Wildlife of Madagascar
Madagascar later split from India about 88 million years ago, allowing plants and animals on the island to evolve in relative isolation.
[1] As a result of the island's long isolation from neighboring continents, Madagascar is home to an abundance of plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth.
[2][3] Approximately 90 percent of all plant and animal species found in Madagascar are endemic,[4] including the lemurs (a type of strepsirrhine primate), the carnivorous fossa and many birds.
This distinctive ecology has led some ecologists to refer to Madagascar as the "eighth continent",[5] and the island has been classified by Conservation International as a biodiversity hotspot.
[6] Madagascar's isolation from other land masses throughout the Cenozoic Era has led to the evolution of a large proportion of endemic animal species and the absence of many taxa found on neighboring continents.
Some of Madagascar's animals appear to represent lineages that have been present since the breakup of Gondwana, while many others, including all of the nonflying native mammals, are descendants of ancestors that survived rare rafting or swimming voyages from Africa (likely aided by currents).
Endemic fish of Madagascar include two families, 15 genera and over 100 species, primarily inhabiting the island's freshwater lakes and rivers.
The humid eastern part of the island was formerly covered in rainforest with many palms, ferns and bamboo, although much of this forest has been reduced by human activity.
[25] This forest loss is largely fueled by tavy ("fat"), a traditional slash-and-burn agricultural practice imported to Madagascar by the earliest settlers.
[26] More recent contributors to the loss of forest cover include the growth in cattle herd size since their introduction around 1000 years ago, a continued reliance on charcoal as a fuel for cooking, and the increased prominence of coffee as a cash crop over the past century.
Although banned by then-President Marc Ravalomanana from 2000 to 2009, the collection of small quantities of precious timber from national parks was re-authorized in January 2009 and has dramatically intensified under the administration of current head of state Andry Rajoelina as a key source of state revenues to offset cuts in donor support following Ravalomanana's ouster.
[36] In 2003 Ravalomanana announced the Durban Vision, an initiative to more than triple the island's protected natural areas to over 60,000 km2 (23,000 sq mi) or 10 percent of Madagascar's land surface.
[38] Local timber merchants are harvesting scarce species of rosewood trees from protected rainforests within Marojejy National Park and exporting the wood to China for the production of luxury furniture and musical instruments.
This organization, directed by Julie Hanta Razafimanahaka, focuses on community education in order to allow local people to understand the threats of bushmeat consumption, not only from a conservation standpoint but from a human health perspective as well.
