In environment360, Rhett Butler writes, “Since the government’s collapse after a coup last March, Madagascar’s rainforests have been plundered for their precious wood and unique wildlife. But now there are a few encouraging signs, as officials promise a crackdown on illegal logging and ecotourists begin to return to the island.”

Madagascar’s natural resources used to be grossly exploited. The island-country used to be notorious for large scale and widespread deforestation and environmental degradation. Its topsoil was hemorrhaging into its waterways due to its heavily denuded mountainsides.

Madagascar’s environmental fate changed when President Mark Ravalomanana took power in 2002. He worked “with international conservation organizations and local groups, set aside 10 percent of the country as parks and nurtured a thriving ecotourism business, all of which slowed deforestation and safeguarded more of the nation’s legendary biodiversity. In short order, Madagascar went from being a pariah of the conservation world to a model.”

However, Ravalomanana was toppled by a coup last March and thrown into exile. Since then, “the civil service and park management system collapsed, and donor funds, which provide half the government’s annual budget, dried up. In the absence of governance, organized gangs ransacked the island’s protected rainforests for biological treasures — including precious hardwoods and endangered lemurs — and frightened away tourists, who provide a critical economic incentive for conservation.”

Fortunately, political stability is gaining back in the country. Along with it, the people of Madagascar hope for the resumption of their world-renowned nature conservation system, protected-areas management system, and once-lucrative ecotourism.

Image: JialiangGao
Wikimedia Commons