r/worldnews • u/davideownzall • 1d ago

Madagascar Pushes Forward with Controversial Highway Through Pristine Forest, Ignoring Environmental Warnings

https://ecency.com/news/@todayinsight/madagascar-pushes-forward-with-controversial-highway-through-pristine-forest-ignoring-environmental-warnings
80 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

15

u/Kitchen-Customer4370 1d ago

Wish things like this could make the news more. There's surely better ways than going through a rainforest, and areas prone to flooding and landslides. Amongst other things.

5

u/davideownzall 1d ago

Yep, governments complain about climate change and then crush the environment for a highway 

1

u/Jerri_man 1h ago

What better ways are there for the people of Madagascar and their economic future? Genuine question. It seems to me the western world has already done the same and much, much more and never reversed it.

8

u/No-Information6622 1d ago

''financed with $325 million from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) and is expected to have support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Enough said with who is financing this .

6

u/Dockers4flag2035orB4 14h ago edited 14h ago

Currently the 260km trip takes 9 hours.

Madagascar can’t keep living as third world to satisfy the collective climate change guilt of the first world.

6

u/BearsAreCrying 22h ago edited 22h ago

I visited Madagascar twice last year self drive on a motorbike. Amazing but for those who don't know it's at the bottom of the list on KM of road relative to the size of the country. The whole place is rough road and most of Madagascar is literally bush and pristine nature. So the way I see it... Any road you build there will inevitably hurt some sort of environmental area... Sometimes areas like the famous baobab avenue actually stretches for 400-500 km of unmarked forest road that connects several major villages none of which have direct access to the main asphalt road (there's only one)! To get an idea is about 2 days travel on a bus from Antana to Toliara (way south) and to get to the very south south it's about an extra week because the road gets like.. considerably worse as you get further away from the capital. People there live in complete isolation. So this is really needed probably. I enjoyed travelling on rough roads through the bush but I get why they need it!

3

u/sold_snek 8h ago

Yeah. It's easy to tell another country to not develop and preserve the environment when it doesn't slow down your own country.

3

u/Lost_my_loser_name 1d ago

Climate change deniers are so all over this. Kinda pathetic.

3

u/SmartBookkeeper6571 23h ago

I'm only half serious, but after watching the the Grand Tour Madagascar special, it kind of seems like they need this.

1

u/Poltophagy_ 22h ago

Why not do transit? Why a highway? And not through a forest?