- Western Madagascar is home to some of the country’s poorest communities and its most endangered wildlife, presenting intertwined challenges for conservation.
- The region’s characteristic dry forests have been badly damaged by clearing of land for shifting agriculture — and for mining, plantations and timber harvesting — over the past 50 years: Across Madagascar, nearly 60% of dry forest species are classed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.
- NGO leaders, scientists and government representatives are forming a dry forest alliance to better coordinate efforts to protect this valuable biome.
- Among the new alliance’s first actions was pushing for the inclusion of the critically-endangered Verreaux’s sifaka on the latest list of the World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates, which alliance members hope will attract greater attention to this primate’s threatened habitat.
ANTANANARIVO — Which tropical habitats are worthy of conservation? Humid forests, with their dazzling species counts, easily gain notice. Dry forests may not boast the same numbers, but their unique rhythms of life are just as vital — and a charismatic inhabitant, the Verreaux’s sifaka, is helping make their case in Madagascar.
“Conservation efforts and international funding have long focused on the eastern rainforests, by both conservation organizations or by development organizations, in Madagascar and globally,” primatologist Rebecca Lewis told Mongabay, “[Meanwhile], 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 and reliance of local communities on forest resources.”
At the recently-concluded International Primatological Society (IPS) congress, Lewis, founder of Ankoatsifaka Initiative for Dry Forests (AID Forests), advocated for inclusion of Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) on the most recent list of the World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates not only because the species is critically endangered, but also because its listing could serve as a rallying point to protect its habitat in Madagascar’s dry forests.
Found across southern and southwestern Madagascar, Verreaux’s sifaka is a diurnal lemur that lives in family groups and holds local cultural significance. As a seed disperser, it plays a vital role in regenerating and maintaining the diverse forests and habitats it occupies. This primate is classed as critically endangered by the IUCN, the global conservation authority, due to severe threats from habitat loss, hunting and, in some areas, low genetic diversity.
Dry forests under pressure
A 2022 analysis of satellite images published in Nature Sustainability found that, around the world, more than 71 million hectares of tropical dry forests were lost between 2000-20 alone — an area twice the size of Germany. The study also found that a third of all remaining dry forests are located in “frontier” areas where deforestation is progressing rapidly. More than half of these deforestation frontiers are in Africa’s dry forests.
In Madagascar, an assessment published by Botanic Gardens Conservation International in 2020 found that due to clearing of land for mining, plantations, timber harvesting and shifting agriculture over the past 50 years, populations of 90% of the 982 tree species found in Madagascar’s dry forests are declining. Nearly 60% are threatened with extinction or classed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.
These include the endangered Erythrophleum couminga (kimanga in Malagasy), a tree whose toxic bark, flowers and foliage are traditionally used as an emetic against poisoning; the similarly endangered Delonix velutina, whose trunk is used to make canoes; and hazomalany (Hazomalania voyronii), a widely distributed but rare tree prized for its soft, durable wood that has been so intensively harvested that it is now critically endangered.
Changes in Madagascar’s dry forests are driven by a tangle of actors, each with their own priorities. For local communities, fire is a familiar tool for managing grazing and farmland, but it can quickly get out of control, threatening forests, wildlife and people’s safety. “In just a few hours, a fire can undo years of conservation and research,” said Amanda Rowe, a postdoctoral researcher of community ecology and lemurs with a decade of experience in southwestern Madagascar.
Tropical dry forests in Kirindy Mitea National Park — the largest remaining block of dry forest in southwestern Madagascar — declined by 43% between 1973 and 2023. If the current rate of loss continues, KMNP could lose all of its forest cover within the next 50 years, according to a study by Domenic Romanello, director of the Kirindy Mitea National Park Biodiversity Monitoring Initiative.
The study also found that while KMNP offers better protection for wildlife than nearby unprotected areas, its effectiveness is limited. Populations of Verreaux’s sifaka and other lemurs in KMNP are so low they risk local extinction, with surveys finding so few of the animals that researchers could not estimate densities.
Stronger coordination to improve conservation
The biggest challenge for protecting Madagascar’s dry forests remains coordinating the many scattered conservation efforts, Lewis told Mongabay.
Where rainforest protection benefits from the attention of major global NGOs such as the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), dry forests have no comparable network. “There is not that kind of [coordinated effort] for dry forests. We need to organize within Madagascar, and we need to organize globally,” Lewis said.
Tropical dry forests also receive less attention from international forestry researchers than do more complex tropical humid forests, which may reflect the long-standing efforts of organizations to protect humid ecosystems, the availability of funding opportunities and the policy priorities of governments.
To address this, actors working in Madagascar’s dry forests — including NGO leaders, scientists, conservationists and government representatives — came together during the IPS congress to form a “Madagascar dry forest alliance,” a new platform for sharing knowledge and solutions.
“The alliance is important because it breaks isolation,” said Stela Nomenjanahary, who has worked around Zombitse-Vohibasia National Park in southwestern Madagascar. “Many of us working in the dry forest feel alone, but the alliance shows that we are not.”
Raising funding for successful protection efforts is another priority for the newborn alliance. Travis Steffens, founder of Planet Madagascar, says his NGO has invested heavily in patrols and education to reduce fire risk and maintains a 17-kilometer (10.5-mile) firebreak in Ankarafantsika National Park in northwestern Madagascar.
“Thanks to fire management and commitment from the communities, we have reduced the number of fires that hit our zone. Our greatest challenge is resources — especially money and vehicles to support our patrols, firebreak building and firefighting. We don’t have a truck and rely mostly on zebu carts, motorcycles or walking.”
Restoring damaged or degraded areas is equally challenging as fire prevention, especially given the particular climate conditions in the dry forest, where trees grow slowly, Rowe told Mongabay. Developing the most effective approaches and mobilizing support could be more widely shared, which is where the alliance comes in, supporting scientists as they navigate complex conservation problems for which they may not have received formal training, she added.
Rowe said she hopes the inclusion of Verreaux’s sifaka on the latest list of most threatened primates will mean some money will be available to strengthen its protection. The alliance plans to hire someone to organize efforts across the different areas. “[They will] gather information about where everybody worked, assess strengths and weaknesses, identify priorities and form subgroups — some focusing on fire, others on restoration together, and others on improving human livelihoods, among other efforts,” she said.
Amplify community voices
Madagascar’s dry forests continue to shrink rapidly, with deforestation advancing even within protected national parks. Protection of the forests helps but, on its own, it is no longer enough, said Romanello.
The trained anthropologist, who has extensively studied livelihoods around KMNP, said that local people often experience global conservation agendas as loss, such as when the establishment of a protected area cuts them off from the land and livelihoods they depend on, without the necessary support to thrive. “Something has to be done to improve the lives of those living around the park before we can expect it to protect wildlife and prevent habitat loss,” he said.
He described the situation around the park as a coupled crisis: Both people and wildlife are suffering simultaneously. “Communities in these regions face persistent, severe poverty — multidimensional poverty here is higher than anywhere else in Madagascar,” he said.
A needs assessment he led revealed that communities’ top priorities for improving local human well-being were clear: Livelihood opportunities, income and wealth, food security, improved agriculture, and asset ownership are needed as alternatives because they can no longer use the forests as they did before the park was established.
For the Madagascar dry forest alliance, amplifying the voices of these communities is a central commitment, ensuring that research and management strategies reflect lived realities on the ground. “All of us started as lemur researchers but we spend a lot of our times with communities, and we know how to work with communities and trying to understand their needs,” Rowe said.
“People living around the KNMP love the forest that they’d call home and want to preserve it. [But] they are stuck in a system that does not give them the ability to preserve it [for] the future because of their immediate needs and the immediate needs of their children. They are interested in conservation and what they need to do to be able to conserve their forest,” Romanello said.
“It is really easy to hear about the bad news, and to worry about the funding and resources restriction in a changing environment but I’ve never been more optimistic about the future of Madagascar’s dry forest,” added Anne Axel, an associate professor of biological sciences at U.S.’s Marshall University.
Banner image: A Verreaux’s sifaka dancing. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
‘Unprecedented’ fires in Madagascar national park threaten livelihoods and lemurs
Slash-and-burn farming eats away at a Madagascar haven for endangered lemurs, frogs
Photo essay: Madagascar’s disappearing dry forests (insider)
Citations:
Romanello, D., Thompson, K. E., Borgerson, C., Randriamanetsy, J. M., Andriamavosoloarisoa, N. N., Andrianantenaina, M. Y., … Lewis, R. J. (2023). A nuanced examination of primate capture and consumption and human socio-economic well-being in Kirindy Mitea National Park, Madagascar. Animals, 13(18), 2914. doi:10.3390/ani13182914
Romanello, D. M. (2024). Protected area effectiveness: wildlife conservation and human well-being in Kirindy Mitea National Park, Madagascar. Texas ScholarWorks. (Doctoral dissertation). doi:10.26153/tsw/54298
Schröder, J. M., Rodríguez, L. P. Á., & Günter, S. (2021). Research trends: Tropical dry forests: The neglected research agenda? Forest Policy and Economics, 122, 102333. doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2020.102333
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