Erik Patel, a friend of mine who works with the Silky Sifaka lemurs at Marojejy National Park in Madagascar, sent me these videos today. Illegal logging, its impacts within the protected area, great interviews with experts – take a gander.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Read the interview with Erik Patel on Mongabay, focused on the crisis and degradation of the environment in Madagascar, as well as the destruction of the natural habitat of the silky sifaka. People aren’t the only victims of this political predicament. I’ll be visiting Erik in a few short months!
Angels of the Forest: Silky Sifaka Lemurs of Madagascar from Sharon Pieczenik on Vimeo.
I really don’t have time to be doing this right now, but I wanted to post about the looting of some of Madagascar’s most beautiful protected areas. The political crisis has turned environmental, as they tend to do:
Scramble to log Madagascar’s valuable rainforest trees in midst of crisis (Mongabay.com)
“Foreign traders have arrived in local towns seeking to take advantage of the political crisis that has weakened park protection and enforcement,” the source continued. “This is the worst, by far, that has happened to the park in recent years. The situation is worse than desperate.”
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The crisis in Marojejy has serious implications on several fronts. First, of course, is the extremely detrimental impact it is having on the park’s unique flora and fauna. While old-growth rosewood trees may be the primary objective of the armed gangs, such destructive, unregulated use of the forest will certainly have an adverse effect on everything else in the park. Most worrisome is the well-being of the highly endangered Silky Sifaka, a lemur found only in the rainforests of Marojejy and the surrounding area.
But the crisis is also having a devastating effect outside the boundaries of the park itself. With armed militia descending on local villages and death threats being issued, people live in fear; communities are divided, and families are pitted one against the other. Many local people who depend on tourism – guides, porters, shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant personnel – now live in limbo. With no other means of support, some turn to the lucrative rosewood trade.
