Word: madagascars
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...were about to quit for the afternoon on our tour through the Antasibe-Mantadia National Park in eastern Madagascar when the guide caught a flash of brown fur through the trees. He signaled to our traveling party silently, and we crept off the narrow path and through the thick tropical forest, hoping for a closer look. Russell Mittermeier, the president of Conservation International (CI) and a renowned primatologist, made the call. Tucked inside a hollow tree trunk were two greater bamboo lemurs, each the length of a forearm, staring back at us with orange eyes. We grabbed our cameras...
...That isn't as straightforward as you might think. New species are discovered constantly - the total number of known mammalian species is up 19% since 1992. Though they're the largest type of animals, mammals range in size from the titanic blue whale to the tiny mouse lemurs of Madagascar, which can fit in the palm of your hand. What they have in common are clear threats from us. "Mammals are important because they play key roles in ecosystems and provide important benefits to humans," says Andrew Smith, a biologist at Arizona State University and one of the 103 authors...
...number one driver of extinction is habitat loss and degradation, which affects 40% of the world's mammals. That can be seen clearly in the deforestation afflicting much of the tropical world, including Madagascar, where 90% of the country's original forest cover has been lost. Vast stretches of the once verdant island, where I traveled with Mittermeier last month, are eroded wastelands, capable of supporting few animals or people. Though the rate of deforestation has been reduced sharply in recent years, thanks in part to a greener government, Madagascar's protected areas are still threatened by new mining projects...
...number of threatened mammals could be as high as 36%," noted Jan Schipper, the director of the Global Mammal Assessment for CI. If we don't act soon, our children may live in a world where the only place they'll be able to see unique mammals like Madagascar's greater bamboo lemur will be in history books...
Click here for photos of Madagascar...