Early in the morning, we line up our 4X4 on the Manambolo River to be among the first to cross the barge. We drive the road to Belo sur Tsiribihina to which we will arrive before lunch.The Baobab Alley: The Avenue or Alley of the Baobabs is a prominent group of baobab trees lining the dirt road between Morondava and Belo sur Tsiribihina in the Menabe region of western Madagascar. Its amazing landscape attracts travelers from all over the world, making it one of the most visited places in the region. It has been a center of local conservation efforts, and was granted temporary protected status by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests in July 2007, the first step in making it Madagascar’s first natural monument. Along the avenue, in a segment about 260 m long, there are about 20-25 trees about 30 meters high, of the species Adansonia grandidieri, endemic to Madagascar. About 20-25 more trees of this species grow in paddy fields. The baobabs, up to 800 years old, known locally as reniala (Malagasy for « mother of the forest »), are a legacy of the dense tropical forests that once thrived in Madagascar. Originally, the trees did not stand alone above the harsh landscape of thicket, but stopped in a dense forest. Over the years, as the population of the country grew, the forests were cleared for agriculture, leaving only the baobab trees, that the locals retained both in terms of their value as a source of food and material of construction. The area is not a national park, and the trees are threatened by deforestation, effluent from rice paddies and sugarcane plantations, and forest and forest fires. Despite its popularity as a tourist destination, the area has no visitor center or entrance fees, and local residents receive little income from tourism.