The ecological restoration work here is locked in a race against deforestation as hard-pressed Malagasy turn to the forests to make charcoal, build homes or clear the forest for subsistence food production.

Fresh off the papal flight, Gerry tells us if a schism may actually happen.

Pope Francis encouraged the Mauritian people to support “a better division of income and the integral promotion of the poor” and “not to yield to the temptation of an idolatrous economic model that sacrifices human lives on the altar of speculation and profit alone.”

An English translation of the pope's prayer in Madagascar.

“Our young people are our foremost mission! We must invite them to find their happiness in Jesus,” the pope said at Mass for 368,000 Catholics.

Father Opeka welcomed Pope Francis to Akamasoa which, he said, “was one a zone of exclusion, suffering violence and death” but over the past 30 years “Divine Providence has created an ‘oasis of hope’ in which children have regained their dignity, young people have returned to work and their parents have begun to work to prepare a future for their children.”