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Madagascar: Islands
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With its extraordinary, yet highly threatened endemic biodiversity, Madagascar is a global conservation priority. Poverty and unsustainable resource use are leading to the depletion of the island's biodiversity capital and having dramatic impacts on the mostly rural population. However, as Madagascar enters the third phase of its national environmental action plan, there is a new vision for the sustainable development of the country. WCS is a key partner in this plan, which encompasses the involvement of communities and the establishment of protected areas in an integrated approach to development and conservation. WCS has worked in Madagascar for over 13 years in site-based programs and on species-based conservation. In the overall aim to inform sustainable resource use in Madagascar's unique terrestrial and marine environments, WCS' work is integrated in national and regional conservation planning and policy development initiatives.
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Unlike neighbouring Mauritus and Reunion, Madagascar is not a volcanic island. The island can be divided geographically into three parallel north-south regions. In the west is an area of low plateaus that drop gently to a broad coastal strip. Running through the centre of the island are the hauts plateaux, which vary in altitude from 750m to 1350m. The east is characterised with steep escarpments that give way to rain forested hills and a narrow coastal plain. Overall there is a dry season from April to October and a wet season from November to March, but this does vary depending on the region.
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Madagascar - an isolated island about twice the size of Arizona - has some of the highest biodiversity on the planet. Of roughly 200,000 known species found on Madagascar, about 150,000 are endemic-meaning they exist nowhere else. Unique to the island are more than 50 types of lemurs, 99 percent of its frog species, and 36 genera of birds. Madgascar houses 100 percent of the world's lemurs, half of its chameleon species, 6 percent of its frogs, and none of its toads
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The island of Madagascar has a number of environmental issues. These include soil erosion, which is the result of deforestation and overgrazing, and desertification. The surface water is contaminated from raw sewage and other organic wastes. In addition, several of the islands unique flora and fauna species are endangered.
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The written history of Madagascar began in the seventh century A.D., when Arabs established trading posts along the northwest coast. European contact began in the 1500s, when Portuguese sea captain Diego Dias sighted the island after his ship became separated from a fleet bound for India. In the late 17th century, the French established trading posts along the east coast. From about 1774 to 1824, it was a favorite haunt for pirates, including Americans, one of whom brought Malagasy rice to South Carolina.
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Madagascar, the fourth-largest island in the world, lies in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Mozambique. It includes several much smaller islands. A central chain of high mountains, the Hauts Plateaux, occupies more than half of the main island and is responsible for the marked differences – ethnically, climatically and scenically – between the east and west coasts. The narrow strip of lowlands on the east coast, settled from the 6th century by Polynesian seafarers, is largely covered by dense rainforests, whereas the broader west-coast landscape, once covered by dry deciduous forests, is now mostly savannah. The east coast receives the monsoon and, on both coasts, the climate is wetter towards the north. The southern tip of the island is semi-desert, with great forests of cactus-like plants.
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