300 SECONDS with Max Fontaine
Founder and CEO of Bôndy, a reforestation company in Madagascar.
We spoke with Max Fontaine, founder and CEO of Bôndy, a reforestation company in Madagascar. He talks about the importance of reforestation in Madagascar and the impact Bôndy is having on its partners and local population. The 25 year old entrepreneur also shares the secret to his success and important advice for start-up founders.
INTRODUCE YOURSELF AND WHAT YOU DO.
So I am Max Fontaine. I am 25 and I’m the Founder and CEO of Bôndy which is a social enterprise who acts in reforestation in Madagascar.
WHAT IS REFORESTATION AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Reforestation is the restocking of existing forests or woodlands. Why is it so important in Madagascar? First of all in the environment, forests are the heart of the circle of life. It is where all the biodiversity starts. It also regulates the rain, it clears the water, it helps the soil fertility.
And we think that forests have a big social impact in Madagascar. Reforestation creates jobs by planting the trees, managing the trees, by cultivating the plots and by monitoring the plots. It also creates revenue by selling the fruits that are harvested from the forest. So yes, forests have a really big impact.
WHAT IS BÔNDY AND WHAT MAKES IT UNIQUE?
Bôndy is a social enterprise. We all know that in Africa, most of the actors who plant trees are NGOs or associations. We choose to be a social enterprise to have more impact in the long run. One thing that makes our model unique is that we put the local population at the heart of our project. We analyse their needs, we work with them from the start of the project until the follow up and the end of the project which is almost five years after the tree planting.
Another thing that makes our model special is that we mobilise the Malagasy youth. In the last planting season we had more than 1,800 people who went with us to plant trees. So it really showed us how the Magalasy youth is really concerned about climate change issues and they are ready to act concretely in the field.
WHAT BENEFIT DOES BÔNDY'S WORK HAVE ON THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE MALAGASY PEOPLE?
I’d say that the main benefit we create, the main value we create is that we create jobs. We also allow companies to invest in impactful, and on the long run, reforestation projects.
WHAT CHALLENGES HAVE YOU FACED SINCE ESTABLISHING YOUR INITIATIVE?
The first one is the access to land. In madagascar, once you talk about land it’s a really touchy subject because with people there is a lack of confidence when you talk about land. And we had really big difficulties finding land to plant our trees. So we made the choice to plant all these trees on farmer’s land.
Then comes the second obstacle which is the lack of confidence from the farmers. We had to sensitise them, we had to go to talk to them in focus groups and awareness raising about the importance of planting forest, the importance of fighting climate change for them as they are farmers. But once the first farmers trusted us it was way easier to convince other people to work with us.
WHAT MEASURES ARE IN PLACE TO ENSURE BÔNDY IS SUSTAINABLE AND CONTINUES?
We in Bondy believe that profitable is equal to sustainable. If our partners -when I talk about partners, I talk about the local farmers, if the project is not profitable for them it won’t be sustainable. So we help them create value chains, for instance we help them not to sell the fruits directly raw but to transform them so they going longer in the value chain. Then we plant resident plots, which means that these plots aren’t able to have cyclones, floods or drought because we combine different species. We plant at least, I’d say ten or fifteen species in every plot.
WHAT POLICY CHANGES WILL STRENGTHEN THE IMPACT OF BÔNDY’S WORK?
We have to incentivise the local farmers. How? By, for instance importing less food and encourage more people here to produce more food locally. The second one is to incentivise the private sector to be more involved in CSR projects because the private sector has a big role to play in the fight against climate change and the local authorities have to make the private sector more involved in it.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE KEY FACTOR TO YOUR PERSONAL SUCCESS AS AN ENTREPRENEUR IN MADAGASCAR?
I’d say that the first one is resilience. Because we faced a lot of challenges it could have been with the local authorities, with partners, with farmers and stuff but every time you fail you have to get back on your feet and move again you know. And it’s really hard sometimes but you have to do it, you have to remember the vision and why you do it. How you can also do it is by having a good team. You have to work with people that are smarter than you, people that share the same values so that when it comes to difficult times as they occur, as one, you will face it together.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO INDIVIDUALS OR ORGANISATIONS LOOKING TO EXPLORE THE ECOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEVELOPMENT SECTOR?
Find the right problem to solve. One friend of mine once taught me, and I find it really interesting, that you have to fall in love with the problem, not the solutions. Because if you do not know what you’re fighting and what you’re trying to resolve, once the difficulties come you will give up you know. So you have to have that vision of what you want to do in the long run. It’s ok to start small then to scale, because people think that entrepreneurship is to achieve big things in the short run, but prove your model and then scale.