Word: madagascars
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Swedes and Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and Poles have been among the millions to take in HSM: The Ice Tour, which has three worldwide touring companies. The stage show has played in dozens of cities worldwide, including Beirut, where it premiered during violent clashes. On HSM web forums, fans from Madagascar and Malta chat with Indonesians and Pakistanis. Director Kenny Ortega recently visited a Kenyan orphanage, where he was met with greetings for HSM sweethearts Troy and Gabriella. Says Rich Ross, president of Disney Channels Worldwide: "You'd have to be in a cave not to know about...
...village of Andasibe, about three hours' drive from the capital of Antananarivo, borders the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, a pristine rainforest that remains one of the crown jewels of Madagascar's denuded landscape. The park is full of the rare animals that Madagascar is famous for - the panda-like indiri lemur, Parson's chameleons that blend into the trees, the greater bamboo lemurs, perhaps the rarest primate on the planet. One of the local guides, Marie Razafindrasolo, led me on a tour of the forest, spotting animals that I would never have noticed myself...
Razafindrasolo is one guide in the many networks of local guides that are springing up in Andasibe and increasingly throughout Madagascar. The government is dedicated to tripling the size of its national park system, which directly supports the economic livelihood of the people who live near them - in Madagascar, the government shares half the revenue from parks with local communities. That revenue, of course, depends on ecotourism, which in turn depends on the conservation of wildlife - if there are no more lemurs left to see, then no one will come to see them...
Then there's the less tangible benefit that comes to the traveler himself. I write about endangered species all the time, but it wasn't until I went to Madagascar and saw an indri lemur for myself that I could really understand the value of what I wanted to defend. It wasn't until I saw how little of the Madagascar forest has survived - 90% of the country's original forest cover is gone - that I could truly fathom the risk. If environmentalism requires a revolution of consciousness, maybe that can't be done at home - even if traveling requires...
...measure your contribution to conservation or to local communities? In Madagascar, for example, the government splits park revenue 50-50 with locals - that's the kind of thing you should be looking...