Exploring Madagascar’s Borneo connection
Published on: Friday, January 18, 2019
KOTA KINABALU: Madagascar, like Sabah, is a unique eco-tourism destination in the world that must be protected and promoted. Both suffered from excessive logging and unsustainable environmental exploitation in the past.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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Publisher and former Sabah Society President Datuk CL Chan travelled from the capital Antananarivo to Antsirabe, in Vakinankaratra region, a midway town to anywhere in Madagascar, a distance of 175.2km in 3 hours 44 minutes.
Madagascar’s and Sabah’s rich cultural and bio-diversity can be discovered in different ways by tourists.
Madagascar, like Borneo, has a unique fauna and flora different from the African Continent by its high rate of endemism: 80 per cent of animal species and 90 per cent of plant species are endemic due to the isolation of the island.
Chan said the best way to discover the rich biodiversity of the country is to visit the national parks and reserves. There are also few private parks, which Chan did and he found an American-run resort located in a man-made forest of acacia.
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He recommends visiting the world-renowned Avenue of the Baobabs that inspired the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore with its real and artificial baobab which is the national tree of Madagascar, besides many other places like Menabe Antimena Protected Area, Kirinty Forest, Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, Vakona Forest Lodge, Peyrieras Reptile Reserve, etc over a period of three weeks.
Edwin Liew, a photography enthusiast, who was among Chan’s travelling companions, said Madagascar’s isolation means that most of its mammals, half of its birds, and most of its plants exist nowhere else on earth. Some are endangered.
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Lemurs are the most emblematic animals of Madagascar. About 32 species of this primate have been discovered but the inventory is not complete yet as new species have been recently found, such as the Lepilemur Seali or the 300g Mirza Zaza. The most famous lemurs are the Indri Indri (the tallest), the ring-tailed Maki (as King Julian in the movie Madagascar) and the strange-looking Aye Aye.
Some 95 per cent of species are endemic. One can find frogs with unexpected colours such as the bright red Dicophus Antongilii. Just like lemurs, chameleons and lizards are emblematic of Madagascar where 2/3 of world-known species live – from the shortest (less than 10cm) to the longest (more than 70cm).
Over 70 species of venomous snakes exist in Madagascar but none of them is deadly. There are three species of boa, within a family that is found in South America and Asia, but not in Africa.
There are 100 000 species of invertebrates among which the Comet, the biggest butterfly in the world or the red and white giraffe beetle.
Madagascar is a paradise for ornithologists with 285 bird species, of which 110 are endemic: Couas, Vangidae, red owl or the Pygargue of Madagascar. Birds here nests in the rainforests and water sites along the coastlines for great gatherings.
Tenrecs are unusual insectivores that have radiated into ecological niches filled in other lands by hedgehogs, mice, shrews, opossums, and even otters. While a few species of tenrecs are found in central Africa, they are most diverse in Madagascar which has around 30 species.
From the arid bush of the South to the rainforest of the East, Madagascar offers a wide range of ecosystems that shelter an extraordinary flora. The vegetation can take unexpected shapes such as the umbrella pine euphorb or the pachypodium.
Seven of the world’s nine species of baobab are found only in Madagascar, compared to only one in Africa. Some baobab trees are more than 1000 years old. The Western part of the island is their home and the most famous photographed spot is the Baobab Lane (“Allee des Baobabs”) in Morondava.
The total of Madagascar’s orchid species (1200 plus) well exceeds that of Africa. Rainforests of the Eastern coast shelter most of them including the most beautiful ones such as the White Orchid Angraecum Sesquipedale or the Black Orchid Cymbidiella Humbloti.
There are 38 species of Aloe mostly found in the South and one of the most beautiful plants in Madagascar is the Aloe Vaombe with its clusters of red flowers.
Madagascar also owns a multitude of medicinal plants whose inventory is not completed.
Among those who turned up to hear Chan speak was former Kota Kinabalu Mayor Datuk Yeo Boon Hai who tried to twin Kota Kinabalu with Madagascar’s capital.
Findings published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, also show that the human inhabitants of Madagascar are similarly unique – amazingly, half of their genetic lineages derive from settlers from the region of Borneo, with the other half from East Africa.
Archaeological evidence suggests that this settlement was as recent as 1,500 years ago – about the time the Saxons invaded Britain.
The origins of the language spoken in Madagascar, Malagasy, suggested Borneo connections, because its closest relative is the Maanyan language, spoken in southern Borneo, since discovery voyages from the Buddhist Malay world of the Sri Vijayan empire in South East Asia.
According to Chan, he felt safe in the country as the people, like Sabahans, are friendly.
An Austronesian-speaking population, the Banjar in the southeast region of Borneo, was the closest Asian sources for modern Malagasy, the official language of Madagascar.
Their influence increased across all the Southeast Asian islands, notably in Borneo where they established several trading posts, such as one in the city of Banjarmasin in Southeast Borneo with interactions with inland groups in Borneo, such as the Ma’anyan, but also with other populations such as the Bajo sea nomads besides admixed groups from Borneo (ie Banjar, Ngaju, South Kalimantan Dayak, Lebbo, Murut, Dusun, and Bidayuh).
Malagasy peoples are a roughly 50:50 mix of two ancestral groups: Borneons and East Africans. It is important to realise that these lineages have intermingled over intervening centuries since settlement, so modern Malagasy have ancestry in both Borneo and Africa.
Madagascar is also a cultural melting-pot taking its origin in Austronesian, Arab, Bantu, and European civilisations. Its historical monuments, traditions and ceremonies, handicrafts are all witness to this diversity.
Being a bridge between Asia and Africa, Madagascar has a culture that relates to both continents. The Malagasy people are peaceful and well known for their legendary hospitality. One common language, Malagasy, is spoken in the country with regional dialect variants. - David Thien
