Madagasikara in Malagasy language is the second largest island country on the Earth, with current population estimated about 29,600,000 people (2022, United Nations data). Originally recognized as the green island, Madagascar is turning in a red desert. Several years of drought, deforestation, cyclones and environmental damage has led southern Madagascar to increase its poverty rate.

Also a rapid population growth is increasing demand for land and natural resources. The environmental degradation from slash-and-burn agriculture, fuelwood collection, and unsustainable harvesting of wildlife, is destroying biodiversity resources and rendering the most of the areas in the south dead.

The inland is getting drier and the villages in this area are migrating along the coast starting a new life as fishermen, contributing to increasing the stress on the third biggest coral reef in the world in front of the coast of Tulear, the capital of the Atsimo-Andrefana region located 936 km southwest of Antananarivo.

Daily life scene along Ikopa river in the capital Antananarivo.

Tropical cyclones cause damage to infrastructure and local economies as well as loss of life. In 2004, Cyclone Gafilo became the strongest cyclone ever recorded to hit Madagascar. The storm killed 172 people, left 214,260 homeless and caused more than US$250 million in damage. In February 2022, Cyclone Batsirai killed at least 10 people weeks after Cyclone Ana killed 55 and displaced 130,000 people on the island.