Bordeaux (who only wished to give his first name), a farmer with sharp features, does not know who Donald Trump is, but he knows that everything stopped for him in February. Suddenly, gone were the promises of a permanent house, enough seed for five years, fertilizers, farming equipment and technical support to cultivate a 2-hectare field provided by the government − not to mention a health center and school for his children.

It was based on these promises that, two years ago, Bordeaux had agreed to leave the Menabe Antimena Protected Area – the last refuge of Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, the smallest lemur in the world – to settle in Bezeky, the ultimate destination of a relocation project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has since been dismantled by the American president.

Bezeky was one component of the Mikajy project – meaning "sustainable management" in Malagasy – launched in 2018 by the US to slow the massive destruction of the dry forests in western Madagascar, caused by the cultivation of peanuts and maize by migrants, most of whom came from the drought-stricken South of the country.

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