Qualla: Kirindy Forest

Kirindy Forest: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Heinonlein, CC BY-SA 4.0. In Malagasy, kirindy means "dense forest with wild animals." The name still fits, though the density is under siege. Fifty kilometers northeast of the coastal town of Morondava, a private nature reserve protects one of the largest remaining tracts of dry deciduous forest on Madagascar's western plain. Fossas -- the island's apex predator, a sleek, muscular carnivore that looks like a cross between a cat and a mongoose -- hunt lemurs through the canopy here. Three species of baobab grow in the same forest. And the whole system shuts down for half the year, as trees shed their leaves and the landscape turns skeletal under the dry-season sun.

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Image: Heinonlein | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kirindy Forest: Two Seasons, Two Forests

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marie Salichon, CC BY-SA 4.0. Kirindy's climate divides the year sharply. From roughly April through November, the dry season strips the deciduous trees bare, temperatures can reach 40 degrees Celsius, and the forest floor crackles underfoot. When the rains arrive between December and March, the landscape tra...

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Image: Marie Salichon | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kirindy Forest: The Fossa's Kingdom

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Heinonlein, CC BY-SA 4.0. Madagascar separated from Africa roughly 160 million years ago and from India about 88 million years ago, leaving its wildlife to evolve in isolation. The fossa is the result: the island's only large predator, filling the ecological role that cats, wolves, and bears occupy on oth...

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Image: Heinonlein | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kirindy Forest: Baobabs Three Ways

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Vassen, CC BY 2.0. Three of Madagascar's six endemic baobab species grow in and around Kirindy. Grandidier's baobab, Adansonia grandidieri, is the largest, reaching 30 meters with a massive, bottle-shaped trunk -- the same species that lines the famous Avenue of the Baobabs on the road from Moronda...

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Image: Frank Vassen | CC BY 2.0

Kirindy Forest: A Forest Losing Ground

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Vassen, CC BY 2.0. Between 1970 and 2000, more than 30 percent of Madagascar's spiny forest disappeared. Dry forests fared slightly better but still lost ground at a rate of 0.42 percent per year between 2000 and 2005. In Central Menabe, the region surrounding Kirindy, more than 40,000 hectares of ...

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Image: Frank Vassen | CC BY 2.0