EAZA Madagascar Campaign 2006/7
- 'Arovako i Madagasikara'
| BACKGROUND INFORMATION |
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Campaign Info Pack and CD-Rom The Madagascar Campaign Info Pack contains useful information for campaign participants and detailed information on Madagascar. In addition, the CD-ROM included in the Info Pack contains pictures, sample educational activities and campaign logos.  Each EAZA member institution has received an Info Pack with CD-ROM at the Annual Conference in Madrid or afterwards by regular mail. A special education DVD with amongst others sample education panels was distributed to the EAZA membership in November 2006. | ||
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Madagascar information
The islandMadagascar is the 4th largest island in the world, 1600km in length and covering 590,000 km2. The diversity of habitats found on the island includes rainforests, dry deciduous forests, bush, xerophytic and spiny forests, seasonal humid forests and anthropogenic grasslands. It is this striking diversity and varied topography that has led toMadagascar being called the '8th continent'. © Andi Schriber
The island can be split into the eastern and western domains, which can be further subdivided into areas of more localised habitat. This diversity is a product of its position, almost entirely within the tropics, with rains generated by the steep escarpment that forms the east coast with monsoon storms moving in from the Indian Ocean, and the long slope from the high plateau leading down to the dry plains of the west and the Mozambique Channel. The threatsMadagascar is an economically impoverished country, with a population of 17 million. Although this appears a modest figure for an island of this size, the annual population growth rate is 3.03%, a doubling time of 25 years. Half of the population is under 15 years of age and the average Malagasy mother will have 6.6 children in her lifetime.Ironically, although Madagascar is famed for its lush and unique environment and fauna, the predominant agricultural practice of 'tavy', slash-and-burn rice growing, has led to the relatively poor red soils of the island being nutrient degraded, with loss of plant cover leading to dramatic erosion gullies called 'lavaka'.  The main threats to fauna are habitat alteration and degradation, habitat loss, pollution, hunting, introduced species and trade. Forests are being removed to clear space for rice-growing, zebu production, charcoal burning (most Malagasy still cook over charcoal) and mining. In the eastern rainforest 111,000 ha were lost every year from 1950 - 1985, a 50% decline in 35 years.© Zurich Zoo Current estimated loss is 102,000 ha/year from 1993 - 2000. The eastern rainforest now covers just 34% of its original extent. The dry deciduous forest of the west coast is thought to be declining at an even more advanced rate. Recent estimates suggest that only 9.9% of the islands original vegetation remains and less than 20% of that remaining area is nominally protected. Habitat fragmentation has led to islands of remnant forest in seas of anthropogenic grasslands, with these fragments often too small to support viable populations of many species.
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