ROASTED lemurs and criminal gangs exporting precious hardwood: this is the sad state of affairs for Madagascar鈥檚 legendary biodiversity. Since a military coup ousted the president in March, loggers have been stripping the country鈥檚 forests and killing its animals for bushmeat.
Foreign aid has been curtailed and, with no stable government in place to enforce the law, NGOs in Madagascar report that criminal organisations have been quick to exploit the country鈥檚 unique animal and plant life.
鈥淚t has been a gold rush for logging gangs and bushmeat hunters to do as much as they can before the government gets organised and puts a stop to it,鈥� says Edward Louis, a conservation biologist at Omaha Zoo, Nebraska, who has been working in Madagascar for a decade.
Advertisement
In August, Conservation International reported that 15 bushmeat traders, contracted by a restaurant, had been arrested carrying hundreds of endangered lemurs, which had been killed and roasted. 鈥淭his happened in one of the country鈥檚 best-managed parks,鈥� says Louis. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 happening there, I can鈥檛 imagine what is happening elsewhere.鈥�
Sometimes called the 鈥淓ighth Continent鈥� because of its biodiversity, Madagascar is home to many plant and animal species that are unique to the island. The 100-odd species of lemur are not found anywhere else in the world, for example.
Information collected by the campaign group Global Witness shows that every day at least 120 rosewood and ebony trees, worth about $480,000, are being taken out of Masoala national park, Madagascar鈥檚 largest. At least 13 illegal traders, known locally as the 鈥渞osewood Mafia鈥�, buy the wood and export it, mostly to China.
Conservationists say the logging is destroying the island鈥檚 national parks and having knock-on effects on the forest鈥檚 animals. 鈥淪omething needs to be done rapidly or the whole country is going to lose everything in about a year,鈥� says Louis.
The interim government in place until next year鈥檚 presidential elections has been sending mixed messages about logging. Having initially closed one of the main ports for rosewood export it issued an order allowing the sale and export of 750 tonnes of wood. Several NGOs, including WWF, Conservation International and the Wildlife Conservation Society, have called on the government to reverse the order, and on consumers of precious woods to boycott those from Madagascar.