Madagascar Wildlife
About 75% of Madagascar's species are endemic, meaning they live nowhere else in the world. The island is home to strange animals including lemurs (a group of primates), tenrecs (similar to spiny hedgehogs), brightly colored chameleons, the puma-like fossa, and a variety of other creatures. Sadly, due to habitat destruction and hunting, many of Madagascar's unique animals are today threatened with extinction.
MADAGASCAR'S GEOGRAPHY________________________________________
NASA satellite image of Madagascar.
A little larger than California, Madagascar is the world's fourth largest island after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo. With its location in the western Indian Ocean, Madagascar is about as far away from the west coast of the United States as one can get. Flying to Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, from San Francisco covers about 11,000 miles or 17,700 km and takes a minimum of 23 hours of flight time.
Madagascar can be divided into five geographical regions: the east coast, the Tsaratanana Massif in the north, the central highlands, the west coast, and the southwest. The central highlands run the length of the island and range from 2,600 to 5,800 feet (800 to 1,800 meters) in altitude. The Tsaratanana Massif region at the north end of the island has the highest mountain on the island.
Madagascar is often called the "Great Red Island" because of its red soils, which are generally poor for agriculture.
Madagascar also has some interesting limestone formations in the west and north. Known as tsingy, these formations result from years of rainfall, which causes the limestone base to erode.
MADAGASCAR'S CLIMATE
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A stream in the rainforest of Madagascar.
Because of its geography, Madagascar's climate is highly variable. Generally, Madagascar has two seasons: a hot, rainy season from November to April and a cooler, dry season from May to October.
The east coast is the wettest part of the country and thus home to the island's rainforests. This area is also hit periodically by devastating tropical storms and cyclones.
The central highlands are considerably cooler and drier, and
are the location of much of Madagascar's agriculture, especially rice.
The west coast is home to dry deciduous forests. Deciduous trees lose all their leaves during the 6- to 8-month dry season.
When rains return, these forests erupt in a sea of bright green leaves. The southwest of Madagascar has the island's driest climate. Parts of this area can be considered desert because so little rain falls.
MADAGASCAR'S PEOPLE
A Bara father with his daughter near Isalo, Madagascar.
There is some debate over who first settled Madagascar. Some anthropologists believe it was first settled 2,000 years ago by Indonesians, not black Africans, and that mainland Africans did not arrive until a later date.
Others suggest that the people of Madagascar descended from Indonesians and Africans who had mixed before their arrival on the isolated island. Regardless, most experts agree that Madagascar's inhabitants arrived relatively recently (there is no evidence of a stone age in Madagascar) and that subsequent migrations have brought other groups (like Arabs and Indians) into the mix.
The mixed origins of the Malagasy (the name for the people of Madagascar) has produced an interesting set of cultures that draws from Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and the Middle East. The Indonesian component of Malagasy culture is very evident in the language -- which is closely related to a dialect in Borneo, an island in Indonesia -- as well as systems of beliefs and the rice-based diet. Rice is the most popular food in Madagascar and many Malagasy eat rice at every meal. Beef is also a popular, although expensive, food. The zebu cattle in Madagascar have their origins in India, but reflect the African cultural influence on the people of Madagascar.
Within the country, people's physical appearance, religious practices, and traditions are highly regional -- the strongest bond between the Malagasy is sharing a common language. Today there are more than 20 ethnic groups in Madagascar from the Indonesian-looking Merina people of the highlands to the African-looking Sakalava in western coastal areas to the Arabic Antaimoro on the eastern coast.
Madagascar is a land of extraordinary cultural richness. It's a place where ancestors are as much a part of the present day as they are of the past; where in many areas taboo and tradition takes precedence over the law; and western-style religion is freely mixed with beliefs in sorcery and unparalleled funerary customs.Today Madagascar is home to around 18 million people.
MADAGASCAR'S ECONOMY ________________________________________
Vanilla bean production process in Madagascar. Photo by Julie Larsen Maher of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Madagascar is one of the world's poorest countries. The country's economy is based largely on agriculture, mining, fishing, and clothes production. One of
Madagascar's best known products is vanilla, which comes from an orchid and is used for flavoring.
Vanilla beans take a minimum of two years to grow so they are quite expensive.
Despite relatively high vanilla prices, the average Malagasy makes around $1 US per day, while 70% of the Malagasy live below the world poverty line. Nearly half of Madagascar's children under five years of age are malnourished.
Why is Madagascar so poor? There are a number of reasons. Under the past dictator, Didier Ratsiraka, the government was corrupt and stole much of the aid money given by other countries. Economic colonialism by the French meant the economy was closely tied to resource extraction (logging, mining, fishing), which often does not promote long-term economic growth since resources are depleted as they are removed. Lack of infrastructure, especially roads, makes it hard for farmers to get their products to markets, while Madagascar's geographic isolation from the rest of the world increases the cost of trade. Everything Madagascar produces or wants to buy from other countries must be shipped by airplane or boat. A weak education system makes it difficult for young Malagasy to find jobs outside the agricultural sector and very few people in Madagascar have access to technology or the Internet. Finally, damage to the environment has reduced the ability of Madagascar's farmers to produce large amounts of food. All these factors contribute to Madagascar's poverty.
However, all is not lost. In 2005 Madagascar announced it had found large amounts of oil. Oil will probably be a key part of Madagascar's economic future along with mining, gemstone production (Madagascar has lots of sapphires), and tourism. There is hope that ecotourism, a form of tourism that minimizes impact on the environment, can help grow Madagascar's economy while protecting its natural areas and wildlife.
MADAGASCAR WILDLIFE ________________________________________
Parson's chameleon in Madagascar.
Madagascar has some of the highest biodiversity on the planet.
Of roughly 200,000 known species found on Madagascar, about 150,000 are endemic -- meaning they exist nowhere else. Unique to the island are more than 50 types of lemurs, 99% of its frog species, and 36 genera of birds. Madagascar houses 100% of the world's lemurs, half of its chameleon species, and 6% of its frogs (though none of its toads).
Some species found in Madagascar have their closest relatives not in Africa but in the South Pacific and South America.
MADAGASCAR FLORA for Kids
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Baobab trees in a rice paddy
Madagascar is home to as many as 12,000 plant species -- 70-80% of which are endemic -- making it one of the most diverse floras on the planet.
One of Madagascar's most famous plants is the baobab tree which looks like a tree growing upside down. Baobabs usually inhabit the drier parts of Madagascar. They have adapted to their environment by storing large amounts of water in their bulbous trunks ecosystem.
Local Malagasy take advantage of this water reservoir when they are thirsty.
Madagascar is also home to a totally unique ecosystem -- one that is found nowhere else on Earth. Found in the dry southwestern part of the island, the spiny forest is notable because virtually every species of plant is covered with sharp spines. While these plants look a bit like cactus, they are not related. About 95% of the species found in the Spiny Desert are endemic.
Madagascar has nearly 1000 known species of orchids, of which 85% are endemic.
One of Madagascar's plants is used as a cure for cancer. The rosy periwinkle has been used to treat Hodgkin's lymphoma and childhood leukemia.
MADAGASCAR'S ENVIRONMENT PROBLEMS________________________________________
Aerial view of erosion in western Madagascar
While Madagascar is known for its strange animals and beautiful forests, much of the country has suffered severe environmental damage. Many of the island's rainforests have been cut down while valuable topsoil important for growing crops disappears due to erosion. Because Madagascar is among the world's poorest countries, people's day-to-day survival is dependent upon natural resource use. Most Malagasy never have an option to become a doctor, computer programmer, factory worker, or secretary; they must live off the land that surrounds them, making use of whatever resources they can find. Their poverty costs the country and the world through the loss of the island's endemic biodiversity.
Madagascar's major environmental problems include:
1. Deforestation and habitat destruction
2. Agricultural fires
3. Erosion and soil degradation
4. Overexplotation of living resources including hunting and over-collection of species from the wild
5. Introduction of alien species
Deforestation in Madagascar is largely the result of three activities: slash-and-burn agriculture, logging, and the production of fuelwood and charcoal for cooking fires.
Slash-and-burn agriculture
Slash-and-burn agriculture, known locally as tavy is an important part of Malagasy culture and the Malagasy economy. Tavy is mostly used for converting tropical rainforests in Madagascar into rice fields. Typically an acre or two of forest is cut, burned, and then planted with rice. After a year or two of production the field is left unused for 4-6 years before the process is repeated. After 2-3 such cycles the soil is exhausted of nutrients and the land is likely colonized by scrub vegetation or grass. On slopes, the new vegetation is often insufficient to anchor soils, making erosion and landslides a problem.
Tavy is the most expedient way for many Malagasy to provide for their families, and among people whose day- to-day subsistence is in question there is little concern for the long-term consequences of their actions. From their perspective, as long as there is more forest land freely available for clearing, you might as well use the land before a neighbor does. Tavy for rice also has spiritual and cultural ties that transcend the economic and nutritional value of rice as acrop
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