Throughout the Western world, Madagascar is perhaps best known as a hot spot for wildlife, home to lemurs, chameleons, and other animals — a reputation popularized by movies like Madagascar and shows like Planet Earth. And it’s true that the country has an impressive array of creatures and plants that you can’t find anywhere else. Lemurs literally only exist on this island, as do almost half of the world’s chameleon species and most of its iconic baobab trees, stout species that are mostly trunk.
But although Madagascar is one of a kind, it’s not exactly the wildlife haven you might imagine. At least not anymore.
The island has lost around half — or possibly far more — of its original forests, and as much as half of the live coral off its coasts. Today, nearly all lemur species are threatened with extinction. So are half of the country’s chameleons and several species of tenrec, adorable hedgehog-like creatures that live only in Madagascar. Reef-dependent fisheries in some regions, meanwhile, are on the verge of collapsing.
These declines are rooted in scarcity. Madagascar is one of the poorest and most malnourished countries on the planet. Last year, 80 percent of the island nation lived in extreme poverty, earning less daily than what $2.15 could buy you in the US in 2017. Nearly 40 percent of young children, meanwhile, have stunted growth due to a lack of nutrition.
This matters because, throughout much of the country, one of the only ways to earn money and buy food is by taking resources from the environment. People cut down forests, for example, to make and sell charcoal, a wood-based fuel, or to clear small parcels of land to grow crops. These sorts of activities aren’t inherently harmful; humans have always relied on nature for survival. But when people have no other way to earn a living, the pressure of extraction can become too much.
There are several complex reasons why poverty still grips Madagascar, including political instability and corruption. Just this month, the Madagascar government was dissolved, the president was impeached, and the military assumed power, following weeks of protests in the capital of Antananarivo from people frustrated by power and water outages and a lack of economic opportunity. Together with climate change, the lingering effects of colonialism, and foreign aid structures, poor governance has stymied the growth of non-extractive industries.
As a result, a large number of people across Madagascar are highly dependent on the island’s ecosystems for their livelihoods — for their survival — and those ecosystems are starting to fail, partly because of the sheer scale of dependency. That makes conservation here both incredibly challenging and incredibly important.
Last month, I visited Madagascar in search of solutions. I was after ideas for how to sustain the country’s iconic ecosystems and animals as a means to support human well-being. What I found, in the southwest and eastern regions of the country, was more dim than I had expected. I saw clear signs of coral reefs in distress and fishermen facing hunger. I saw wildfires approaching one of the last intact stretches of highland forest.
But I ultimately did find what I was after: solutions that actually seem to work. And though they were small-scale, their significance felt large. Because, as several experts told me along the way, if you can get conservation to work under these conditions, it’ll work anywhere.
You can read Benji's first story from Madagascar on the Vox website here; stay tuned for the rest soon!
