location: Madagascar

location: Madagascar

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‘Mind-blowing’ new orchid species found in Madagascar forest canopy
- Scientists from Madagascar, the U.S. and Europe have described a new orchid species from the forests of central Madagascar, which has a record-breaking long nectar spur relative to its small flower size.
- The orchid is pollinated by a species of hawkmoth with a very long tongue, similar to Darwin’s orchid, which was predicted to exist by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the 1800s.
- Habitat of the newly described orchid species is threatened deforestation and mining activities, especially from the Ambatovy nickel and cobalt mine nearby, though Ambatovy is funding conservation actions to protect the species.
- Madagascar’s unique biodiversity, including many species found nowhere else on Earth, is under serious threat from rapid deforestation driven by agriculture, fires and mining.

Madagascar takes key step toward improving transparency of its fisheries
- Madagascar recently released its first fisheries transparency report, part of an effort to open up, democratize, and improve the sustainability of its fisheries sector.
- The report is a key step in a process defined by the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI), a Seychelles-based nonprofit.
- It contains important information on traditional, artisanal and industrial fisheries, a list of the laws and regulations governing the sector, tenure arrangements, and access agreements — including previously undisclosed information.
- It also assesses the country’s transparency according to the availability and accessibility of data from six thematic areas as outlined by the FiTI Standard.

Three new species of frogs found nestled in Madagascar’s pandan trees
- Scientists have described three new frog species that dwell exclusively in the spiky leaves of pandan trees in Madagascar’s eastern rainforests.
- While the frogs are new to science, locals have observed them for generations, and they’ve been given names in Malagasy.
- The frogs have a unique life cycle completely restricted to the trees, meaning they entirely depend entirely on intact pandan trees.
- Pandan trees, from the genus Pandanus, are threatened by deforestation driven by mining, agriculture and development, while slashing, burning and deforestation threaten Madagascar’s extraordinary biodiversity in general.

Beyond the myths: Anthropologist Alison Richard on Madagascar’s environmental realities and future
- Madagascar is celebrated for its extraordinary biodiversity, characterized by remarkably high rates of endemicism. However, Madagascar is also synonymous with loss, particularly the extinction of its largest animal species and the degradation of habitats.
- The conventional wisdom holds that the island was entirely forested before human settlement, with early settlers decimating most of these forests. Alison Richard, a distinguished anthropologist, has challenged this traditional narrative of Madagascar’s environmental history by leveraging a growing body of research that suggests a more nuanced reality.
- In “The Sloth Lemur’s Song,” Richard weaves a captivating story covering the island’s geological past to its current conservation challenges. Her work critically assesses the narratives of blame, stemming from colonial history, that have influenced perceptions of Madagascar’s environmental issues.
- In a recent interview with Mongabay, Richard discussed her research and conservation efforts in Madagascar and beyond.

Photos: Top species discoveries from 2023
- Scientists described a slew of new species this past year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squid, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons.
- Experts estimate less than 20% of Earth’s species have been documented by Western science.
- Although a species may be new to science, it may already be well known to local and Indigenous people and have a common name.
- Many new species of plants, fungi, and animals are assessed as Vulnerable or Critically Endangered with extinction as soon as they are found, and many species may go extinct before they are named, experts say.

Madagascar group aims to protect wildlife from stray cats & dogs
- In the biodiverse forests of Madagascar, stray cats and dogs pose threats to wildlife by hunting and harassing wild animals or transmitting diseases to them.
- The Mad Dog Initiative, an American NGO, runs annual sterilization and rabies vaccination campaigns to reduce the strays’ impact.
- However, it will take more time to achieve measurable impacts on wildlife, the group’s leaders say, and raising awareness among villagers and overcoming “fadys,” or Malagasy taboos, remains a challenge.

Newly described gecko from Madagascar a master of disguise
- Madagascar is a hotspot for gecko diversity, and the latest to appear on the tree of life is Uroplatus garamaso.
- U. garamaso, with a length of 8.3-13.9 cm (3.3-5.5 in), is one of the larger leaf-tailed lizards inhabiting the island, but is still a master at hiding in plain sight.
- The gecko’s known range is restricted to the forests in the north of the island: Montagne des Français, Montagne d’Ambre, and Ankarana in the Diana region.

Can land titles save Madagascar’s embattled biodiversity and people?
- Through its Titre Vert or Green Title initiative, the Malagasy government is opening up a path to land ownership for its most vulnerable citizens in the hopes it will help tackle hunger, internal migration, and forest loss.
- The state is using the initiative to lean on potential migrants to remain in the country’s deep south, where five years of failed rains have left 2 million people hungry, instead of migrating north, where they are often blamed for social tensions and for destroying forests.
- This March, the Malagasy government started work on a Titre Vert enclave in the Menabe region, a popular destination for migrants from the drought-hit south, to dissuade them from clearing unique dry forests to grow crops.
- Critics say the government is holding people back in a rain-starved region without providing enough support; in Menabe, backers of the project hope to provide ample assistance to get migrants out of the forests and onto their feet.

Madagascar signs new ‘sustainable’ tuna deal with the EU
- In late June, Madagascar and the European Union struck a new four-year deal allowing fishing vessels flagged to EU countries to resume harvesting tuna in Madagascar’s waters after an unusual four-and-a-half-year gap.
- The EU says the deal benefits Madagascar by providing key funding to support fisheries governance, and civil society groups praised the Madagascar government for creating a more inclusive and transparent negotiating process than in the past.
- However, critics contend that the deal offers little benefit to the citizens of Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, and enables European vessels to exacerbate the overfishing of Indian Ocean tuna stocks.

Villagers turn to charcoal made from bamboo to save a protected forest in Madagascar
- Rice paddies have become silted up around Ankarafantsika National Park in northwestern Madagascar. To survive, local residents are forced to illegally exploit the forest’s natural resources.
- To reduce their dependency on the forest, local communities are planting the versatile bamboo species from Asia to make charcoal and restore watersheds.
- Although the exotic bamboo species can be used to protect the forest and watersheds, scientists raise concerns about the ecological impacts of its use.

Fire imperils Madagascar’s baobabs: Q&A with park director Diamondra Andriambololona
- Kirindy Mite forest is a unique ecosystem that is home to three of Madagascar’s six endemic species of baobab trees.
- The forest is facing increasing anthropogenic pressure, especially from bushfires.
- Mongabay spoke with Diamondra Andriambololona, the director of Kirindy Mite National Park in southwestern Madagascar and the nearby Andranomena Special Reserve, about how the increase in fires is affecting the region’s unique forest and what is being done to reduce them.
- “The pressures on the forest will continue to increase as long as the people remain poor,” says Andriambololona.

Extreme reforestation: Baobab planters confront fires, loggers, cattle and more
- In Madagascar, the August-to-December bushfire season wreaks havoc on the southwest and west of the island.
- Dry Forest, a young Malagasy NGO, is attempting an extreme form of reforestation to save the forest in Kirindy Mite National Park.
- In addition to the bushfires, the NGO faces many other challenges linked to local poverty.

Fish deaths near Rio Tinto mine in Madagascar dredge up community grievances
- In March 2022, following the release of wastewater from the Rio-Tinto-owned QMM mine in southeastern Madagascar, thousands of fish turned up dead in neighboring lakes, sparking protests and a government investigation.
- Civil society groups say the mine’s effluent enters neighboring water bodies with alarming regularity, endangering people’s health and robbing them of their livelihoods, and that the mining company is doing little to better the lives of Malagasy people most impacted by its activities.
- The company says it is not responsible for the fish deaths and is providing water and aid to improve relations with local people.
- “If they want to maintain good relations, the first thing to do is not release untreated wastewater into the potable water of villagers,” Tahiry Ratsiambahotra, a Malagasy activist, told Mongabay.

Madagascar bush fires prompt exasperated NGO to curtail tree planting
- Graine de Vie, a Belgian NGO present in Madagascar since 2009, claims to be the leading reforestation organization in the country.
- Weary of repeated bush fires and an alleged lack of government action, the NGO announced in January that it would reduce its activities by a third.
- The announcement followed the catastrophic loss of thousands of freshly planted saplings to a bush fire.

Rio Tinto must repair the damage caused by their Madagascar mine (commentary)
- The giant mining conglomerate Rio Tinto has a large ilmenite mine which abuts wetlands and lies in the vicinity of a river and two lakes in one of the poorest regions of the fifth poorest country in the world, Madagascar.
- Though it’s a large employer in the region, activists say that the company’s Qit Minerals Madagascar mine contaminates water supplies and reduces food security for the vulnerable local population.
- “We [are] calling for the creation of a grievance mechanism which will truly respond to people’s concerns, and that complies with international standards – not only by giving them financial compensation, but by affording them their dignity,” a new op-ed says.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Madagascar: What happens to villagers when a graphite mine comes knocking?
- When representatives of an Australian mining firm arrived in Ambohitsy Haut village in southern Madagascar, they told residents they wanted to drill holes looking for graphite in their village. The villagers agreed, but they were clear; you can dig, but away from our ancestral tombs.
- In November, the company, BlackEarth Minerals (BEM), told investors it was ready to move to the next stage, exploitation, and planned to start construction of a mine this year, which could mean resettling the villagers and moving their tombs. But villagers said they haven’t given the company permission to do so.
- BEM, now known as Evion Group, is touting Madagascar as an alternative to China , currently the world’s leading graphite supplier, but experts and activists say the graphite mining rush is coming to a country and communities ill-prepared for it: obsolete mining laws, a brittle land rights regime, and limp environmental and social protections.
- A top Evion executive told Mongabay that the villagers had no private claims to the land, but the company would respect their traditional rights.

After 150 years of damage to people and planet, Rio Tinto ‘must be held to account’ (commentary)
- The giant mining company Rio Tinto marks its 150th anniversary this year, yet activists say it has a dirty history.
- As the company gathers on April 6 for its Annual General Meeting, advocates are pointing out that after all this time, its shareholders should grapple with the company’s legacy of damaging people and planet.
- “Companies like Rio Tinto must be held accountable for the harm they cause,” a new op-ed argues, and a new law proposed in the UK – the Business, Human Rights and Environment Act – would allow people to take companies like it to court more easily for environmental and human rights abuses committed abroad.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Will clean-energy minerals provoke a shift in how mining is done in Africa?
- Meeting the Paris climate goals to curb global warming could quadruple demand for metals like lithium, cobalt and nickel by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. About a fifth of these critical reserves are found in Africa.
- With mining activity ramping up across Africa, civil society organizations are asking for concrete changes in how mining is done and whose needs it addresses.
- Many activists who work with communities in Africa fear that far from benefiting from their mineral wealth, countries that hold reserves for critical minerals will pay the steepest price for their extraction, a replication of the mining footprint without a transformation in the way mining is done.
- While most activists and observers agree about the need to pursue the highest environmental, social and governance standards, many CSOs say it doesn’t have to happen as part of a superpower-led geopolitical race but be part of a globally accepted framework.

Lost bird found: Dusky tetraka seen in Madagascar after 24-year absence
- The dusky tetraka, a small yellow songbird that had eluded ornithologists for 24 years, has been found again in the tropical forests of northeastern Madagascar.
- The bird was found at a lower elevation than expected, in thick underbrush near a river. The team plans to search for the dusky tetraka again during the breeding season to learn more about its ecology and biology.
- The dusky tetraka is listed as one of the top 10 most-wanted lost birds, an initiative that aims to locate bird species that have not been seen and recorded for a minimum of 10 years.
- More than 90% of the species found in Madagascar are endemic, with the island yielding at least 150 new-to-science species in the last 30 years.

Top 15 species discoveries from 2022 (Photos)
- A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula, an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world’s largest waterlily are among the new species named by science in 2022.
- Scientists estimate that only 10% of all the species on the planet have been described. Even among the most well-known group of animals, mammals, scientists think we have only found 80% of species.
- Unfortunately, many new species of plants, fungi, and animals are assessed as Vulnerable or Critically Endangered with extinction.
- Although a species may be new to science, it may already be well known to locals and have a common name. For instance, Indigenous people often know about species long before they are “discovered” by Western Science.

Some tree-dwelling primates may adapt more easily to life on the ground, massive study shows
- As deforestation and climate change alter rainforest habitats, monkeys and lemurs that normally live in trees are risking encounters with predators to spend time on the ground.
- Species with diverse diets, smaller body masses, and larger group sizes may adjust to terrestrial life more successfully than others.
- The huge international study drew from more than 150,000 hours of observations of 47 species in Madagascar and Central and South America.

Will CITES finally act to protect rosewood this month? (commentary)
- CITES COP-19 starts in mid-November 2022 and is likely going to be a decisive meeting for the protection of species such as rosewood.
- Both CITES and Madagascar have banned the export of rosewood and ebony, but there appears to be no end to the illegal trade, and the fate of nearly 40,000 illegally-exported rosewood logs seized in Singapore, Kenya and Sri Lanka in 2014 is still uncertain.
- Action is needed at COP-19 to protect such stockpiles of seized rosewood from being sold, and for the remaining Malagasy rosewood and ebony trees to be protected before they are all gone, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

In Madagascar, a tree-planting business goes long on social, short on eco
- Bôndy, a young Malagasy company, has social-impact tree planting at the heart of its “business model.”
- Bôndy makes money by offering social and environmental responsibility solutions to other companies, by planting trees on farmers’ land on their behalf.
- Although it has only been operating since 2018, the company’s model is proving successful with both the rural people receiving tree-planting services and the companies financing the projects.
- Some conservationists, however, are skeptical about the environmental impacts of Bôndy’s approach, which focuses mainly on planting non-native acacia and eucalyptus trees that can be cut for fuel and timber, as well as fruit trees.

World’s smallest primate is fading into extinction, scientists fear
- The Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae) could soon disappear as the human imprint on its forest habitat in western Madagascar grows.
- Another team of researchers warned that the Milne-Edwards’s sifaka (Propithecus edwardsi), a species native to the tropical rainforests of eastern Madagascar, could vanish in 25 years.
- “The risk of extinction accelerates dramatically when we take into account deforestation and climate extremes,” said Eric Isai Ameca y Juárez, a specialist in biodiversity loss and climate change at Beijing Normal University, but added that deforestation alone could wipe out the sifaka.
- About a third of the tree cover inside Menabe Antimena National Park, where the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur is found, has disappeared since 2015.

Eight new-to-science geckos described from biodiversity haven Madagascar
- Scientists have described eight new-to-science species of geckos from Madagascar, all about the length of your thumb.
- They were elevated to species level following DNA studies of what was, for decades, thought to be a single species group of dwarf gecko, Lygodactylus madagascariensis. They add there could be up to 18 distinct genetic lineages.
- Scientists have found and named at least 150 new-to-science species from Madagascar in the last 30 years, and are still finding more nearly every year. More than 90% of species in Madagascar are endemic, meaning they’re found nowhere else on Earth.
- Given ongoing threats to the forests and ecosystems in Madagascar, scientists say we may not be finding and naming species quickly enough to know what’s being lost.

The Western Indian Ocean lost 4% of its mangroves in 24 years, report finds
- Analysis presented in a new report finds the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region lost around 4% its mangrove forests between 1996 and 2020.
- The WIO region includes the coastal areas of Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique, which together account for 5% of the world’s mangroves.
- The report finds the majority of WIO mangrove loss was driven by unsustainable wood extraction, land clearance for agriculture and the impacts of storms and flooding.
- Mangroves provide vital ecosystem services to coastal communities and habitats, and sequester large amounts of carbon.

Study: Climate impacts to disproportionately hurt tropical fishers, farmers
- The majority of 72 coastal communities studied in five countries in the Indo-Pacific region may face significant losses of agricultural and fisheries products — two key food sources — simultaneously under the worst-case climate change projections, a new study shows.
- These potential losses may be coupled with other drivers of change, such as overfishing or soil erosion, which have already caused declining productivity, the study adds.
- But if carbon emissions can be effectively managed to a minimum, the study’s authors say, fewer communities would experience losses in both the agriculture and fisheries sectors, indicating the importance of climate mitigation measures.
- The current global average temperature is 1.1°C (2°F) above pre-industrial times, and climate experts have warned that it could climb to about 3°C (5.4°F) higher by the end of this century if nothing changes.

On hazardous mine tailings dams, ‘safety first’ should be the rule (commentary)
- A mine tailings dam in Madagascar has failed at least twice this year, sending hazardous wastewater into a lagoon relied on by locals for drinking and subsistence fishing, and allegedly killing hundreds of fish.
- Activists say Rio Tinto refuses to accept responsibility for the fish or water pollution, and that this is not an isolated incident: tailings dams are failing with increasing frequency and severity all over the world.
- “Safety First” is a new set of guidelines toward more responsible tailings storage that prioritizes safety over cost, which companies and investors should heed, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Murky provenance of a Chinese fleet clouds Madagascar shrimp fishery
- Thirty-nine trawlers are licensed to catch up to 4,170 metric tons of shrimp in Madagascar’s waters during the 2022 campaign, which officially began on March 1.
- Chinese-owned company Mada Fishery, which holds eight exploration rights did not apply to catch shrimp this year, and its eight vessels are now sitting idle.
- Three of the vessels were previously engaged in fishing violations in the Gambia, and under Malagasy law should not be eligible to fish in Madagascar now — unless there’s been a change in their ownership.
- But a murky document trail and general lack of transparency into the vessels’ ownership makes it unclear whether that has happened; transparency advocates say the implementation of simple measures would have made a significant difference in the investigation of Mada Fishery.

Deforestation-neutral mining? Madagascar study shows it can be done, but it’s complicated
- The Ambatovy mine in Madagascar achieved no net forest loss by curbing deforestation in its biodiversity offsets, an analysis in the journal Nature Sustainability concluded.
- Project developers create biodiversity offsets, sites where they undertake conservation work, to make up for environmental destruction caused by their extractive operations.
- Ambatovy, which operates an open-pit nickel mine in Madagascar, carved out four biodiversity offsets to make up for biodiversity loss in its mining site, located in the species-rich eastern rainforest of the island nation.
- By slowing deforestation in these four offsets, the mine made up for forest loss in its mining concession; however, there isn’t enough data to ascertain how the measures impacted biodiversity, and previous research indicates that the mine’s offsets reduced impoverished communities’ access to forest resources.

Madagascar’s insistence on using seized rosewood rattles conservationists
- Since CITES banned the global trade of Malagasy rosewood in 2013, the country has faced a dilemma: what to do with the illegally harvested timber in government custody?
- This month Madagascar proposed using seized rosewood, which it claims is secure, domestically, effectively removing it from CITES oversight.
- Though the plan concerns a small fraction of the stockpile, it could set a dangerous precedent, opening the door for the remaining timber to be unlawfully funneled into the global market and drive illegal logging, anti-trafficking campaigners said.
- The proposal came up for discussion at the CITES standing committee meeting this March, but CITES parties are expected to reach a decision at the next summit in November.

‘Small-scale fishers have a Ph.D. in the ocean’: Q&A with Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy
- Traditional fishers along Madagascar’s coastline are grappling with falling fish stocks, cyclones, and competition from industrial trawlers, mostly owned by foreigners.
- In an attempt to better manage the country’s marine wealth and secure local fishers’ rights, communities banded together to form Mihari, a network of locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) that leans heavily on traditional ocean knowledge.
- As Mihari’s national coordinator for six years Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy supported a campaign to reserve fishing areas for small scale fishers and helped create a space for women to fully participate in decision-making.
- She spoke with Mongabay recently about the challenges facing fishing communities, their depth of marine knowledge, and the prospects for securing their fishing rights.

Two storms in two weeks carve trail of death and destruction in Madagascar
- Batsirai, a category 4 cyclone, struck Madagascar’s eastern coast on Feb. 5, leaving 10 people dead.
- The island nation is still recovering from another tropical storm, Ana, which made landfall on Jan. 22 and left dozens dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.
- Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that 12 storms of category 4 or 5, the highest level, made landfall on Madagascar between 1911; of these 12, eight occurred since 2000.

In Madagascar, beekeepers persist in the face of fires and forest loss
- The Anjozorobe Angavo forest corridor is one of the few remaining primary forests in the Central Highlands of Madagascar.
- Home to a number of rare and endemic species, this primary forest is undergoing a rapid decline, driven primarily by fires.
- In hopes of alleviating the problem, an NGO and a honey company are collaborating to train farmers in apiculture, with the aim of providing them with a stable income and an alternative livelihood that does not involve destroying the forest.
- However, this beekeeping project is threatened by the rapid decline of trees that are vital for the survival of bees.

Changes to Madagascar’s trawling sector raise questions and hopes
- Madagascar’s auction for nearshore trawling rights has elicited concern from civil society members, who say it was not conducted transparently and opens the door for environmental mismanagement.
- Two Chinese-backed firms won nearly half of the fishing rights. One of them has brought in vessels that were caught fishing illegally in West Africa last year, and the other, which was already fishing in Madagascar, may have violated a national fishing regulation this year.
- But observers have also welcomed other aspects of Madagascar’s fisheries management overhaul this year.
- These include the creation of the Ministry of Fisheries and the Blue Economy, the appointment of scientist and civil society member as the new minister and the joining of FiTI, a global fisheries transparency initiative.

Madagascar’s small fishers cheer new trawl-free zone, but do trawlers obey it?
- Madagascar in July imposed a prohibition on industrial trawlers fishing in waters within 2 nautical miles (3.7 kilometers) of the country’s coast.
- Small-scale fishers, who for years have clashed with the industrial vessels, welcomed the new rule, but say the trawlers are largely ignoring it.
- Vessel-tracking data appear to corroborate their claims, with at least 14 trawlers apparently fishing in the prohibited zone along the west coast in recent months.
- An industry executive said that any incursions by his company were uncommon and accidental. Regulators say penalties will be imposed based on the severity of the violations.

Kenya court orders return of $13m in seized rosewood to suspected traffickers
- In November, a Kenyan court ordered the release of 646 metric tons of Malagasy rosewood (Dalbergia spp.), worth up to $13 million, to a Hong Kong-based company from which it had been seized in 2014 by Kenyan authorities.
- Lawyers for the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS), which filed a case against the consignment owners, argued that trade in rosewood was banned under CITES, the international wildlife trade convention; however, the judge in the case disagreed.
- Juan Carlos Vasquez, who heads the legal affairs unit of CITES, confirmed to Mongabay that Malagasy rosewood was listed in Appendix II of the international convention on June 12, 2013.
- Since trade in Malagasy rosewood is banned under CITES today, legally moving the wood out of Mombasa will be tricky for the defendants; conservationist Chris Morris says the company is using false documentation to ship the rosewood from Kenya to Taiwan.

‘Unprecedented’ fires in Madagascar national park threaten livelihoods and lemurs
- Ankarafantsika National Park protects an oasis of dry forest in northern Madagascar, providing vital habitat to critically endangered lemurs and other wildlife.
- In September and October, fires raged across the southern portion of the park, burning more than 40 square kilometers (15 square miles).
- While fire is a natural part of Ankarafantsika’s ecosystems, researchers say fire on this scale is “unprecedented” and amounting to a “conservation crisis.”
- The fires are also drying out the landscape and reducing neighboring communities’ crop yields, which conservationists warn could have knock-on effects for nearby forests as people turn to natural resources to survive.

New flavor of vanilla farming aims to stop deforestation in Madagascar
- Madagascar is the world’s biggest producer of vanilla, with the plant grown in agroforestry systems established in forests or on fallow lands.
- Conservationist Andriamanana Rabearivelo introduced a new technique of vanilla cultivation with promising early results.
- His goal is to develop new agricultural methods to help the impoverished rural community near his farm in eastern Madagascar improve its conditions so it can reduce its reliance on the area’s natural forests.
- These forests are subject to runaway deforestation from the illegal harvest of timber and conversion to agricultural land.

Madagascar gemstone rush puts a wetland and its community under pressure
- The discovery of gemstones near Madagascar’s largest wetland has fueled a mining boom that threatens the environment and the local community.
- The rural commune of Andilana Avaratra has seen its population nearly double as miners flock there from across Madagascar in search of beryl, a mineral family that includes gems like aquamarine.
- The mining activity, none of it permitted, has scarred a hill and threatens to wash large volumes of sediment into Lake Alaotra, a Ramsar Site that’s home to unique and endangered species.
- The miners’ presence has also led to a surge in crime and sexually transmitted diseases, with the local community seeing little in the way of benefits from the boom.

After a pandemic reprieve, loggers return to a unique Madagascar forest
- Vohibola forest is one of the last primary forests standing in eastern Madagascar, and home to the world’s tiniest frogs and other rare and endangered creatures.
- For a time, in the quiet imposed by COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, Vohibola got a reprieve from some of the difficulties that have long plagued it, including deforestation, fires, and timber and charcoal trafficking.
- Local people banded together to plant thousands of trees, and the forest and its wildlife seemed to be relaxing and recovering.
- Now, however, Vohibola, a community forest under the management of an underresourced group of volunteers, appears to be returning to its old normal, with incidents of illegal logging ticking back up.

World Lemur Day celebrated in Madagascar with new postage stamps
- To mark World Lemur Day, the Madagascar Post Office has announced six new lemur stamps, including the recently described mouse lemur, at a ceremony in the capital, Antananarivo.
- The country is known as the home of these iconic animals, many of which are threatened with extinction.
- Mongabay Kids is also celebrating lemurs by providing an array of lemur-themed news and activities.

To predict forest loss in protected areas, look at nearby unprotected forest
- To predict deforestation risk in a protected area, look at the condition of its surrounding forests, according to a new study.
- The study, which analyzed satellite images of protected forests worldwide, found nearby forest loss to be a consistent early warning signal of future deforestation in protected areas.
- Researchers said national park agencies can use their proposed model to predict how vulnerable protected areas in their countries are to deforestation, and prioritize conservation efforts accordingly.
- But even as these agencies work to protect forests, they should take into account the needs of local communities living in the area, the researchers said.

Rio Tinto-owned mine is polluting Malagasy water with uranium and lead, NGOs say
- Some sites near a Rio Tinto-owned mine in Madagascar have recorded uranium and lead levels 52 and 40 times in excess of WHO safe drinking water standards, a recent analysis found.
- Around 15,000 people in Madagascar’s Anosy region depend on these water sources, including for drinking, a coalition of NGOs in the U.K. and Madagascar, pointed out, calling on the company to provide safe drinking water to the communities.
- Mine operator QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM), which is 80% owned by Rio Tinto, extracts ilmenite at the mine, a process that generates wastewater rich in minerals like uranium and lead, according to a report commissioned by the Andrew Lees Trust UK.
- QMM in its response to the NGOs indicated that the high concentrations were naturally occurring and denied that it was polluting the water.

Even as the government bets big on carbon, REDD+ flounders in Madagascar
- The Malagasy government’s decision to ban the sale of carbon credits as it reworks its REDD+ strategy has left all existing REDD+ projects in a limbo.
- The island nation only has a handful of projects, all helmed by foreign NGOs, which take advantage of the U.N.’s reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) program to raise money by selling carbon credits.
- Madagascar’s environment minister singled out an initiative by U.K.-based nonprofit Blue Ventures, criticizing it for striking a deal promising too little: $27,000 per year for 10 villages. The NGO disputes this appraisal.
- The government’s move to nationalize carbon ownership comes against the backdrop of familiar concerns about REDD+, in particular: how much do communities benefit from keeping forests standing?

China joins the foreign fleets quietly exploiting Madagascar’s waters
- For decades, fleets of industrial vessels from several nations have fished in Madagascar’s waters.
- Now China appears to have joined the fishing spree, sending at least 14 industrial longliner fishing vessels in the last several years, new evidence shows.
- Clues from official documents indicate that Madagascar’s government may have authorized these vessels to fish, at least since 2019.
- If so, the authorization process was not public, raising renewed concerns about the lack of transparency in Madagascar’s offshore fishing sector.

For Malagasy trapped in poverty, threatened lemurs and fossas are fair game
- Half of nearly 700 households surveyed in a recent study in Makira National Park in Madagascar reported eating lemur meat and a quarter had consumed fossa meat.
- The research conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society relied on indirect questioning and revealed unusually high levels of consumption of meat from the fossa, Madagascar’s top predator.
- Hunting pressure combined with shrinking habitats could lead to the local extinction of the indri, a critically endangered species and the largest living lemur, along with three other lemur species in the park.
- WCS’s current research will feed into a “behavior change campaign” to promote alternatives to hunting like poultry and fish farming, and harvesting of edible insects.

In Madagascar, cultural taboos can protect or harm the environment
- “Fady,” the Malagasy term for sociocultural and spiritual taboos or beliefs, greatly influence people’s daily lives in Madagascar.
- Fady are ancestral rules that can apply to a place, a person or even certain animals and plants.
- As they pertain to the natural world, fady can have either a positive or a negative impact on the environment and wildlife.

Madagascar’s vanishing trees
- Madagascar has a documented 2,900 endemic species of trees, but a new report shows that almost two-thirds of them are in danger of disappearing.
- Of the 3,118 species covered, more than 90% had never been systematically evaluated before, and one in 10 fell in the IUCN’s critically endangered category, a step away from going extinct in the wild.
- Though the island nation’s protected area network has expanded to more than 7 million hectares (17 million acres), a tenth of the tree species are found outside this safety net.
- Scientists are racing against the extinction clock to document this mind-boggling biodiversity and determine just how imperiled individual species are.

Ghost fish: after 420 million years in the deeps, modern gillnets from shark fin trade drag coelacanths into the light
- Undersea canyons off Madagascar may turn out to be the Indian Ocean epicentre for coelacanths, the remarkable “fossil fish” which re-surfaced from apparent extinction in 1938.
- Coelacanths have turned up with unexpected frequency in gill-nets set in deep waters to catch sharks for new, commercial markets.
- A worrying trend in recent coelacanth catches in Madagascar is the high proportion of pregnant females, which are thought to produce just 140 live babies during their entire lifecycle.
- Marine scientists are calling for reinforcement of conservation measures to protect this population from the pressure of incidental gill-net captures driven by the shark fin trade.

‘Bad science’: Planting frenzy misses the grasslands for the trees
- Planting trees by the millions has come to be considered one of the main ways of reining in runaway carbon emissions and tackling climate change.
- But experts say many tree-planting campaigns are based on flawed science: planting in grasslands and other non-forest areas, and prioritizing invasive trees over native ones.
- Experts point out that not all land is meant to be forested, and that planting trees in savannas and grasslands runs the risk of actually reducing carbon sequestration and increasing air temperature.
- The rush to reforest has also led to fast-growing eucalyptus and acacia becoming the choice of tree for planting, despite the fact they’re not native in most planting areas, and are both water-intensive and fire-prone.

Madagascar: Businesses drive disappearance of a wetland ‘reed forest’
- Lake Alaotra and its surrounding marshes are Madagascar’s largest wetland, a Ramsar Site that is home to globally significant biodiversity.
- Despite layers of legal protection and conservation programming, around 850 hectares (2,100 acres) of marsh disappear each year to make way for rice cultivation, much of it perpetrated by businesses.
- Local people are keenly feeling the lake’s decline, though, and a commitment to protecting it, along with some success stories, persist in pockets around its shores.
- The government is implementing a zero-tolerance campaign against illegal environmental destruction, but it remains to be seen whether this can reduce the lawlessness and impunity enough to safeguard the lake.

New map shows where the 80% of species we don’t know about may be hiding
- A new study maps out the regions of the world most likely to hold the highest number of species unknown to science.
- The study found that tropical forests in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar and Colombia had the highest potential for undescribed species, mostly reptiles and amphibians.
- According to the lead researcher, the main reason for species going undescribed is a lack of funding and taxonomic experts in some parts of the world.
- He added that it’s essential to learn about as many species as possible to protect them, but that undescribed species are currently not taken into account by governing bodies like the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Slash-and-burn farming eats away at a Madagascar haven for endangered lemurs, frogs
- The Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor (CAZ), a protected area in Madagascar, has experienced a surge in deforestation in the past five months, driven largely by slash-and-burn agriculture.
- The loss of forest threatens rare and endangered wildlife found nowhere else, including lemurs and frogs and geckos, conservationists say.
- Other factors fueling the deforestation include mining for gemstones and cutting of trees to make charcoal.
- The problem in CAZ is emblematic of a wider trend throughout the central eastern region of Madagascar, in both protected and unprotected areas, where 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of tree cover has been lost since 2001.

Reforested areas rival mature forests in securing water, study finds
- New research from Madagascar shows that young scrubby forests can in some ways be better at retaining water than older mature forests.
- They provide similar benefits in preventing runoff but use up lesser water, according to a recently published paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
- However, some hydrologists say the effects of evapotranspiration, water released back into the atmosphere by trees, on rainfall in areas farther afield must not be ignored.
- If scrubby forests are as efficient as older ones in retaining water, it means reforestation boosts water resources available to communities who take part in reforestation drives.

Madagascar: Young farmers adopt new methods to help lemurs, forests and themselves
- Threatened by unsustainable farming methods and hunting, the forests of Mangabe-Ranomena-Sahasarotra in eastern Madagascar, and the lemurs that live there, are in danger.
- A project aims to train young villagers in the region in sustainable farming techniques and to raise their awareness of lemur protection.
- These young people are trained to be ambassadors for the protection of the environment, who will transmit their knowledge to the next generation.

Newly described chameleon from Madagascar may be world’s smallest reptile
- A newly described chameleon from Madagascar is the world’s tiniest chameleon, and possibly the smallest reptile.
- A male specimen of Brookesia nana measured a mere 14 mm (0.55 inches), small enough to perch on an aspirin tablet.
- Madagascar hosts more than 100 species of chameleons, and 30 species belonging to the Brookesia genus alone.
- Many of the chameleons, including B. nana, are only found in tiny patches of forest that are severely threatened by deforestation and degradation.

Mob killing of Malagasy officer spotlights risks faced by forest guardians
- A law enforcement officer was fatally wounded and two civilians killed on Jan. 20 when a mob accosted him and three others as they tried to apprehend suspected illegal loggers in a village in northeastern Madagascar.
- The confrontation was exacerbated by the presence of trained mercenaries who villagers sometimes enlist to protect them against cattle raiders, local media reported.
- Madagascar, a megadiverse island off Africa’s eastern coast has suffered dramatic forest loss in recent years, but reliance on community-led conservation is fraught, given their lack of power and resources.
- At the front line of the fight to preserve its natural riches but at the lowest rung of the enforcement apparatus are Madagascar’s forest guards and law enforcement officers like Lahatra Rahajaharison, who died in the attack.

Dusty winds exacerbate looming famine in Madagascar’s deep south
- At least 1.27 million people need humanitarian assistance in Madagascar’s drought-hit deep south, according to a Jan. 18 request by the U.N. and the Malagasy government for $75.9 million in international aid to cope with the crisis.
- The area is also experiencing dust and sand storms, a natural phenomenon known as a tiomena that is exacerbating the crisis by smothering crops, forests, buildings and roads.
- Tiomenas may be increasingly common as southern Madagascar undergoes a long-term drying trend.
- Experts say upgrading the area’s water supply system is an urgent priority and recommend massive tree planting to provide wind breaks, protect soils from erosion and create more humidity.

Invasion of the crayfish clones: Q&A with Ranja Andriantsoa
- An unusual invasive crayfish has been spreading in Madagascar, threatening aquatic biodiversity even as it helps nourish the country’s food-insecure population.
- The marbled crayfish (Procambarus virginalis) evolved only in recent decades as part of the German aquarium trade. It’s entirely female and reproduces clonally without males.
- Ranja Andriantsoa, a Malagasy biologist and epigenetics researcher, began studying marbled crayfish as a way to learn about cancerous tumors, which reproduce in a similar way.
- Andriantsoa’s ongoing research focuses on the social and health impacts of the marbled crayfish and aims to inform Madagascar’s strategy for managing the crayfish’s ecological impact.

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