Ravenala across habitats and its responses to disturbance in north-eastern Madagascar

Similarly to other tropical regions, north-eastern Madagascar is experiencing rapid forest loss with severe consequences for biodiversity. In contrast to many native tree species, the traveller’s palm (Ravenala spp.), an endemic Malagasy arborescent herb of the family Strelitziaceae, remains highly abundant across the landscape. Ravenala plays an important role in the daily lives of local communities, being widely used as a source of construction material, tools and food.

The objective of this project is to assess the distribution of Ravenala spp. in the SAVA region of north-eastern Madagascar and to explore the factors shaping these distribution patterns. The underlying data are based on two complementary approaches: terrestrial sampling and visual interpretation of five high-resolution satellite images from WorldView-2 and WorldView-3, each covering an area of 5 km by 5 km.