Noah Jackson — a trainer and auditor for the Rainforest Alliance – shares a series of stunning images from a recent trip to Madagascar.
Outside the small room where I’m sleeping, chickens have begun to stir and scratch. The soundtrack of the day is drifting through my window — the first bush taxis have started running and the diesel engines of pickup trucks are rumbling. The smell of raw cocoa and coffee mixes with the diesel, dust, eggs, vanilla and other scents.
I climb out of bed, still tired. The days have begun to mix in my mind. I’m on my second waterproof field notebook and, before my time is finished in these forest and farm trails, I’ll fill another notebook with questions and observations.
We’ve been tackling some hard questions lately: How do you get products to market? How do you grow rice – a staple crop in this country — without enough land? How do you ensure a supply for wood construction? How can you protect farms from cyclones? How do you build forests? How do you grow enough food?
These are the questions that plague farmers. We discuss them openly, in village movie halls and while touring the landscape.
In the first part of this photo essay, I share some behind-the-scenes images…
A boy and his dog take shelter under a mix of coffee plants and fruit trees while gathering firewood.
