Honko Mangrove Conservation & Education (HONKO)

Community-based mangrove management and poverty alleviation in SW Madagascar

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Honko means mangroves in Malagasy. Reversing the degradation and preventing further loss of mangrove forest ecosystems in southwest Madagascar is the focus of this organisation.

Honko Mangrove Conservation & Education (Honko) is a Belgian registered charity working in partnership with coastal communities to improve living standards and quality of life in positive coexistence with the fragile and unique local environment. Founded in 2007, the organisation works in one of the most impoverished communes on the globe and in the urban centre of Tuléar, south west Madagascar, home to a population of some 300,000 people.

Honko works with local people:
• to conserve threatened mangrove forests and associated wetlands,
• establishing a mangrove information center and community-managed mangrove reserve.
By empowering local people and training them in durable ways of management and by offering them alternatives, the threathened environment will have a green future.

Our initiatives
Through various initiatives, we promote environmental stewardship that empowers local families to sustain their livelihoods while restoring and protecting their natural environment for the future.
• Conservation capacity: Supporting the local management association, VOI Mamelo Honko; Women´s association; Mangrove restoration
• Livelihoods & governance: Promotion of alternative livelihoods; Sustainable Management of natural resources; Marketing & Outreach
• Conservation science: Partnering with local and international institutions, and empowering independent student research; By working together with local universities and institutions, we thrive to improve the students´ capacity in research and writing skills.
• Environmental Education: Honko plays an active role in educating the communities in which it works, from village-awareness raising events to introducing an environmental curriculum in local schools that incorporates the childrens´ local natural environment.
• Climate change: We are launching a blue carbon Plan Vivo project that will provide sustainable financing for conservation and development work on the ground.

Nina Hamilton is the Program Manager of Honko Mangrove Conservation and Education.

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.