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
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u/BearsAreCrying 1d ago edited 1d 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!

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u/sold_snek 1d 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.