Madagascar and Beyond: Biodiversity Under Siege

House gecko of Vohemar, Madagascar via Flickr’s FAriI first learned about Madagascar last week, writing aboutvanilla as an aphrodisiac, a sinfully delicious sensual flavoring, produced as the fruit of two species of orchid plants.

Uninformed about Madagascar’s global role as a hub of biodiversity, I receive a quick education — not only about the current plight of vanilla growers — but the Madagascar’s center stage role in the world’s fight to save endangered species.

According to TIME magazine’s cover story The New Age of Extinction - Saving the World’s Endangered Species, some 90% of Madagascar’s plants and about 70% of its animals are endemic, or unique to the island.

“If we lose these animals on Madagascar, they’re gone forever,” says Russell Mittermeier, president of the wildlife group Conservation International (CI).

Scientists believe that Madagascar’s biodiversity makes it unique on the face of the earth, a special case situation of epic importance. With 80% of the original vegatation cut down in the last 1500 years, and with modern living accelerating the pace of wiping out one species in staggering numbers, vanilla production is only one of the country’s worries.

Madagascar Island Ark - Before It’s Too Late

There have been five extinction waves in the planet’s history — including the Permian extinction 250 million years ago, when an estimated 70% of all terrestrial animals and 96% of all marine creatures vanished, and, most recently, the Cretaceous event 65 million years ago, which ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Though scientists have directly assessed the viability of fewer than 3% of the world’s described species, the sample polling of animal populations so far suggests that we may have entered what will be the planet’s sixth great extinction wave. And this time the cause isn’t an errant asteroid or megavolcanoes. It’s us.

This country is one of the poorest in the world, now living in a slash and burn culture, where humans demand survival at any cost to the planet.

This week eleven groups doing conservation work in Madagascar issued a joint statement decrying a surge in raids on the country’s national parks for valuable timber, smuggling of rare wildlife and other activities abetted by the unrest and political instability there.

The missive was reprinted on the NYTimes Dot Earth Blog.

TIME asks a relevant question for our current global economy: "Evolution demands extinction. When we’re using the term extinction to talk about the fate of the U.S. auto industry, does it really matter if we lose species like the Holdridge’s toad, the Yangtze River dolphin and the golden toad, all of which have effectively disappeared in recent years? What does the loss of a few species among millions matter?"

Conservations answer that saving species and saving people are intertwined in their own fragile ecosystem. This same logic applies to saving lions and elephants in Africa. The local people, often living on less than $1 a day, must have a ‘win’ in saving species on the say to extinction.

Activists are also tying together the extinction of species with global warming.

Proposals supporting carbon offsets in the global climate negotiations would allow some greenhouse-gas emissions to “do penance” by paying rain-forest nations to preserve their trees. Carbon investors that include Mitsubishi and Pearl Jam are working together with conservation groups to protect about 865,000 acres in eastern Madagascar’s Makira Forest.

More of the Story: TIME’s Animals Under Seige

TIME: Animals Under SeigeOne thing is clear in the reading on the next wave of biodiversity extinction on earth. While it’s true that a mammoth asteroid could strike at any moment (although none are on the way, to the best of my knowledge), humans, and not an act of God, are the next executioner of Planet Earth as we know it.

There is time to act, but like a fragile heart beating on the monitor outside the patient’s hospital room, the line will go horizontal for the unique ecosystem of Madagascar. If the price of vanilla is high … higher even than saffron … can we even calculate the cost to humankind of this looming disaster? Anne

More reading: This is an excellent website about Madagascar, but with all the problems there today, we cannot recommend travel there.