The Gathering Storm: Charcoal Forests in Madagascar

According to the World Bank, Madagascar has seen a 10 percent increase in temperature and a 10 percent decrease in rainfall in the past 50 years, with a devastating impact on the farming and fishing communities. Years of drought in the south of the country have left people there facing chronic hunger and high rates of malnutrition. In this film, we look at the charcoal industry in the south, and discover how the prolonged drought has driven farmers - whose barren fields can no longer support them - into the forests in search of a livelihood. In a country that relies almost exclusively on charcoal as a cooking fuel, wood is one of the few resources left for them to exploit.