Set up in 1986 in response to famine and other severe challenges facing Malagasy people, Money for Madagascar works with and for Malagasy men, women and children, helping them improve their lives and livelihoods, while also protecting the unique environment in which they live.

Madagascar is famous for its astonishing flora and fauna. Five per cent of all the world’s plant and animal species are indigenous to the island, and 90 per cent of species found there are endemic. They are vital to global medicine and other products.

But it is a country in crisis. After decades of economic disarray, its income, healthcare and education levels are among the lowest in the world: 79.7 per cent of Malagasy people live on less than £1.73 per day – the global poverty baseline. This poverty, as well as population growth and international demand, is putting enormous pressure on Madagascar’s precious rainforest, which protects us all, but more than half of which has disappeared.

Madagascar is a carbon sink – one of very few states in the world which removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits. In spite of this, its people are at huge risk from the impacts of climate catastrophe, including soil loss, floods and extreme droughts.

In the face of this severe social and environmental crisis, UK charity, Money for Madagascar continues to work to help the Malagasy people to take charge of their own destiny, and protect the unique forests on which we all – plant, animal and human civilisation – rely.