Word: razafindrasolo
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...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...
...need the right eyes to see in the rain forests of Madagascar's Andasibe-Mantadia National Park--and being a suburban boy who now lives in Brooklyn, I don't have them. So I borrowed Marie Razafindrasolo's. She was my guide on a recent trip to Andasibe, where she pointed out a Parson's chameleon lying motionless on a branch and a panda-like indri dangling shyly from the top of a tree. Later Razafindrasolo took our group on a night walk through the fringes of the forest. She showed us golden Mantella frogs and leaf-tailed geckos...
Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, 100 sq. mi. (about 260 sq km) of protected forest in a nation that is now more than 90% deforested, is one of Madagascar's main draws. Local guides like Razafindrasolo lead walking tours through the old-growth forest, where energetic sifaka lemurs can be seen in the mornings dancing through the trees. This is one of the main reasons to go all the way to Madagascar--to see endangered species that exist nowhere else. The other reason is that your presence--or, more specifically, your wallet's presence--can help save the last remaining habitats...
...walk through Analamazaotra reminds you of how much there is to be gained when projects like this work - or lost, if they fail. After the sun sets, Mittermeier and Razafindrasolo lead a nocturnal tour along the outskirts of the reserve. The forest throbs with invisible life. What we can't see, we can hear: tree frogs mating, insects whirring, a rustling through the branches. Our flashlights pierce the canopy, but just barely, before a thicket of leaves absorbs the beam. After hundreds of years of human exploration on this island, there are still countless species that have...