Speaker A
when i was kid my grandparents teach that there are some people who live in madagascar before [Music] they were very little people and they live in forests and they respect the environment but then comes many people from other
Anthony Bourdain and Darren Aronofsky explore Madagascar's capital, cuisine, and forests, confronting poverty, deforestation, and eco-tourism's promise.
Key Takeaways
- Madagascar's extraordinary biodiversity is under severe threat from deforestation, driven largely by poverty and survival needs.
- Economic hardship and political instability leave most Malagasy people unable to prioritize environmental protection.
- Eco-tourism is widely proposed as a solution, but it risks reproducing colonial-style dynamics if locals serve mainly as workers for outsiders.
- Madagascar's food culture reflects layered history, blending indigenous, African, and French influences.
What the video covers
- Bourdain and director Darren Aronofsky travel to Madagascar, a biodiverse island where roughly 80% of animal species exist nowhere else.
- The episode opens in Antananarivo (Tana), the crowded, chaotic capital, with local meals and a visit to musician Rossi, a former politically marginalized figure now in parliament.
- Locals describe poverty, weak political leadership, and limited education, with most of the 22 million people living on under two dollars a day.
- Madagascar's settlement history is outlined: early settlement around 700 AD, later African arrivals, and French colonization from 1895, which left buildings and the French language behind.
- Chef Mariette, a former culinary ambassador for colonial-era visitors and presidents, preserves a fusion of royal Malagasy cuisine and classical French technique.
- A segment on Madagascar's natural resources highlights rosewood trafficking and oil prospecting that leave little benefit for the country.
- Deforestation is driven by slash-and-burn agriculture and charcoal use; about 90% of the original forests are gone.
- Dr. Patricia Wright's work created Ranomafana National Park, home to rare lemurs such as the golden bamboo lemur.
- The Tanala people, forest dwellers, describe repeatedly relocating villages because of slash-and-burn farming.
- Eco-tourism is presented as the common hope for saving the island, but Bourdain questions whether it amounts to a modern form of colonialism.
Chapters
- 00:00Opening and Introduction to Madagascar
- 04:00Arriving in Antananarivo and Meeting Darren Aronofsky
- 05:30History of Settlement and Colonization
- 07:10Dining in Tana and Political Context
- 09:45Chef Mariette and Royal Malagasy Cuisine
- 12:10Natural Resources, Eco-Tourism, and Colonialism Debate
- 14:50Rural Forests, Slash-and-Burn Farming, and Ranomafana
- 23:40Closing Reflections and Final Scenes
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
countries from africa from asia spain from france many of us don't know their history [Music] i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] shy uh
Speaker A
[Music] oh [Music] hello [Music] market [Music] over the years i've let a lot of extraordinary landscapes recede into a blur outside my windows i've looked maybe seen may be noticed then gone we all carry different experiences inside us we see things
Speaker A
differently don't we madagascar exotic unspoiled paradise or microcosm for the end of times antananarivo tana for short madagascar's crowded chaotic capital city [Music] hey dylan base camp oh that's quite a rain [Music] i don't know i'm not sure i could be uh
Speaker A
in front of the camera yeah just ignore him i'm so used to like controlling everything darren aronofsky director of the film's pie requiem for a dream the wrestler black swan and as it would turn out sort of appropriate to our location noah
Speaker A
he asked me if he could go along on a trip with us i said where do you want to go so madagascar i knew almost nothing about him i knew it was an animated film that i've seen many times in my daughter
Speaker A
i guess it's one of the more extreme distant places that you hear about that you know you'll never go to unless something really weird summons you and you're sort of that weird force we're an island in the indian ocean
Speaker A
right with this amazing ethnic mix incredible landscape something like 80 of the animals here don't exist anywhere else what does it mean when an ecosystem goes out of balance what is the blowback uh here you can see the blowback you
Speaker A
know people have been chopping down the forest now suddenly you don't have soil anymore and you can't grow anything anymore it's just it's a really situation there we go there we go all right important questions because we're just getting to know each other
Speaker A
you are a vegetarian yes and it just sort of happened with the release of noah in scripture he is a vegetarian as was adam and eve humans weren't given permission to eat the animals until after the flood all right well we'll see who's doing
Speaker A
better at the end of this day a little social experiment here madagascar was settled best we can tell around 700 a.d by people from what is now indonesia later by africans in 1895 the french took it killed off a
Speaker A
substantial number of people in the process and as they do left behind beautiful buildings and the french language when independence came in 1960 it was sudden and ill-prepared for continuing political incompetence has left most of madagascar's 22 million
Speaker A
people living on less than two dollars a day do you know this place do you eat here yes wednesday saturday to go out before going to nightclub go to luke's first meal in country and i suggested this place
Speaker A
i thought it would be perfect darren being a vegetarian and all this is what you call being passive aggressive i think so what's good here look soo pork right pork my favorite vegetable juice the head sounds good yeah
Speaker A
i'm not going to have loops i'm going to go just with vegetables beans and i don't want to taste it i'm not going to taste but cake head not today those are going to be fun the torture of darren
Speaker A
you have the looks always take it with beans rossi the famous musician here is after a period out of favor with the previous government back home and elected to parliament and this is i think rapture the leaves of magno great there we go
Speaker A
so these days what are the big issues that are not being taken care of poverty and not enough education we are very rich you know we have oil we have but our political leader most of the time are crook how much does
Speaker A
uh the environmental issues matter to the people it's just about survival they don't care the international communities i paid a lot of money to protect the forest you protect the monkey you don't protect the people i eat the monkey if i'm hungry i eat
Speaker A
them they don't care about the world is going more and more warm yeah climate change yeah okay 12 okay 12. you are gonna die yes okay you're gonna die that's life for them just normal a lot of people
Speaker A
feel that the future should be eco-tourism they should essentially be working in hotels and restaurants for tourists yeah that's kind of a return to colonialism isn't it that's it exactly [Music] [Music] [Music] hey [Music] tell me what you think of this one i'm
Speaker A
looking forward to this it's a very famous dish goose shredded meat very cool there's always some place where the flame is kept burning history kept alive however faintly this is the stuffing these days in madagascar's capital city it's left
Speaker A
to mariette the epitome of the cooking of the cuisine of this region is the way mariette cooks it [Music] oh [Music] you are you are like during the colonial period mariette was a frequent culinary ambassador [Music] you are like the sun on my skin
Speaker A
[Music] the go-to chef for visiting presidents and royalty president a success story her mansion high atop oatville the former neighborhood of choice for aristocrats and colonizers alike [Music] though semi retired mariette continues to entertain guests from time to time
Speaker A
so this is broth with chicken and ginger these dishes marry mostly disappeared malagasy royal cuisine with the techniques and training of classical french so moisten the rice with the broth exactly with the broth wow look at this this is a vegetable
Speaker A
lasagna it's one of the side dishes it's like a salad it's cauliflower carrots string beans most malagash don't eat meat at every meal it's because it's expensive most managers will eat rice broth with vegetables and that's meat yeah you do fine yeah absolutely
Speaker A
[Music] this is a country that is very rich in natural resources madagascar we have a lot of things that a lot of people want like for example the trafficking of rosewood prospecting for oil for gas and then don't leave anything for the rest of the
Speaker A
country this is an island paradise and it's disappearing very very quickly a lot of our forests have been burned down because people don't have land on which to grow their crops the best case scenario that everybody seems to raise
Speaker A
is eco-tourism will save the day the local people will be what cleaning wages cooking and performing traditional ethnic dances yeah absolutely to me this is not an ideal option and we see it um what's an ideal option though
Speaker A
[Music] heading south from tana it's a very different country out there where rice is the difference between life and death [Music] between the traditional slash and burn agriculture that's existed here since this island was first settled and the imperative of charcoal is heat
Speaker A
source 90 of the forests and jungles that covered madagascar are gone [Music] anything not yet they're very elusive they're very difficult to see thanks largely to the work of dr patricia wright over 40 000 hectares of forest have been set aside and protected with
Speaker A
the creation of rana mafana national park her recently completed research station is a state-of-the-art complex that reminds one of that cynical spielberg franchise what was it jurassic jurassic merch here he is he's right next to me can you
Speaker A
see here oh wow really right next to me hello the area provides essential habitat for the golden bamboo lemur a species dr wright discovered here in 1986 and the greater bamboo lemur previously thought extinct there's only 500 of these in the wild in
Speaker A
the whole world wow lily what's the biggest pressure on their population slash and burn agriculture some places they're haunted oh yeah oh yeah look at it oh beautiful oh it's so nice oh whoa it's taking a leak right now yeah once
Speaker A
hopefully it's on an editorial statement yeah [Music] look this is the kind of bamboo shoot that the lemurs love it's full of protein and it's full of cyanide the cyanide not a problem for them they can tolerate all kinds of cyanide the cyanide comes
Speaker A
straight through in the uh poop do they know how they get it through their system we're working on that okay what is the do on the outside of it just do careful oh don't touch how's your finger feeling it felt a
Speaker A
little sharp but like a fuzzy sharpness but didn't get it yeah fuzzy sharpness you just wait a bit yeah it's like five or six serious it's just like by the glass actually a little little tiny tiny tiny little
Speaker A
sharpie but if i lick my finger am i gonna die probably are you serious [Music] can it go through the skin now that i touched it you have to eat it okay hopes for black swan 2 the revenge
Speaker A
we're dash today oh wow right above you is the philly madagascar been good for the lemur business there you go i think the cartoon really woke up the world to the fact that there was a place called madagascar although many
Speaker A
people think that it doesn't really exist so what do you think happens how hard is it to maintain the forest it's incredibly hard you know we've been working with the villagers around the park and i think they really do understand
Speaker A
the value of these extraordinary levers and the value of the forest and the economic value of tourism is tremendous for this country the boundaries of ratamafana park protect what they can of madagascar's rapidly diminishing rainforest but it's not all about lemurs and rare
Speaker A
species and unspoiled beautiful he places the tanaa people these are the people of the forest this is the fifth time they've had to change the location of the village because they do slice and burn [Music] agriculture this ceremony today is a ceremony to
Speaker A
celebrate the fact that 17 people from the village of batalahe are going to donate their land to conservation that won't be cut down [Music] before the tana land can officially become a part of the park the gods the ancestors somebody must be
Speaker A
appeased and that as it often does means something must die seen this a lot i usually don't go when this is happening wow for someone with as dark a world view judging from his films anyway as the newly vegetarian mr aronofsky
Speaker A
he seems unusually uncomfortable with the bleeding realities of local custom preferring instead to trip the light fantastic in the rainforest idol [Music] [Music] wow oh my gosh foreign how do you make the argument that it is in your interest to
Speaker A
protect the area of forest when the forest means fuel food what we've had to do of course is make their lives better in exchange house projects education projects tourism many other people work as tour guides they work in the hotels they have work
Speaker A
they didn't have any work when they got here but also the benefits of researchers we hire 85 people full time josie who has is now the director of the ronald national park where is your village that you lived in here
Speaker A
when you're a little girl it's linguina so that's on one side of the park [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] the ancestor is presumably okay with the land transfer it's time to party [Music] dr wright worked hard to establish ranamafana park
Speaker A
with the stated aim of protecting the absolutely unique flora and fauna here and reducing human pressures on the area [Music] this however is the face of human pressure just so we're clear hey take care guys [Music] right on the edge of the park wow and uh
Speaker A
right on the edge literally is where they built the power lines and where they're slashing and burning we were trying for landscapes like this in noaa sort of a cormac mccarthy post-apocalyptic wasteland thing going on right the road
Speaker A
[Music] look all the original fauna in flora in new york city and chicago and detroit and los angeles are gone we don't feel too guilty about that that's the old argument though of all these developing countries is you did it
Speaker A
but didn't they teach us that in the third grade two wrongs don't make a [Music] right [Music] [Applause] [Music] do what were they welding on a oil pan [Music] most of madagascar's french-built rail network has crumbled into nothingness but this train
Speaker A
still runs look how it's painted there's our paint pitch first class we ride in style [Music] how old is this train wow it works oil pan work i hope that's not a pitying look i see on some of their faces
Speaker A
they're all looking at us 163 kilometers to the one-time major port town of manakara it's both the greatest thing ever meaning a fantastically scenic immersion into parts of madagascar that most visitors never get to see and then at times punishing crawl
Speaker A
for the majority of the 17 station stops along the line this train provides the only connection to the outside world people hop off and on load and unload fruit lychees bananas form a few foreigners on board watch and there are vendors selling food and
Speaker A
drink which is increasingly a necessity as the supposed eight-hour trip is said to sometimes approach eighteen all right so we got a shaker we got an umbrella champagne rum you let the train pour for you right [Music] this is the lychee oh that's that smells
Speaker A
good yeah darren woke early and hit the hotel kitchen to make the necessary fresh lychee puree for festive cocktails well hey wait wait wait wait [Music] all righty oh yes [Music] it's not bad it's not bad at all okay
Speaker A
nice summery drink the lychee makes it delicious makes it yeah what do we call it um the golden lemur would be good [Music] flashes of everyday life [Music] the struggle to live to eat viewed from a moving train
Speaker A
then gone [Music] in its plumes of uh different areas of madagascar burning everywhere you can see [Music] after seven hours or so the imperatives of food any food become more urgent this is it this is the food stop
Speaker A
i'm starving i am still with you [Music] look at this kid's wearing a banana like a yarmulke the wonderland of fresh papaya salads along with tasty train station treats we were told would be here well it's somewhat sub-optimal
Speaker A
little did i know there would be a feeding frenzy there's no papaya salad everything's gone dude here's some bananas yeah two of those two of those no see we get what we can now that's quite a scene it's pretty
Speaker A
insane it's hard to complain about the lack of food options if you look around lots of kids yeah it's hard [Music] ah this is nice this is the way to travel until like a palm leaf comes flying [Music]
Speaker A
watch it watch it watch it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good night this is what it's like to wake up at the end of the world beyond here to the east nothing but thousands of miles of indian ocean
Speaker A
[Music] morning and fishermen return with their [Music] [Applause] [Music] catch you felt how wobbly that boat was coming over yes imagine going out into the serious chop with that thing and fishing manicara was a major port back in the
Speaker A
days a transportation hub but now it's a sleepy beach town that is a disturbingly large spider i would be unhappy if i saw that coming across my pillow [Laughter] dude it's a chicken i know we're just talking about spiders and chickens
Speaker A
hey that lobster's smelling good no they're disgusting they're like giant insects walking and where they eat what are they corpses dead things right you are such a debbie downer such a downer [Music] you were born here and your parents are
Speaker A
from here from here he's a fisherman how far out do they go out about 50 miles sometimes he goes out 50 miles yes yes every day every day whoa awesome this is typical dish green leaves eggplant some spices then the zebu meat
Speaker A
it should be pointed out we bought a lot of food this sort of spread is not an everyday meal in these parts oh there's your veggie platter there you go man now we have a piece of a shark
Speaker A
[Music] he says that before 2000 more fishes but since then smaller fish smaller fish and the quantity as well smaller there you go oh that's a papaya salad yeah yeah yeah it's one of those days where the artifice of making television
Speaker A
threatens to move dangerously into cruelty who gets to eat and when becomes a pressing concern to the two of us can we get the kids eating can we hand out the food um in a local village like this
Speaker A
first lady serve the men right and then yes later because it's like a customs it may not be our system but it's a system the kids are getting ready for theirs over there and it becomes clear that yes
Speaker A
everybody will eat [Music] you picked a bad time to become a vegetarian you really did oh man the food is amazing there's some really good cooks at work here today i mean really amazing [Music] and then the music starts in the dancing
Speaker A
and as so often happens the not so spontaneous made for tv party becomes a real party [Applause] and we all for a little while anyway forget about where we came from and where we might be tomorrow [Applause] [Music]
Speaker A
[Applause] you are blessed today hallelujah the book of revelation said that whatever we do god can see and he take notes i will destroy this city because all of the people are sinners amen the camera is a liar it shows everything
Speaker A
it shows nothing it reveals only what we want often what we see is seen only from a window moving past then gone one window my window if you'd been here chances are you would have seen things differently whoa
Speaker A
you lived it now looking back if you were editing this show how would you tell this story uh this is it this is the food stop i'm starving i am so with you lots of kids [Music] this is really puppy
Speaker A
you always want a simple answer to everything to make it all make sense and it seems to i don't know it's just constantly surprising what can you see everywhere you go in the office in the market people are sin making sin
Speaker A
as a kid i always wondered if i was good enough to get on the ark so i always sort of empathize with the people who didn't make it god make all of the animals come inside the big ship and all of the people all
Speaker A
date but what's family are said it is on our ship god decides to destroy creation ten generations after he created everything so uh it must have hurt tremendously god will choose us like jesus noah himself he protects her
Speaker A
he will save us too hallelujah pray for yourself pray for your family [Music] pray god will save madagascar [Music] [Music] [Music] you
Topics:MadagascarAnthony BourdainParts Unknowndeforestationeco-tourismlemursMalagasy cuisinecolonialismRanomafanatravel documentary
