This Solutionscape is located on a remote, forested peninsula in northeastern Madagascar, next to the world famous Masoala National Park. It encompasses a valley stretching from the ocean to the mountains, along with five villages currently facing significant challenges due to deforestation. Madagascar is home to unique species, 90% of which exist nowhere else in the world. Combined with the deforestation issue, this makes it one of the planet’s most important biodiversity hotspots. Local communities are among the poorest in the world. Due to the region’s remoteness, they also have limited access to essential public services, such as education and healthcare. Squeezed into buffer zones delimited by protected areas, and with limited land unequally distributed for farming, younger generations in particular struggle to secure their livelihoods. Without access to land or compensation for preserving the forest, they often resort to deforestation to produce upland rice through shifting cultivation or seek opportunities for cash crops such as vanilla and clove. In this regard, the region’s isolation creates further difficulties, limiting access to markets, infrastructure, and technical knowledge. Adding to these challenges, conservation and commodity crop production are often subject to uncoordinated, conflicting agendas involving both local and external actors.

To address these issues and envision a future where both nature and people can thrive, projects in this Solutionscape are developed in a complementary way to promote environmental justice through a systemic approach. While trying to overcome unequal access to land by enhancing land governance, the Wyss Academy is also developing agricultural and nonagricultural revenue streams, strengthening value chains for key products and services. In view of the limitations of such a bioeconomy in a remote valley, efforts also focus on income diversification through silk production and improving digital connectivity to open the region and stimulate the regional economy.