Scientists have discovered a new population of the Belalanda chameleon (Furcifer belalandaensis), boosting hope for one of Madagascar's rarest chameleons.
While the species was known only from a handful of trees in two Malagasy villages, researchers from the University of Kent's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) have discovered another population near a third village.
According to DICE professor, Richard Griffiths, the discovery is "very important for [the Belalanda chameleon], which is probably one of the world's rarest reptiles."
Griffiths adds that, "Habitat loss and degradation is the main threat to chameleons and biodiversity in general in Madagascar. Our teams are working closely with local communities and our partners to raise awareness of the plight of these amazing creatures."
Thursday, April 21, 2011
New bird discovered in Madagascar
CITATION: Steve M. Goodman, Marie Jeanne Raherilalao, and Nicholas L. Block. Patterns of morphological and genetic variation in the Mentocrex kioloides complex (Aves: Gruiformes: Rallidae) from Madagascar, with the description of a new species. Zootaxa. 2776: 49-60 (2011).
The rich and unique biodiversity of Madagascar has a new member: a forest dwelling bird in the rail family, dubbed Mentocrex beankaensis. In 2009 US and Malaygasy scientists conducted a survey in Madagascar's dry Beanka Forest. They discovered several new species, of which the new rail is the first to be described.
"This bird they’ve known about for decades, but no one has been able to go find it and get a specimen of it," said Nick Block, a graduate student at the University of Chicago who studied the new birds molecular genetic told the Chicago Sun Times, describing the new species as 'not common at all'.
Similar to another Malagasy rail, researchers were able to show Mentocrex beankaensis is a new species with taxonomic and DNA studies.
The dry Beanka forests, where the species survived, rest on limestone, which in some cases have formed dramatic spires. The Beanka forest protected area is currently managed by Biodiversity Conservation Madagascar (BCM).
"We [BCM] have taken an approach to the conservation of the Beanka Forest resting on working in unison with local people to fulfill aspects of their economic and development needs and bestowing a sense of natural patrimony of the organisms that live in their forest. These are aspects critical for any long-term successful project. The discovery of this new species of bird and other organisms during the late 2009 expedition underlines the importance of our mission and the uniqueness of the Beanka Forest," the director of BCM, Aldus Andriamamonjy, said in a press release.
The rich and unique biodiversity of Madagascar has a new member: a forest dwelling bird in the rail family, dubbed Mentocrex beankaensis. In 2009 US and Malaygasy scientists conducted a survey in Madagascar's dry Beanka Forest. They discovered several new species, of which the new rail is the first to be described.
"This bird they’ve known about for decades, but no one has been able to go find it and get a specimen of it," said Nick Block, a graduate student at the University of Chicago who studied the new birds molecular genetic told the Chicago Sun Times, describing the new species as 'not common at all'.
Similar to another Malagasy rail, researchers were able to show Mentocrex beankaensis is a new species with taxonomic and DNA studies.
The dry Beanka forests, where the species survived, rest on limestone, which in some cases have formed dramatic spires. The Beanka forest protected area is currently managed by Biodiversity Conservation Madagascar (BCM).
"We [BCM] have taken an approach to the conservation of the Beanka Forest resting on working in unison with local people to fulfill aspects of their economic and development needs and bestowing a sense of natural patrimony of the organisms that live in their forest. These are aspects critical for any long-term successful project. The discovery of this new species of bird and other organisms during the late 2009 expedition underlines the importance of our mission and the uniqueness of the Beanka Forest," the director of BCM, Aldus Andriamamonjy, said in a press release.
Saving Madagascar's largest carnivorous mammal: the fossa
INTERVIEW WITH MIA-LANA LÜHRS
Madagascar is a land of wonders: dancing lemurs, thumbnail-sized chameleons, the long-fingered aye-aye, great baobab trees, and the mighty fossa. Wait—what? What's a fossa? It's true that when people think of Madagascar rarely do they think of its top predator, the fossa—even if they are one of the few who actually recognizes the animal. While the fossa gained a little notice in the first Madagascar film by Dreamworks, its role in the film was overshadowed by the lemurs. In this case, art imitates life: in conservation and research this feline-like predator has long lived in the shadow of its prey, the lemur. Even scientists are not certain what to do with the fossa: studies have shown that it's not quite a cat and not quite a mongoose and so the species—and its few Malagasy relatives—have been placed in their own family, the Eupleridae, of which the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox) is the biggest. But if this is the first you've heard of such matters, don't feel bad: one of the world's only fossa-researchers, Mia-Lana Lührs also stumbled on the species.
"I found out about fossas only by coincidence. When I was working in a zoo, I became familiar with the European Endangered Species Program (EEP). Searching these programs on the web, I came to the website of Duisburg Zoo where the fossa’s EEP is managed. When I saw the pictures of the fossas on that page, I was absolutely puzzled that I had never heard of this species before, although I have always been interested in carnivores. I couldn’t even tell which family of carnivore this one might belong to," Mia-Lana Lührs, a PhD student at the University of Göttingen in Germany, told mongabay.com. Despite such a puzzling introduction to Madagascar's biggest predator, Lührs has become one of the world's foremost experts on the enigmatic animal.
Mia-Lana Lührs is a PhD student of the department of Sociobiology/Anthropology at the University of Göttingen. Her thesis focuses on the social system of Madagascar’s largest extant carnivore, the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox). Photo © Melanie Dammhahn.
Lührs says that fossas may have been, in part, neglected by conservationists and researchers for so long, because of the "dominance of primatological research (i.e. lemurs) in Madagascar […] in fact, fossas are such fascinating creatures that they should be popular all around the world despite their limited distribution."
Many characteristics make fossas wildly intriguing: adept arboreal hunting skills to take down lemurs and bizarre mating habits, including smaller females dominating the process, mating that can last hours and occur with multiple partners, and vocalizations that Lührs says "sounds like a murder is occurring."
"What follows is, how David Attenborough put it, 'a delicate affair'," Lührs explains. "Females will mate multiply with many but not all males present. They can copulate up to 57 times with up to 10 different males. A single copulation can last longer than six hours and one female can mate in one such period for 40 hours in total. That is definitely something interesting to look at as a fossa’s mating activity by far exceeds mammal average."
In her study of the fossa, Lührs has also had the thrill of watching these acrobatic carnivores hunt, including the first evidence of cooperative hunting by three fossa males.
"What followed was probably the most impressive scene I have ever seen in my life," she says. "Three male fossas started to hunt the single sifaka. [...] The whole chase went very quickly and at some point I was in the middle of it because the hunting fossas suddenly used the little wooden hut, which I used as a hide, as climbing substrate. Two males jumped right and left from me on the wooden beams of the hut, and splinters of wood, leaves and dust flew around me. […] Forty-five minutes after the very start of this hunt, the three male fossas finally managed to catch the sifaka when it became tired and made a single wrong decision."
Lührs believes the cooperative hunting was an evolutionary behavior leftover from Madagascar's past when giant lemurs would have provided fossas with meatier, and more difficult, prey.
"Now that giant lemurs are extinct, cooperative hunting appears useless unless it allows the participating individuals to catch a sifaka more rapidly. In the case that I have seen, it took three males 45 minutes. All three of them were totally exhausted afterwards and had to share about three kilograms of meat by three. That does not appear to me as an effective strategy," Lührs explains.
The fossa. Photo © Nick Garbutt .
Unfortunately fossas, like much of Madagascar's wild biodiversity, are faced with extinction. Classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, Lührs says more research is needed to know if fossas are in fact doing worse than believed. The greatest impact on fossas is habitat loss, which has led to numerous challenges for big predators requiring large spaces to hunt. In her study site, Kirindy Forest, Lührs sees what she calls a 'crowding effect', where fossa individuals are forced to compete for dwindling habitat.
"It is likely that we will soon see dramatic consequences of the ongoing habitat destruction, such as an increase in injuries and death due to frequent encounters of fossas with one another, high infant mortality (for the latter reason and because of food shortage), bad body condition, especially during the lean season in winter due to high competition for food, as well as all the problems of small populations such as inbreeding, sex ratio shifts and the threat of diseases. Moreover, more and more fossas seem to leave the forest in search for habitat and food," Lührs says.
Dwindling forests have also pushed fossas into Malagasy villages. The fossas are typically looking for poultry to catch, and seen as pests they are sometimes attacked by villagers.
"Given the value of every single chicken for a poor villager, this conflict can result in killings of the respective fossas. […] Mortality of fossas in surrounding village areas seems to be a major problem," Lührs says.
Lührs says she is pessimistic, but not hopeless regarding the long-term survival of the fossa. To save the species the first thing that is needed is more research, including "an intensive fossa survey all over Madagascar" according to Lührs. Right now conservationists simply don't know how many fossas survive and where populations are viable.
Where forest has been burnt down, savannah dominates Madagascar’s landscape. This habitat offers grazing ground for many zebus but its biodiversity is low. Very few native species manage to survive in savannah habitat, mainly generalizers, such as birds and insects. Photo © Melanie Dammhahn.
"On the longer perspective, I see an urgent need to make local people benefit from conservation: possibly the only way to change their mind about how to deal with fossas would be to assign some economic value to a living fossa," Lührs says. "Until now villagers do not see any economic value in a fossa, they just perceive it as a pest. But in fact, many tourists come every year to Kirindy to see exactly this species. Their money, however, rarely ends up in the villages. What we need is the awareness that the forest and its biodiversity are property of Malagasy people and that we should pay money for them to protect this forest and this species thereby creating some alternative income. And we are talking about very little money from our perspective which could make big changes from a Malagasy perspective."
For Lührs working with the fossa, a little known species, has its many rewards, including the chance to make new discoveries and develop a conservation plan that may make all the difference between long-term survival and extinction.
"I've always been much more concerned about species that die out secretly without anyone ever knowing they existed at all. The fossa is certainly one of those species. For the sake of conservation of the world’s biodiversity, I would therefore like to encourage more researchers to focus on the 'forgotten species in the background'," she says.
In a January 2011 interview Mia-Lana Lührs discussed new discoveries about Madagascar's biggest predator, the fossa; conservation efforts needed to save the species; the joy of working with a little-known species; and if she'd whether be a male or female fossa.
A curious fossa. Photo © Nick Garbutt .
Madagascar is a land of wonders: dancing lemurs, thumbnail-sized chameleons, the long-fingered aye-aye, great baobab trees, and the mighty fossa. Wait—what? What's a fossa? It's true that when people think of Madagascar rarely do they think of its top predator, the fossa—even if they are one of the few who actually recognizes the animal. While the fossa gained a little notice in the first Madagascar film by Dreamworks, its role in the film was overshadowed by the lemurs. In this case, art imitates life: in conservation and research this feline-like predator has long lived in the shadow of its prey, the lemur. Even scientists are not certain what to do with the fossa: studies have shown that it's not quite a cat and not quite a mongoose and so the species—and its few Malagasy relatives—have been placed in their own family, the Eupleridae, of which the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox) is the biggest. But if this is the first you've heard of such matters, don't feel bad: one of the world's only fossa-researchers, Mia-Lana Lührs also stumbled on the species.
"I found out about fossas only by coincidence. When I was working in a zoo, I became familiar with the European Endangered Species Program (EEP). Searching these programs on the web, I came to the website of Duisburg Zoo where the fossa’s EEP is managed. When I saw the pictures of the fossas on that page, I was absolutely puzzled that I had never heard of this species before, although I have always been interested in carnivores. I couldn’t even tell which family of carnivore this one might belong to," Mia-Lana Lührs, a PhD student at the University of Göttingen in Germany, told mongabay.com. Despite such a puzzling introduction to Madagascar's biggest predator, Lührs has become one of the world's foremost experts on the enigmatic animal.
Mia-Lana Lührs is a PhD student of the department of Sociobiology/Anthropology at the University of Göttingen. Her thesis focuses on the social system of Madagascar’s largest extant carnivore, the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox). Photo © Melanie Dammhahn.
Lührs says that fossas may have been, in part, neglected by conservationists and researchers for so long, because of the "dominance of primatological research (i.e. lemurs) in Madagascar […] in fact, fossas are such fascinating creatures that they should be popular all around the world despite their limited distribution."
Many characteristics make fossas wildly intriguing: adept arboreal hunting skills to take down lemurs and bizarre mating habits, including smaller females dominating the process, mating that can last hours and occur with multiple partners, and vocalizations that Lührs says "sounds like a murder is occurring."
"What follows is, how David Attenborough put it, 'a delicate affair'," Lührs explains. "Females will mate multiply with many but not all males present. They can copulate up to 57 times with up to 10 different males. A single copulation can last longer than six hours and one female can mate in one such period for 40 hours in total. That is definitely something interesting to look at as a fossa’s mating activity by far exceeds mammal average."
In her study of the fossa, Lührs has also had the thrill of watching these acrobatic carnivores hunt, including the first evidence of cooperative hunting by three fossa males.
"What followed was probably the most impressive scene I have ever seen in my life," she says. "Three male fossas started to hunt the single sifaka. [...] The whole chase went very quickly and at some point I was in the middle of it because the hunting fossas suddenly used the little wooden hut, which I used as a hide, as climbing substrate. Two males jumped right and left from me on the wooden beams of the hut, and splinters of wood, leaves and dust flew around me. […] Forty-five minutes after the very start of this hunt, the three male fossas finally managed to catch the sifaka when it became tired and made a single wrong decision."
Lührs believes the cooperative hunting was an evolutionary behavior leftover from Madagascar's past when giant lemurs would have provided fossas with meatier, and more difficult, prey.
"Now that giant lemurs are extinct, cooperative hunting appears useless unless it allows the participating individuals to catch a sifaka more rapidly. In the case that I have seen, it took three males 45 minutes. All three of them were totally exhausted afterwards and had to share about three kilograms of meat by three. That does not appear to me as an effective strategy," Lührs explains.
The fossa. Photo © Nick Garbutt .
Unfortunately fossas, like much of Madagascar's wild biodiversity, are faced with extinction. Classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, Lührs says more research is needed to know if fossas are in fact doing worse than believed. The greatest impact on fossas is habitat loss, which has led to numerous challenges for big predators requiring large spaces to hunt. In her study site, Kirindy Forest, Lührs sees what she calls a 'crowding effect', where fossa individuals are forced to compete for dwindling habitat.
"It is likely that we will soon see dramatic consequences of the ongoing habitat destruction, such as an increase in injuries and death due to frequent encounters of fossas with one another, high infant mortality (for the latter reason and because of food shortage), bad body condition, especially during the lean season in winter due to high competition for food, as well as all the problems of small populations such as inbreeding, sex ratio shifts and the threat of diseases. Moreover, more and more fossas seem to leave the forest in search for habitat and food," Lührs says.
Dwindling forests have also pushed fossas into Malagasy villages. The fossas are typically looking for poultry to catch, and seen as pests they are sometimes attacked by villagers.
"Given the value of every single chicken for a poor villager, this conflict can result in killings of the respective fossas. […] Mortality of fossas in surrounding village areas seems to be a major problem," Lührs says.
Lührs says she is pessimistic, but not hopeless regarding the long-term survival of the fossa. To save the species the first thing that is needed is more research, including "an intensive fossa survey all over Madagascar" according to Lührs. Right now conservationists simply don't know how many fossas survive and where populations are viable.
Where forest has been burnt down, savannah dominates Madagascar’s landscape. This habitat offers grazing ground for many zebus but its biodiversity is low. Very few native species manage to survive in savannah habitat, mainly generalizers, such as birds and insects. Photo © Melanie Dammhahn.
"On the longer perspective, I see an urgent need to make local people benefit from conservation: possibly the only way to change their mind about how to deal with fossas would be to assign some economic value to a living fossa," Lührs says. "Until now villagers do not see any economic value in a fossa, they just perceive it as a pest. But in fact, many tourists come every year to Kirindy to see exactly this species. Their money, however, rarely ends up in the villages. What we need is the awareness that the forest and its biodiversity are property of Malagasy people and that we should pay money for them to protect this forest and this species thereby creating some alternative income. And we are talking about very little money from our perspective which could make big changes from a Malagasy perspective."
For Lührs working with the fossa, a little known species, has its many rewards, including the chance to make new discoveries and develop a conservation plan that may make all the difference between long-term survival and extinction.
"I've always been much more concerned about species that die out secretly without anyone ever knowing they existed at all. The fossa is certainly one of those species. For the sake of conservation of the world’s biodiversity, I would therefore like to encourage more researchers to focus on the 'forgotten species in the background'," she says.
In a January 2011 interview Mia-Lana Lührs discussed new discoveries about Madagascar's biggest predator, the fossa; conservation efforts needed to save the species; the joy of working with a little-known species; and if she'd whether be a male or female fossa.
A curious fossa. Photo © Nick Garbutt .
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Market Triumph of Ecotourism
The Market Triumph of Ecotourism: An Economic Investigation of the Private and Social Benefits of Competing Land Uses in the Peruvian Amazon
Annual revenue flow to developing countries for ecotourism (or nature-based tourism) could be as large as US$ 210×1012, providing an enormous financial incentive against habitat loss and exploitation. However, is ecotourism the most privately and/or socially valuable use of rainforest land? The question is rarely answered because the relevant data, estimates of profits and fixed costs, are rarely available. We present a social cost-benefit analysis of land use in an ecotourism cluster in the Tambopata region of Amazonian Peru. The net present value of ecotourism-controlled land is given by the producer surplus (profits plus fixed costs of ecotourism lodges): US$ 1,158 ha−1, which is higher than all currently practiced alternatives, including unsustainable logging, ranching, and agriculture. To our knowledge, this is the first sector-wide study of profitability and producer surplus in a developing-country ecotourism sector and the first to compare against equivalent measures for a spectrum of alternative uses. We also find that ecotourism-controlled land sequesters between 5.3 to 8.7 million tons of above-ground carbon, which is equivalent to between 3000–5000 years of carbon emissions from the domestic component of air and surface travel between the gateway city of Cusco and the lodges, at 2005 emission rates. Ecotourism in Tambopata has successfully monetized the hedonic value of wild nature in Amazonian Peru, and justifies the maintenance of intact rainforest over all alternative uses on narrow economic grounds alone.
Citation: Kirkby CA, Giudice-Granados R, Day B, Turner K, Velarde-Andrade LM, et al. (2010) The Market Triumph of Ecotourism: An Economic Investigation of the Private and Social Benefits of Competing Land Uses in the Peruvian Amazon. PLoS ONE 5(9): e13015. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013015
Editor: Brock Fenton, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Received: July 2, 2010; Accepted: August 7, 2010; Published: September 29, 2010
Copyright: © 2010 Kirkby et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Annual revenue flow to developing countries for ecotourism (or nature-based tourism) could be as large as US$ 210×1012, providing an enormous financial incentive against habitat loss and exploitation. However, is ecotourism the most privately and/or socially valuable use of rainforest land? The question is rarely answered because the relevant data, estimates of profits and fixed costs, are rarely available. We present a social cost-benefit analysis of land use in an ecotourism cluster in the Tambopata region of Amazonian Peru. The net present value of ecotourism-controlled land is given by the producer surplus (profits plus fixed costs of ecotourism lodges): US$ 1,158 ha−1, which is higher than all currently practiced alternatives, including unsustainable logging, ranching, and agriculture. To our knowledge, this is the first sector-wide study of profitability and producer surplus in a developing-country ecotourism sector and the first to compare against equivalent measures for a spectrum of alternative uses. We also find that ecotourism-controlled land sequesters between 5.3 to 8.7 million tons of above-ground carbon, which is equivalent to between 3000–5000 years of carbon emissions from the domestic component of air and surface travel between the gateway city of Cusco and the lodges, at 2005 emission rates. Ecotourism in Tambopata has successfully monetized the hedonic value of wild nature in Amazonian Peru, and justifies the maintenance of intact rainforest over all alternative uses on narrow economic grounds alone.
Citation: Kirkby CA, Giudice-Granados R, Day B, Turner K, Velarde-Andrade LM, et al. (2010) The Market Triumph of Ecotourism: An Economic Investigation of the Private and Social Benefits of Competing Land Uses in the Peruvian Amazon. PLoS ONE 5(9): e13015. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013015
Editor: Brock Fenton, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Received: July 2, 2010; Accepted: August 7, 2010; Published: September 29, 2010
Copyright: © 2010 Kirkby et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Madagascar's Atsinanana rainforest is world heritage
Six national parks along the eastern part of Madagascar have been found so unique that they were inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List today. The Atsinanana site represents almost all the remaining rainforest on the Great Island, and almost 90 percent of all species in the forest live no other place on earth.
The mini-continent of Madagascar completed its separation from all other land masses more than 60 million years ago and has since that lived in splendid isolation. During these years, the Malagasy flora and fauna has become unique, diversifying in the island's desert, savannah and rainforest climate regions.
Especially the Malagasy rainforests, mostly located in the east and north, have a high degree of biodiversity. But deforestation has left just 8.5 percent of Madagascar's original forests and the new World Heritage site - the Rainforests of the Atsinanana - is now to protect the remaining habitat.
The Atsinanana site comprises six national parks of the eastern part of the island and was approved of by a UNESCO committee currently united in New Zealand. Following the inscription, a delegation from Madagascar noted that this is "a wonderful present for the country" and also supported "the commendable vision" of President Marc Ravalomanana to triple the size of the island's protected area system.
Also the UNECO committee applauded what it called "the tremendous efforts of Madagascar in protecting its remaining eastern rainforests," after most has been lost to deforestation. President Ravalomanana has strongly increased efforts to stop deforestation, protect remaining valuable natural sites and boost ecotourism to Madagascar.
The inscription of Atsinanana had been prepared for a long time by Malagasy authorities, who won the full support of the world conservation union IUCN. IUCN is used as consultants by UNESCO when it comes to natural World Heritage sites, and its recommendations are mostly followed. IUCN Vice-President Christine Milne noted that the inscription of these "exceptionally diverse rainforests" was "a great success story for Madagascar and global biodiversity conservation."
IUCN had strongly recommended the naming of Atsinanana as World Heritage. "These forests are critically important for maintaining the island's unique plants and animals, 80 to 90 percent of which can only be found in Madagascar and some of which date back to glacial periods," IUCN noted prior to the decision. "The site comprises a representative selection of the most important habitats of unique rainforest life, including many threatened and endemic plant and animal species," the recommendation read.
The UNESCO committee agreed, holding the Malagasy rainforests to be of great "importance to ecological and biological processes." Uniqueness is a major presupposition to qualify for the prestigious list. "The property is of global significance for fauna, especially primates. Many rare and threatened species occur in this site, including at least 25 species of lemur," UNESCO noted.
And the fauna of the six Malagasy rainforests is indeed unique. All five families of Malagasy primates, all endemic lemur families, seven endemic genera of rodents and six endemic genera of carnivores are represented in Atsinanana. Of 25 endemic and near-endemic mammal species in the rainforests, 22 are threatened; eight are critically endangered and nine endangered.
IUCN hopes that the World Heritage inscription of the six disconnected national parks will lead to further protection of Madagascar's remaining rainforests. The environmentalists were somewhat critical to the Malagasy government's decision to nominate such a fragmented natural site. Geographically, the parks are widely separated, especially a northern and a southern group.
"There are significant discontinuities in habit between the northern and southern groups such that connectivity has essentially been permanently lost; however habitat connectivity still exists within the northern and southern groups, albeit not yet permanently protected," IUCN noted. It is reported that none of the forested areas between the parks are likely to be given national park status or added to current parks, to the disappointment of environmentalists.
For Malagasy authorities, the inscription is welcome news to the country's great effort to promote ecotourism. Several of the parks that are now World Heritage are already developed as tourist destinations. The professionally managed Ranomafana National Park has significant tourism infrastructure and the park shares the income from entrance permits with local communities living adjacent to the park.
Also Agence Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées (ANGAP) - the managing authority of all the parks - gets a great part of its revenues from tourism taxes and fees. In all parks, ANGAP shares revenues from fees with communities neighbouring the parks on a 50-50 basis.
The growing tourism market in Madagascar therefore is increasingly important to both the management of the island's unique nature and to fighting widespread poverty in the Malagasy countryside. It is a win-win situation and the publicity given by the prestigious World Heritage List may become an important drive for ecotourism in Madagascar.
By staff writers
© Geoffroy Mauvais/IUCN/afrol News
The mini-continent of Madagascar completed its separation from all other land masses more than 60 million years ago and has since that lived in splendid isolation. During these years, the Malagasy flora and fauna has become unique, diversifying in the island's desert, savannah and rainforest climate regions.
Especially the Malagasy rainforests, mostly located in the east and north, have a high degree of biodiversity. But deforestation has left just 8.5 percent of Madagascar's original forests and the new World Heritage site - the Rainforests of the Atsinanana - is now to protect the remaining habitat.
The Atsinanana site comprises six national parks of the eastern part of the island and was approved of by a UNESCO committee currently united in New Zealand. Following the inscription, a delegation from Madagascar noted that this is "a wonderful present for the country" and also supported "the commendable vision" of President Marc Ravalomanana to triple the size of the island's protected area system.
Also the UNECO committee applauded what it called "the tremendous efforts of Madagascar in protecting its remaining eastern rainforests," after most has been lost to deforestation. President Ravalomanana has strongly increased efforts to stop deforestation, protect remaining valuable natural sites and boost ecotourism to Madagascar.
The inscription of Atsinanana had been prepared for a long time by Malagasy authorities, who won the full support of the world conservation union IUCN. IUCN is used as consultants by UNESCO when it comes to natural World Heritage sites, and its recommendations are mostly followed. IUCN Vice-President Christine Milne noted that the inscription of these "exceptionally diverse rainforests" was "a great success story for Madagascar and global biodiversity conservation."
IUCN had strongly recommended the naming of Atsinanana as World Heritage. "These forests are critically important for maintaining the island's unique plants and animals, 80 to 90 percent of which can only be found in Madagascar and some of which date back to glacial periods," IUCN noted prior to the decision. "The site comprises a representative selection of the most important habitats of unique rainforest life, including many threatened and endemic plant and animal species," the recommendation read.
The UNESCO committee agreed, holding the Malagasy rainforests to be of great "importance to ecological and biological processes." Uniqueness is a major presupposition to qualify for the prestigious list. "The property is of global significance for fauna, especially primates. Many rare and threatened species occur in this site, including at least 25 species of lemur," UNESCO noted.
And the fauna of the six Malagasy rainforests is indeed unique. All five families of Malagasy primates, all endemic lemur families, seven endemic genera of rodents and six endemic genera of carnivores are represented in Atsinanana. Of 25 endemic and near-endemic mammal species in the rainforests, 22 are threatened; eight are critically endangered and nine endangered.
IUCN hopes that the World Heritage inscription of the six disconnected national parks will lead to further protection of Madagascar's remaining rainforests. The environmentalists were somewhat critical to the Malagasy government's decision to nominate such a fragmented natural site. Geographically, the parks are widely separated, especially a northern and a southern group.
"There are significant discontinuities in habit between the northern and southern groups such that connectivity has essentially been permanently lost; however habitat connectivity still exists within the northern and southern groups, albeit not yet permanently protected," IUCN noted. It is reported that none of the forested areas between the parks are likely to be given national park status or added to current parks, to the disappointment of environmentalists.
For Malagasy authorities, the inscription is welcome news to the country's great effort to promote ecotourism. Several of the parks that are now World Heritage are already developed as tourist destinations. The professionally managed Ranomafana National Park has significant tourism infrastructure and the park shares the income from entrance permits with local communities living adjacent to the park.
Also Agence Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées (ANGAP) - the managing authority of all the parks - gets a great part of its revenues from tourism taxes and fees. In all parks, ANGAP shares revenues from fees with communities neighbouring the parks on a 50-50 basis.
The growing tourism market in Madagascar therefore is increasingly important to both the management of the island's unique nature and to fighting widespread poverty in the Malagasy countryside. It is a win-win situation and the publicity given by the prestigious World Heritage List may become an important drive for ecotourism in Madagascar.
By staff writers
© Geoffroy Mauvais/IUCN/afrol News
Madagascar gets US$ 20M to protect nature
Madagascar government has signed largest debt-for-nature swap agreement with France, allocating US$ 20 million to preserve the country’s rich biodiversity.
The agreement is part of Madagascar’s ambitious national effort, pledged by President Ravalomanana, to triple the size of the country’s protected areas. The singing also brings to total, funding for this purpose to its targeted US$ 50 million endowment, which shall be managed independently by an established conservation trust between Malagasy government and its partners, aimed at supporting the country’s distinct ecosystems and extraordinary wildlife.
Nearly 98 percent of Madagascar’s land mammals, 92 percent of its reptiles, and 80 percent of its plants are found nowhere else on earth and according to international wildlife conservationists, there is a need to stabilise revenues, resources and credibility to fight against deforestation and biodiversity loss in that country.
“This initiative is an excellent example of innovative financing for sustainable development,” said Nanie Ratsifandrihamanana, acting regional representative for WWF in Madagascar further adding that increasing funding to endowment means support for protected areas' recurrent costs will be available long term.
Madagascar’s ecosystems provide essential services that support local communities and an array of economic activities. With 70 percent of Madagascar’s population living below poverty line, the country is one of the poorest in the world. Burdened with high levels of debt, Madagascar has limited domestic resources to address environmental degradation and preserve its unique and globally significant biodiversity.
Debt-for-nature swaps, such as this one, are designed to free up resources in debtor countries for much needed conservation activities.
This historic agreement demonstrates the commitment of both the French and Malagasy governments to protect biodiversity in Madagascar and serves as a prime example of a debt-for-nature swap success that other nations can follow, WWF have said following the signing.
Madagascar Foundation for Protected Areas and Biodiversity was created in 2005 to support sustainable financing for protecting, maintaining and expanding the country’s protected areas network, including certain buffer zones and ecological corridors, and ultimately to reduce dependence on external project assistance. The Foundation is already widely recognized as a “model” foundation for Africa and an anchor for sustainable financing of Madagascar’s protected areas system.
By staff writer
© afrol News
The agreement is part of Madagascar’s ambitious national effort, pledged by President Ravalomanana, to triple the size of the country’s protected areas. The singing also brings to total, funding for this purpose to its targeted US$ 50 million endowment, which shall be managed independently by an established conservation trust between Malagasy government and its partners, aimed at supporting the country’s distinct ecosystems and extraordinary wildlife.
Nearly 98 percent of Madagascar’s land mammals, 92 percent of its reptiles, and 80 percent of its plants are found nowhere else on earth and according to international wildlife conservationists, there is a need to stabilise revenues, resources and credibility to fight against deforestation and biodiversity loss in that country.
“This initiative is an excellent example of innovative financing for sustainable development,” said Nanie Ratsifandrihamanana, acting regional representative for WWF in Madagascar further adding that increasing funding to endowment means support for protected areas' recurrent costs will be available long term.
Madagascar’s ecosystems provide essential services that support local communities and an array of economic activities. With 70 percent of Madagascar’s population living below poverty line, the country is one of the poorest in the world. Burdened with high levels of debt, Madagascar has limited domestic resources to address environmental degradation and preserve its unique and globally significant biodiversity.
Debt-for-nature swaps, such as this one, are designed to free up resources in debtor countries for much needed conservation activities.
This historic agreement demonstrates the commitment of both the French and Malagasy governments to protect biodiversity in Madagascar and serves as a prime example of a debt-for-nature swap success that other nations can follow, WWF have said following the signing.
Madagascar Foundation for Protected Areas and Biodiversity was created in 2005 to support sustainable financing for protecting, maintaining and expanding the country’s protected areas network, including certain buffer zones and ecological corridors, and ultimately to reduce dependence on external project assistance. The Foundation is already widely recognized as a “model” foundation for Africa and an anchor for sustainable financing of Madagascar’s protected areas system.
By staff writer
© afrol News
Madagascar selected to benefit from conservation fund
Madagascar will be one of the ten beneficiaries of the new fund aimed at assisting professional and organisational development of selected national conservation NGOs within the BirdLife network in key biodiversity countries around the world.
The grant from Arcadia, formerly the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Trust, a new fund has been established to strengthen NGOs in key countries around the world, with a US$1.5 million that will help organisations achieve objectives such as preventing extinctions, securing land for conservation, and tackling climate change through strengthening local capacity.
The goal of the fund is to create a dynamic network of high-impact, self-sufficient conservation NGOs, able to work effectively with local people, governments and the international community, and empowered to protect key species, sites and habitats in their own countries.
Through the fund the ten countries: Turkey, Ukraine, Latvia, Romania, Brazil, Ecuador, Madagascar, Vietnam, Indonesia and Fiji with be provided financial support over five years, at the end of which it is anticipated that the organisations and their activities will be self-sustaining.
"Many NGOs in financially poor but biodiversity rich countries are facing serious challenges to resource their vital conservation activities, particularly now in a climate of global downturn," said Dr Marco Lambertini, BirdLife's Chief Executive.
He said through the programme, an 'NGO Health Check' at the start of the programme - a self assessment, against an ideal scenario for a thriving, successful NGO - will provide a base line to work from, and highlight the priority areas in which the selected NGOs need the most support.
A development plan, listing training and support activities, will then be agreed between each Partner NGO and the BirdLife Secretariat. Each development plan will have clearly agreed targets, measuring conservation impact, NGO sustainability, and NGO stability.
"The Arcadia/BirdLife fund will provide targeted core support to develop long term sustainable plans, retaining key staff and enabling our partners to grow in confidence and effectiveness," he added.
By staff writer
© afrol News
The grant from Arcadia, formerly the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Trust, a new fund has been established to strengthen NGOs in key countries around the world, with a US$1.5 million that will help organisations achieve objectives such as preventing extinctions, securing land for conservation, and tackling climate change through strengthening local capacity.
The goal of the fund is to create a dynamic network of high-impact, self-sufficient conservation NGOs, able to work effectively with local people, governments and the international community, and empowered to protect key species, sites and habitats in their own countries.
Through the fund the ten countries: Turkey, Ukraine, Latvia, Romania, Brazil, Ecuador, Madagascar, Vietnam, Indonesia and Fiji with be provided financial support over five years, at the end of which it is anticipated that the organisations and their activities will be self-sustaining.
"Many NGOs in financially poor but biodiversity rich countries are facing serious challenges to resource their vital conservation activities, particularly now in a climate of global downturn," said Dr Marco Lambertini, BirdLife's Chief Executive.
He said through the programme, an 'NGO Health Check' at the start of the programme - a self assessment, against an ideal scenario for a thriving, successful NGO - will provide a base line to work from, and highlight the priority areas in which the selected NGOs need the most support.
A development plan, listing training and support activities, will then be agreed between each Partner NGO and the BirdLife Secretariat. Each development plan will have clearly agreed targets, measuring conservation impact, NGO sustainability, and NGO stability.
"The Arcadia/BirdLife fund will provide targeted core support to develop long term sustainable plans, retaining key staff and enabling our partners to grow in confidence and effectiveness," he added.
By staff writer
© afrol News
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