Mananara Nord National Reserve

Madagascar is truly a attractive holiday and vacation destination boasting many hidden parks and reserves, just like the Mananara Nord National Reserve! Interestingly, Madagascar has an extremely rich biodiversity with more than 85 percent of its species being endemic. Most people don’t know this but the fact that the island of Madagascar was cut off from other landmasses for millions of year’s meant that animals and plants evolved into forms that cannot be found anywhere else in the world – making Madagascar a one of its kind vacation destination! The island's terrestrial environments are considered distinctive for wild-eyed lemurs, serrated limestone formations and the world's greatest assemblage of great baobab trees; offshore waters conceal the island's vibrant and threatened coral reefs. This is one of the main attractions that travellers have for visiting Madagascar… diversity and hidden treasures!

The Mananara-Nord Biosphere Reserve is situated on the north-east coast of Madagascar, conveniently located in close proximity to many other Madagascar highlights. Mananara Nord is located 250 km north of Tamatave and spreads over 144,000 hectares - 23,000 of which are a terrestrial park and 1,000 hectares are marine habitat.  The fascinating ecosystems in the Mananara-Nord Biosphere Reserve are diverse and include tropical humid forest, sandy coastal plains with littoral vegetation, river vegetation, mangrove formations, marshlands, and coral reefs. Holding such a diverse array of highlights, you can be assured that a Madagascar holiday to Mananara Nord will definitely be an unforgettable experience.  

One of the many lovely aspects of visiting the Mananara Nord is that it is very untouched – a secluded paradise! The vegetation is formed by tropical humid forests, mangroves, marshlands and littoral and river plants. The marine section is formed by several small islands and coral reefs. The marine reserve comprises of magnificent coral reefs with 132 different coral species. Madagascar National Parks reports over 100 species of marine invertebrates, nearly 200 types of fish, and more than 100 molluscs and echinoderms. Humpback whales are also easy to see between July and September, and at times a rare dugong can be spotted - the potential to spot something fantastic (in the forest or under the water) is great…!

Mananara Nord gives shelter to a remarkable variety of fauna. Small mammals are especially well represented: 17 rodents and 13 lemur species live in these humid forests, such as aye-aye, eastern woolly lemur, brown mouse lemur and the biggest of all lemurs, the indri indri. The indri population of the park is much darker than other groups’ living further south which makes spotting them a little bit easier and extremely fascinating. Mananara Nord is also home to 77 bird species, including Red-tailed Vanga, helmet Vanga and Madagascar kestrel, as well as 21 reptiles and 8 amphibian species.  The flora in Mananara Nord is also exceptionally diverse, as more than 1200 different plants have been recorded.  Palm trees (47 species) and tropical flowers including some local endemic orchids are representative of this magnificent forest.