Eric Mathieu, could you tell us something about yourself?
I've lived in Andapa for more than 13 years now, I'm French and I followed my wife here. We have two children now, ages 8 and 5. I love nature, hiking in the forest, discovering new places, experiencing the wilderness. In 2000, I was contacted by an NGO to design a website about Marojejy, which I did, but in the end the NGO withdrew from the project. So I bought the domain name www.marojejy.com and put the website online myself. The aim of the website is to promote the region in order to make this beautiful area better known to a broader public.


Why in the end, did you decide to do a website? Who is the Marojejy website team and does anybody support your work?
In 2004, Paul ATKINSON, a Peace Corps volunteer working for the environmental sector, arrived in Andapa. We both decided to improve the website for Marojejy as well as for Anjanaharibe-Sud, starting from scratch. We both worked hard on it, collecting data and pictures. Paul worked more than me on the website but I did the entire ‘ranking job’ to make it very well ranked on the most popular search engines. It’s a hidden job but it took months to do it well. Especially because we refused to add any advertising from the popular ‘web free ranking services’ with tons of code to add in. Paul and I did everything ourselves. We didn’t ask for any help. We did it all for free and still work on it on a voluntary basis. I pay the hosting and domain name fees every year.


Marojejy website gives an astounding overview of information, good but also bad news – how do you get all this info?
It’s true; we do expose both the good and the bad sides of this unique place. We don’t want people to stay away from Marojejy, we just want to show the potential visitor what is going on here, that’s all. We want people to see what kind of problems such a ‘paradise’ can face. That is the reason we started to write about slash-and-burn, the removal of precious wood, poaching, mining, moving boundaries. More than anybody else we love this exceptional place and its people and we want to help, making visitors aware of its beauty, its fragility and its weaknesses.

The majority of the information that’s on our website comes from personal experience. Both Paul and I have spent a lot of time in the park, and I continue to take trips there as often as possible. We have many friends who live in the villages around the park and who provide information as well. And lately, some of the tourists we’ve met in the park have contributed some of their outstanding photos, which we are adding to our slideshows on the site.

What do you think: how much does this website influence tourists who come to the two parks?
Our web statistics show that we beat a new personal record this month (June 2007) with around 7,000 different IP addresses visiting the site. It’s impressive! I hope that the website has a direct influence on how people view the park and will encourage them to visit or, at least, to ask travel agencies to investigate the park. We don’t want busloads of tourists, but a few more environmentally and socially responsible visitors would be beneficial for people living in the surrounding villages and good for the entire SAVA area. I currently make occasional reservations for travel agencies. The website is considered by many to be the official Marojejy site, even though it technically isn’t.

How much does this website influence the villagers, since locals hardly get access to internet?
By promoting the region and by promoting responsible tourism, our website has a positive influence on the villagers in an indirect way. The more people are aware of Marojejy and its people, the more likely there will be change for the better, and that is good news for the villagers. Tourists who pass through the villages on their way to Marojejy don’t easily forget their visit: they return home and want to help in a variety of ways. We have seen it many times during the past few years, and it gives us great hope for the future of the people of Marojejy.

Will this website stay as it is, or do you have planned any further, more interactive approaches?
We are making regular updates as we get news or new pictures. Last month, we updated the slideshows with numerous new pictures; many of them are really nice ones! If anyone has good ideas for improvement, please let us know…Although it’s not an ‘open source’ website, we encourage suggestions and ideas. The Internet is still not well established here in Madagascar, especially in Andapa; so maintaining a large up-to-date site is difficult. For example, the connections are extremely slow in Andapa: 28.8 kbps for downloading, and only 9.6 kbps for uploads – so I need 5-8 hours to update the whole website. Quite impressive, isn’t it?

Why is Marojejy important for you?
The northeastern part of Madagascar is the last remaining part of what was once a boundless, fantastic, pristine forest. We must save it, but we have to save people as well; both are directly linked. Family planning, new forms of agriculture, and education should be the main focus of this small environmental and developmental ‘revolution’ we need here. But mostly we need to eliminate corruption and big businesses. Humanity is destroying the world but only humanity has the power (and/or the will) to save it. Will we save it? Who knows? In November and December, people are burning the hills for ‘tavy’ and because Andapa is in a basin, all the smoke from the entire area accumulates here, and for those two months we can hardly see the sun even when there are no clouds. An orange ball rises through a haze of smoke, sad, very sad, but people have children and they need to feed them… how to think differently. We are all humans and none of us chooses the place we were born.

What do you wish for the Marojejy region?
I wish the best for Marojejy: no more poverty, a healthy forest growing on all the surrounding hills…but I have to be realistic. Impossible is a strange word but in these conditions we just have to do our best to save what we can. As for world climate, we must do as much as possible to make a better world for tomorrow, for the next generations…otherwise greed and money will kill the world slowly but surely. I wish everybody could understand the importance of saving the environment, of protecting it, working with it. Everybody has to work together, hand in hand, to meet this huge challenge.

How could we achieve such goals?
Growing more rice with technology adapted to local situations in order to feed the entire local population, planting more trees, reinforcing environmental education even in the first years of school with specific programs emphasizing conservation, launching family planning with improved access to medicine and health. Building environmental centers where people who broke the law (for example, illegally cutting trees, hunting, mining in protected areas or ANY kind of corruption involving environmental damage) can be sent where they will learn what they should have done and what they should do in the future, independent of their social status.

Eric, many thanks for this interview. A very last question to finish: how do you think the internet can help in achieving the goals you mentioned above?
The internet is a powerful tool because it allows us to disseminate information to a very large audience around the world. Information breeds awareness. People who come to Marojejy, or even those who don’t come but are aware of the problems facing Marojejy, will act. We have a page on our website called “What you can do” which lists a few organizations that are working toward the goals we’ve listed above, and the names of a few influential people to write to. Some people may choose to donate to these organizations or write a letter. Others may just spread the word to their friends or work within their own communities for social justice and environmental purposes. Everything helps. We speak through the internet, and as we have seen many times over, our visitors help us effect the change. Together, we can achieve these goals and make Marojejy – and the world – a better place.

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