Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.
Madagascar’s rainforests often steal the spotlight, with their flamboyant biodiversity and familiar lemur mascots. Less noticed are the country’s dry forests in the west and southwest, which shelter equally remarkable life yet have been steadily eroded by agriculture, fire and logging. Now, conservationists are betting that one of their most charismatic residents, Verreaux’s sifaka, a white “dancing” lemur famed for its sideways bounds across the ground, could rally support to save what remains, reports contributor Mino Rakotovao for Mongabay.
Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) has just been added to the World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates list, a move driven by a new Madagascar conservation alliance, the Ankoatsifaka Initiative for Dry Forests (AID Forests), a coalition of NGOs, scientists and government officials. Its advocates say they hope the listing will draw attention not only to the sifaka’s plight but also to the fragile forests it depends on.
“In the west and southwest [of Madagascar], the situation is just as serious, with widespread food insecurity, increased bushmeat hunting, and similar threats like deforestation,” said Rebecca Lewis, a primatologist and founder of AID Forests.
Dry forests provide food, medicine, timber and grazing land for some of Madagascar’s poorest communities. They also face some of the world’s fastest rates of loss. Yet unlike the better-known humid forests, they lack coordinated international backing. The alliance aims to change that by pooling knowledge, strengthening patrols and amplifying the voices of local people.
The sifaka’s presence offers a powerful symbol. As seed dispersers, these lemurs help regenerate forests, knitting human livelihoods and ecological health together.
“I’ve never been more optimistic about the future of Madagascar’s dry forest,” said Anne Axel, an associate professor of biological sciences at Marshall University in the U.S.
If the sifaka succeeds as an ambassador, the “dancing lemur” may yet give Madagascar’s overlooked forests a chance to endure.
Read the full story by Mino Rakotovao here.
Banner image: A “dancing” Verreaux’s sifaka. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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