in 1880 and 1882 and RANAVALONA III in 1890. Raised on a terrace of five meters in height, the Rova is 50m by 30m and is home to five rustic wooden and clay constructions: the Prime Minister's pavilion, which always accompanied the Queen on her travels, the residence of the aides-de-camp, the Queen's and her damsels' pavilion. The house houses the dining room and the court officers' room, all of which house period furniture and objects, and the Ministry of Culture has made it a museum.

Madagascar - Rice and water cultural landscape of Betafo

The proposed area is the countryside of the small town of Betato marked by an original rice and hydraulic landscape of great beauty. It is a landscape comprising a rice-growing valley (I), hillsides occupied by rice terraces (II) and a complex hydraulic network (III), fruit of a secular know-how transmitted from generation to production. generation, a delicate social balance and where the harmony between man and the environment is read. (I) The rice valley situated upstream and downstream of the town of Ambohiambo is inserted between two mountain ranges and exploits the topography of the land in great detail while benefiting from a well-designed irrigation system. (II) In certain sectors, and particularly on both sides of a river, there are numerous terraced rice terraces. (III) The complex hydraulic network serving the valley and the verants is a witness of the donation ~ estication of water on its regulation for a fair share to all the rice fields, first between the lineages, then between the families . The network includes, among other things, traditional catch with relatively dry dams of parallel and superimposed canals dug on the northern flanks of the deep canyon gorges, a good dozen parallel canals for lineages and small canals for families with distributors in volcanic stones. These last channels can be underground - passing under rice fields - when space is lacking.

Madagascar - The Upper Town of Antananarivo

Antananarivo was called Analamanga - the "blue forest" - until 1610, when the king Merina Andrianjaka built his palace on the highest hill in the city (at over 1,300 m altitude) and built everything there first Rova with Besakana Palace to post a garrison of 1,000 men. The old Analamanga then takes the name of Antananarivo: the "city of Thousand", actually a fortified village, protected by many circular ditches and access to which is through seven megalithic gates. It is from the location of the first Rova that the city develops gradually to extend over the whole hill (and become the current historical core). Its rise coincides with that of Imerina, territory of the Merina ethnic group, dominant on the High Plateaux and its status as capital was finally sealed in the late eighteenth century, when King Andrianampoinimerina manages to unify the peoples of the Highlands and definitely leaves Ambohimanga.

Madagascar - Cliff and caves of Isandra

The Cliff and Caves of Isandra are both a natural site (I) and a fortified archaeological site (II) integrated into the landscape of the picturesque rocks of the valley of the small river Isandra. (I) View of the valley, an impressive vertical cliff overlooking a large berm with huge rock wedges embedded in a granite chain oriented north-south. This relief is explained by a differential erosion in the migmatites and granites of the crystalline basement. The forms of erosion of the large cliff are runoff grooves, taffoni perforations can reach a large size (2 to 3 m of opening and as much depth) and especially large rock falls due to dia-clases. Over the course of successive landslides was then built at the foot of the cliff an enormous heap of granite blocks with interior voids that can serve as shelters: the "caves", used by the ancient inhabitants in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. A.D. (II) Because of the defensive possibilities offered by the particular layout of the enormous rocky slopes fallen from the cliff, the ancient inhabitants once settled there by creating an original and ingenious fortified site. They took advantage of the impressing chaos of granite blocks to organize the fortified village. They built protective enclosures of dry stones between the blocks, built terraces of habitat with dry stone retaining wall. In addition, the natural layout of the blocks has made it possible to build a large number of rock shelters that contemporaries have wrongly called "caves". The originality of the site also lies in the maze of cavities, sometimes impressive, corresponding to the interstices between the blocks of rocks; these cavities were used for different purposes: here shelters (habitat ?, there are access roads to other places of habitat somewhere in the chaos, elsewhere dumps for the inhabitants ... Finally, the taffoni of the cliffs were used once to bury certair dead.

Madagascar - Antongona

Antongona consists of two archeological sites dating from the 16th-18th century A.D. perched respectively at 1406 and 1515 m above sea level on natural bastions of rocks. An important wall of dry stones and numerous stone portals with or without lineaux extend the natural defenses. A village was once settled on each rock platform constituting formidable citadels and real strongholds. The first site at 1515 m altitude is also protected in its lower part by defensive systems dug ditches four in number. A path through the sides of the rocks leads to the platform where the village was located that could control the whole area over 360 °. In view of the beauty of the site, the Minis-tère de la Culture recreated in the 1980s three traditional wooden houses according to the models still standing elsewhere. These houses, two of which have been converted into local museums, have been built on the site of old homes that have disappeared. The second site perched at 1406 m above sea level is also home to important remains of dry stone: walls, retaining walls, por-tails and tombs of the seventeenth-eighteenth century .. It is located 300 m to the west of the first. Both are installed on the same chain made of huge granite rock and are good examples of archeological sites poorly fortified and dry stone works.

Madagascar - The dry forests of Andrefana

This site is composed of 7 protected areas: Ankarana Special Reserve S12 53 22 E49 09 47 (2009) Ankarafantsika National Park S16 12 30 E46 53 10 (2009) Andohahela National Park, Parcel II S24 53 17 E46 35 24 (2009) Tsimanampetsotsa National Park S24 06 06 E43 50 26 (As of 2012) Analamerana Special Reserve S12 46 03 E49 29 46 (As of 2012) NAP Daraina S13 05 45 E49 42 00 (As of 2012) Future NAP Manambolomaty-Tsimembo S19 00 00 E44 23 29 (As of 2012) Protected areas forming all the dry forests of Madagascar are located in the western part and the southern part of the island. In contrast to the Atsinanana Rainforest Ecoregion represented by a set of six protected areas, dry forests are marked by severe historical fragmentation and only a few large isolated blocks still exist. Despite this important challenge, recent biological inventories very clearly indicate that these large blocks are very important for the representation of Madagascar's biodiversity and the maintenance of evolutionary processes within distinct and unique ecological communities. In the same vein, these inventories indicate that biological diversity within dry forests has historically been underestimated. Therefore, it is increasingly evident that the region is characterized by extraordinary biological heterogeneity with a remarkable number of locally endemic species and changes in floristic and faunistic composition even between relatively close sites. This wealth of biodiversity is also accompanied by a level of vulnerability of these habitats and communities which, fortunately, is increasingly controlled by major efforts for the creation and good management of protected areas.

Madagascar - Special Reserve of Anjanaharibe-Sud (extension of the humid forests of Atsinanana)

The humid forests are mainly located in the eastern part of Madagascar, east of the watershed. However, relatively large forest blocks are scattered over the Central High Plateau and the northern part of the island. The climate is humid tropical type, characterized by abundant rainfall. From north to south, there are several types of ecosystems representative of the rainforests of Madagascar: transition forest, grassland altimetry, natural savanna and coral reefs. These ecosystems contain a unique biodiversity of which most animal and plant species are endemic. They belong to either a protected area, a locality or a region.