Counting the damage after Cyclone Faly

Cyclone Faly crossed two of our coastal sites in Madagascar in December. The field team rode it out inland and went back to the coast the next morning to count what was left. The rough total is around 40,000 young trees lost.

The worst of it hit a year-old planting on exposed ground near Soalala, which the storm simply flattened. Trees that young have shallow roots and no flexibility, and there was little they could do against that wind. That cohort represented a season's work, and losing it hurts.

We will replant the Soalala ground. There is no honest way to soften that it is a setback, and we are not going to dress it up as a learning opportunity. Some of what we plant will be hit by storms, and on this coast that frequency is rising, not falling.

The surprise sat just offshore. The mangroves the Sahy cooperative planted along the estuary took the surge and stayed put, holding the shoreline behind them. That is the exact job they are there to do, and watching them do it in a real storm rather than in a brochure was worth a great deal.

Dona Marlene's nursery work is a continent away, but the lesson travels. A cyclone is a reminder that restoration on a warming coast means planting things that expect to be hit, and accepting that some plantings on exposed ground will not make it.

So next year's mix shifts. We are putting more weight on species that bend and recover rather than snap, siting the most vulnerable young plantings where there is some shelter, and leaning harder on the mangrove belt that has now proven it can stand.