About MadaField
Where science meets the expedition.
MadaField is the Scientific Department of Cactus Tours Madagascar, an award-winning Malagasy tour company. Built by researchers, professors, and educational specialists, we exist to promote the scientific side of Madagascar: a living biodiversity gene reserve and laboratory for the world, through safe, structured, academically meaningful fieldwork.
Part of Cactus Tours Madagascar
The scientific department of an award-winning tour company.
MadaField is not a standalone start-up. It is the scientific department and educational product of Cactus Tours Madagascar, pairing an established operator's safety record and island-wide logistics with a team of researchers, professors, and educational specialists.
In operation since 1998, Cactus Tours Madagascar is a 100% Malagasy incoming tour operator and Destination Management Company headquartered in Antananarivo and licensed by the Malagasy Ministry of Tourism. Its multicultural team of Malagasy professionals, working in partnership with Swiss experts, designs custom journeys, ecotourism and community-based travel, wildlife and cultural itineraries, trekking and cycling expeditions, incentives, and educational tours across every major region of the island.
Sustainability sits at the centre of the operation: 100% of what travellers pay is spent in-country, a significant share of revenue reaches local partners, guides, boatmen, and villages directly, and the team runs an annual reforestation programme.
Memberships & Affiliations
- · Full member of the Madagascar Birding Association (MBA)
- · Member of Skål International
- · Member of the World Mountain People Association
- · Member of ATTA, the Adventure Travel Trade Association
- · Member of ASTA, the American Society of Travel Advisors
- · Member of ATIA, the Australian Travel Industry Association (formerly AFTA)
- · Member of TIES, the International Ecotourism Society
- · Supporter of BirdLife International
- · Stakeholder with many other community development associations across Madagascar
Recognition
- · Madagascar's Travelers' Choice 2026, awarded by TripAdvisor
- · Madagascar's Leading Tour Operator, World Travel Awards
- · Madagascar's Leading Destination Management Company, World Travel Awards
- · Recognised at the World Travel Awards for three consecutive years
Cactus Tours Madagascar
Founded in 1998 and 100% Malagasy owned, Cactus Tours Madagascar is an incoming tour operator and Destination Management Company based in Antananarivo, licensed by the Malagasy Ministry of Tourism. Nearly three decades of operation across the island supply the vehicles, guides, permits, lodges, domestic flights, and village-level relationships that make remote fieldwork logistically possible.
MadaField, the scientific arm
MadaField is the dedicated scientific department of Cactus Tours Madagascar, created to promote the scientific side of the island and to turn its operational strength into structured, academically credible field programmes.
A living gene reserve for the world
Madagascar is a living biodiversity gene reserve and a natural laboratory for the world, with roughly 90% of its species found nowhere else. Our mandate is to open that laboratory to students, faculty, and researchers, responsibly.
Our Position
A science-led educational expedition operator.
MadaField is the Scientific Department of Cactus Tours Madagascar, an award-winning tour company. The parent company contracts with your school or department and carries operational responsibility, while the department is run by researchers, professors and educational specialists, so the science holds up to academic scrutiny.
Scientific credibility, not commerce
Like a research association, our programmes are designed by working scientists. Data collected on every expedition feeds real long-term monitoring, with protocols, permits, and publication standards included.
Professional logistics, end to end
Like a tour operator, we take full operational responsibility: transfers, permits, accommodation, insurance guidance, in-country safety, and 24/7 field support, all planned and risk-assessed to expedition industry standards.
Educators at the core
What sits between the two is our team: researchers, university professors, and educational specialists who turn genuine fieldwork into structured, curriculum-linked, assessable learning.
03 · The Stratified Approach
Content layered like a rainforest.
We treat learning as a stratigraphy, from the visionary canopy down to the detailed forest floor. Each expedition moves a student through every layer.
Awe & Authority
Every expedition opens with the vast scale of the Malagasy wilderness: a landscape 88 million years in isolation, where lineages evolved into forms found nowhere else.
Rigorous Method
Participants train in the exact protocols of long-term monitoring: transect design, behavioural sampling, camera-trapping, mist-netting, and benthic reef survey.
Genuine Contribution
Data collected feeds directly into ongoing research and locally-managed conservation, so your fieldwork is a real line in the archive, not a rehearsal.
Academic Legacy
Expeditions align to UN Sustainable Development Goals and university curriculum standards, with credit-bearing options and independent research projects.
04 · For Every Field Scientist
Built for schools, universities, and independent researchers alike.
School Groups
Teacher-led cohorts aged 15–18, fully risk-managed with qualified expedition leaders and curriculum-linked assessment.
University Faculties
Semester field courses and study-abroad modules in biodiversity, marine biology, and natural-resource management.
Individual & Gap-Year
Fellowships, internships, and independent research placements with recognised qualifications.
Researchers
Access to long-term datasets, field stations, and collaborative study design across six biomes.
Field Partners · Named institutions disclosed on request
Malagasy Ornithological Partners
Avian phylogenetics · Masoala & Maromizaha
Rainforest Research Station
Long-term primate monitoring · Ranomafana
Locally-Managed Marine Areas
Community reef stewardship · Andavadoaka
Community Development Partners
Conservation and livelihoods · Anosy
Research Governance
The paperwork that makes the science legitimate.
Faculty evaluating a field provider ask the same questions in the same order. These are our answers, stated plainly, with the underlying documentation available for review.
Permits & Legal Basis
We obtain every permit the work requires
Securing the necessary authorisations is our responsibility, not yours. We apply for and hold all research, park access, and site permits required for each programme, issued by the Ministère de l'Environnement et du Développement Durable, Madagascar National Parks, and the relevant regional authorities, with site agreements held alongside our Malagasy partner institutions. Where a project needs additional or specialised permissions, including sampling, export, or filming, we arrange those too. Nothing is collected, handled, or sampled outside the scope of a current permit, and permit references are supplied to visiting faculty on request.
Ethics & Animal Welfare
Reviewed before anyone reaches the field
Vertebrate work follows ASAB/ABS guidelines and, for participants from institutions requiring it, is submitted to the home IACUC or ethics committee before departure. Capture, handling, and ringing are performed only by licensed personnel; participants observe and record. Human-subjects work, including interviews and surveys, requires informed consent in Malagasy and IRB clearance.
Access & Benefit Sharing
Nagoya compliance, not an afterthought
Madagascar is a party to the Nagoya Protocol. Any genetic or biological material, including acoustic and image data with commercial potential, is governed by prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms. Specimens and samples remain in-country unless an export permit and material transfer agreement are in place.
Equitable Authorship
Against parachute science
Data generated on our programmes is co-owned with the Malagasy institutions and communities where it is collected. Malagasy colleagues are named co-authors, not acknowledgements, and results are returned to the site in Malagasy and French before publication in English.
Academic Credit
Awarded by your institution, not by us
We are not a degree-granting body. We provide the syllabus, documented contact hours, assessment rubrics, supervision records, and a transcript pack so that your home department can award credit under its own regulations. Faculty are welcome to review the academic file before committing a cohort.
Safety & Safeguarding
Documented, audited, and rehearsed
Risk assessments, medical screening, evacuation planning, and safeguarding policy are held for every site and shared in full with schools, universities, and parents. Field staff hold current wilderness first-aid qualifications, and under-18 programmes operate to enhanced safeguarding standards.
The People Behind It