As the price of pods has soared so has violence – and forest defenders are increasingly risking their lives to protect precious wildlife habitat from being felled for profit
The vanilla thieves of Anjahana were so confident of their power to intimidate farmers they provided advance warning of raids. “We are coming tonight,” they would write in a note pushed under doors in this remote coastal village in Madagascar. “Prepare what we want.”
But they either undervalued their target commodity or overestimated the meekness of their victims. After one assault too many at the turn of the year, a crowd rounded up five alleged gangsters, dragged them into the village square and then set about the bloody task of mob justice.
They hacked and stabbed them to death with machetes and harpoons,” said a vanilla farmer, who was among the crowd of onlookers. “I think it’s good. The police did nothing. Now the gangsters will be afraid of stealing from us. We have our own guard now. The young men of the community make patrols at night.”
These extrajudicial killings – confirmed to the Guardian by a local priest – have gone unsolved and under-reported internationally until now. But environmental defenders say they highlight how the surging price of vanilla on global markets is connected to village crime and forest destruction.
Madagascar is the world’s primary supplier of pods used to flavour ice cream, cakes and chocolate. Despite its notoriously bland reputation, a more-than-tenfold surge in the value of the spice over the past five years has aroused dangerous passions.
Crop thefts have been reported in most of the key growing regions and there have been dozens of murders. Some communities have called for protection from armed police. Others – as in Anjahana – have taken matters into their own hands.
From the capital Antananarivo, it takes a plane, a ferry, a gondola and two motorbike rides to reach this picturesque village. On the way, forest defender Clovis Razafimalala explains how the vanilla violence is a product of poorly regulated global markets, corrupt local politicians and a flood of cash from illegal rosewood trades to China.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-prized-spice-drives-death-and-deforestation
The vanilla thieves of Anjahana were so confident of their power to intimidate farmers they provided advance warning of raids. “We are coming tonight,” they would write in a note pushed under doors in this remote coastal village in Madagascar. “Prepare what we want.”
But they either undervalued their target commodity or overestimated the meekness of their victims. After one assault too many at the turn of the year, a crowd rounded up five alleged gangsters, dragged them into the village square and then set about the bloody task of mob justice.
They hacked and stabbed them to death with machetes and harpoons,” said a vanilla farmer, who was among the crowd of onlookers. “I think it’s good. The police did nothing. Now the gangsters will be afraid of stealing from us. We have our own guard now. The young men of the community make patrols at night.”
These extrajudicial killings – confirmed to the Guardian by a local priest – have gone unsolved and under-reported internationally until now. But environmental defenders say they highlight how the surging price of vanilla on global markets is connected to village crime and forest destruction.
Madagascar is the world’s primary supplier of pods used to flavour ice cream, cakes and chocolate. Despite its notoriously bland reputation, a more-than-tenfold surge in the value of the spice over the past five years has aroused dangerous passions.
Crop thefts have been reported in most of the key growing regions and there have been dozens of murders. Some communities have called for protection from armed police. Others – as in Anjahana – have taken matters into their own hands.
From the capital Antananarivo, it takes a plane, a ferry, a gondola and two motorbike rides to reach this picturesque village. On the way, forest defender Clovis Razafimalala explains how the vanilla violence is a product of poorly regulated global markets, corrupt local politicians and a flood of cash from illegal rosewood trades to China.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-prized-spice-drives-death-and-deforestation
