Foreword

Alison Jolly was known in the academic world for her ground-breaking work as a primatologist, but somehow that title feels wrong. It conjures up the image of a soulless scientist, whilst Alison was one of the warmest, funniest and most passionate women that you could meet. More than any other person she was instrumental in initiating me, so by extension the thousands who read my guide to Madagascar, into a 38–year love affair with the island in all its diversity and complexity.

I first came to Madagascar as a tourist in 1976, with zero knowledge of the wildlife. When I saw my first lemurs in Nosy Komba I thought the sexually dimorphic black lemurs (only the males are black) were two different species. By that time Alison had been studying ring-tailed lemurs in Berenty for fourteen years and was the expert on the subject. So when I was asked to lead a pioneering tour of Madagascar in 1982 I bought her book A World Like Our Own: Man and Nature in Madagascar. It changed my life. Here was a description of all aspects of this lovely, but challenging country, with intimate portraits of lemurs but also of the people and the dilemmas of promoting conservation in an island where poverty is rife. In that book I also ‘met’ Richard Jolly in the dedication. ‘Tell the whole story,’ he said; ‘ecology with people, not just your animals.’ And that’s what she did, with Richard’s continuing encouragement, for the rest of her life. Lemurs were only part of the picture, not the obsessive whole, because she knew and understood the people—from dignitaries to peasants—as well as she knew the lemurs. A World Like Our Own showcased Alison the writer. Her talent for narrative and description is the equal of the very best of our travel writers, and brought the island of Madagascar to the notice of the general public for the first time. For a while we had a lively correspondence about the possibility of my reissuing the book as a paperback, which sadly never happened, but it gave me an excuse to get to know her and she was a generous contributor to many editions of my guidebooks.

Alison was surely the funniest primatologist ever; not, I think, through any conscious effort, but because that’s how she was. Her humour was infectious. You might start a serious discussion about lemur behavior but end up hooting with laughter over the lighter side of Madagascar. Also Alison was as anthropomorphic about lemurs as the rest of us. When the albino lemur Sapphire (subject of a TV programme) died, she told me ‘The death of Little Nell was nothing compared with our reactions to the demise of this little lemur.’ Where she was absolutely serious, however, was when discussing conservation issues where her views were her own and based on her intimate knowledge of the country, rather than popular but less informed, opinion. Thus she came down firmly on the side of the controversial Rio Tinto titanium mine—and I can’t imagine that anyone listening to her arguments could have disagreed with her. As she said: ‘If you think that people and forest will somehow muddle through before the hills are scraped as bare as Haiti, then there is no reason to think that money and organization will improve life. If you look at the statistics of forest loss, you opt for the mine.’

Perhaps her most accessible book of all was Lords and Lemurs: Mad Scientists, Kings with Spears, and the Survival of Diversity in Madagascar. It is Alison at her best: funny, fascinating and illuminating. Anyone who has been to, or is thinking of going to, Berenty can enjoy it.

So we come to her last book, dictated during the final months of her life, but based on the diaries she wrote during all those changing decades in Madagascar. And as you read you understand that she wrote because she had to. Her work in Madagascar threw up so many triumphs, frustrations, joys and disappointments that a natural writer like Alison needed to record them. And how lucky we are that she could do it so well, and that Zed Books is bringing these unique accounts to all those who love Madagascar, whether tourist, nature lover, dedicated conservationist or professional primatologist. What a legacy!

Hilary Bradt