SEED hoping to set shining example
Home to some of the world’s most unique flora and fauna, Madagascar is famed for its wildlife, 90% of which is found nowhere else on Earth. But Madagascar’s wildlife is under threat from major deforestation and ocean pollution, with 90% of the native forest cover having been lost.
The problems surrounding the island’s ecology are confounded by its humanitarian issues. It’s little reported that Madagascar, according to the World Bank, is the poorest country in the world with almost 80% of the population living on less than £1.40 per day and health and education services lacking in many areas.
SEED Madagascar are a UK based charity working in Madagascar on both humanitarian and environmental projects, which they aim to do synergistically for the mutual benefit of both; as the director of SEED, Mark Jacobs, explains:
“In this kind of situation you can’t just tell local people to stop chopping down endangered forest trees if they rely on them to survive, you have to provide a solution that’s sustainable long-term, which is what we aim to do; with education being a big cornerstone of this.”
Solar power fits in perfectly with the charity’s aims and objectives. Mark continues…
“One thing that Madagascar doesn’t lack is sunshine and solar power fits in perfectly with SEED Madagascar’s ethos. Most of the population remain ‘off the grid’, and many organisations based in Madagascar like SEED rely on expensive and environmentally harmful energy source. Solar energy could be of huge humanitarian and environmental benefits and would give SEED much greater capacity to fight poverty and deforestation while also providing an example to others of the benefits of conversion. Solar energy in rural schools and clinics could be life changing”
One of the charity’s first solar goals is to convert its Madagascan office (which is situated in Fort Dauphin, a rural town in the South East of the country) to solar power, with the aim of improving the reliability of the electricity supply, with regular power cuts at present, and decreasing costs, whilst simultaneously decreasing their reliance on harmful fossil fuels in an area that is critically vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In doing so, they hope to increase their overall capacity to work on their vital humanitarian and environmental work by 10%, by reducing office blackout time. This time saved will prove especially crucial when planning and implementing time-sensitive, disaster response programmes.
SEED also hope that, once set up, the office’s solar system will help raise the awareness of their 75 Malagasy staff on the benefits of solar and provide workshops and support to other NGOs, businesses and organisations on solar power generation and energy-saving practices.
The cost of converting the SEED Madagascar office to solar is £15,000 and the charity have set up a ‘Solar For SEED’ appeal to raise the funds needed to purchase solar panels, other relevant equipment and installation costs. You can learn more here at www.madagascar.co.uk, where, during March, every donation made will be doubled by an anonymous donor.