Madagascar is both the second largest biodiversity reserve in the world and the fifth poorest country in the world.

From June to November, in the remote villages of northern Madagascar, women gather at dawn to enjoy the sun's leniency. Crouching in the foliage, they stab the stalks of the thick kalanchoe leaves, which contain 95% water. Used by the deans of the village in decoction, they promote the healing of wounds. The harvest will then be placed on large tarps, exposed to the sun between two weeks and two months, depending on the humidity. Other endemic plants such as centella and harungana will be picked for their multiple medicinal properties.

To awaken the ancestral memory of the villages

In order for the pickers to sell their crop, the proper conditioning of the plant is essential. All of them have been trained by Jardins du Monde in the control of drying, which allows to preserve the qualities of the leaves and to free themselves from the possible problems of routing.

This French NGO, founded twenty-five years ago by ethnobotanist Jean-Pierre Nicolas, has set itself the goal of relearning Malagasy - who do not necessarily have access to conventional medicines - the ancestral culture of medicinal plants. "Plants can help fight the disease with ridiculous costs," says Jean-Pierre Nicolas, who travels the country working on the relationship that people have with plants everyday.

Part of its mission is to awaken the ancestral memory of the villages, that of a time when the "matrons" of the village used - as an infusion or poultice - plants to cure the most common ailments: gastritis, diarrhea, bronchitis, fever ... but also diabetes . This disease, whose daily diet of white rice favors the appearance, affects 5% of the Malagasy population, or nearly a million people.

Its proximity to a poor rural population - the average salary is € 30 monthly - has spawned in Jean-Pierre Nicolas, winner of the Clarins Men Environment Award in 2014, the idea of ​​a production sector in the context of sustainable development with the brand, which financially supports the NGO. Alongside Christian Courtin-Clarins, president of the brand's supervisory board, convinced that "we can integrate environmental concerns into economic development," Jean-Pierre Nicolas offers these villagers, in exchange for picking kalanchoe from 6 am to 3 pm, an additional income of around € 150 a year. A breath for "many women who raise their children alone, because it is not uncommon for the father to leave home".

For most of them, it is, moreover, the insurance to be able to pay the school fees of the children, which amount to 20 € per year. A fair trade premium (not including picking women's wages) is also donated to the villages through environmental projects, the opening of dispensaries and new schools, such as the new primary building inaugurated in December 2017 in Nadirobe, in the north of the island.

Credit: Omivier Löser

A model moisturizer

Each year, nearly ten tons of leaves of the plant are harvested. Once dried, they are stored by Sotramex, a Malagasy SME, which turns them into crude extracts for Clarins. Doubly certified by Ecocert (organic farming and extraction) and ESR (fair trade), this organic kalanchoe with a strong hydrating power is at the heart of the Hydra Essentiel line. It revives the natural synthesis of "sponge molecules" of the skin that, saturated with hydration, maintains its barrier function.

An active ingredient that can be found in some 60 skin care formulas, and even in a foundation.