Word: madagascars
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...threats to wildlife on the African island of Madagascar are manifold: rampant deforestation that has stripped most of the island of its original forest cover, leaving a wasteland; a human population that is growing at 3% a year, straining natural resources and hunting animals for food, especially Madagascar's emblematic lemurs; extractive industry, including a nickel mine not far from a national park that could become the world's biggest...
...like human refugees. "Global warming is something that all conservationists are worried about," says Russell Mittermeier, the president of Conservation International. "It has the possibility to undo a lot of the work we've done." (Hear Mittermeier discuss the impact that climate change on conservation, and the situation in Madagascar, on this week's Greencast...
Like last year's winner, Doris Lessing, Le Clézio has strong ties to Africa - he was born in Nice in 1940, but his family history on both sides leads back to Mauritius, an island about 500 miles east of Madagascar that has been best known in the West, at least until now, as the home of the famously extinct dodo. The son of a doctor, Le Clézio grew up in France and Nigeria speaking French and English. He began writing at the age of 8 - one of his childhood efforts, composed on a long voyage...
...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...