From the Berenty Reserve website: The de Heaulme family, owners of Berenty Estate, founded a sisal plantation in 1936 beside the Mandrare river in agreement with local clans of the Tandroy tribe. Some 5000 hectares of spiny forest were felled, but they conserved 1000 ha of natural forests, maintained as reserves to the present. The largest fragment, the 200 ha Berenty Reserve proper, includes closed canopy gallery forest of ancient tamarind trees, drier open scrub, and the surreal "spiny forest" of southern Madagascar.