DIVERSITY

Where in the World?

Where in the World?

Synthesis

• The island's geographic isolation created a wonderland of biological richness. Now population pressures and political turmoil speed the plunder of its rosewood, minerals and gems.

THE PIERCED HEART of MADAGASCAR

What brings Tourists? Morondava – Avenue of the Baobabs = deforested farmland

Sketch in context

madagascar.mongabay.net

Antongil Bay

Antalaha

Masoala National Park

Lemurs

Boababs Colourful Lesser Chameleon

Watch the sequence of eight slides …

see if you can understand the process

Process

• Rosewood Cut in Masola National park is hauled to riverside banks in pre-cut sections

• The Piroque men move this downstream in rafts continuously breaking up loads at cataracts

• Collected at larger camps it is then transferred to vehicles for transportation to Antalaha

• Eventually it will find itself to China – equivalent to $200 million in just a few months

• Here it is used for furniture,

Earnings • Cutter earn $6 a day – fell tree, remove white

exterior and cut into 7 foot lengths • Two extractors drag the logs to the forest edge -

1 to 2 days for $10 to $20 [400lbs each]• Radeau [raft] operators earn $25 a log down the

rapids• Piroquemen paddle the flatter section [$12 a log]• Park officials bribed $200 for two weeks • Police officers $20 each on manned checkpoints• Middlemen select the logs and transfer these to

trucks for $12 a log

Rosewood

• Rosewood Bound for China• Rosewood dining table can cost you $5000• Timber exported largely to China – insatiable

appetite • Most ‘barons’ still dabble in Vanilla too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RosewoodGuitarBack.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RosewoodPieces.jpg

Vanilla• Traditionally the main

harvest based outside of Antalaha

• Falling prices and cyclones have reduced output

• Workers have explored new sectors to support their families

Masoala National Park – Rosewood earns this forester $6

• Selectively cut from the forest

• [typical Madgascan lives on a dollar a day]

• 20 million growing at 3% a year

Aid falls off and Tourists decline leaving flowers unsold at the market following the

2009 Coup

• 2002 Marc Raalomanana comes to power as president on a green platform

• 2009 routed from power by the military

• 2000 ban on exporting Rosewood

• 2009 overturned by cash-strapped government

Politics

Sapphire miners Ilakaka

• Most rights to prospect owned by foreign owned companies

• Gold• Nickel• Cobalt• Ilmenite [titanium]• + Sapphire [1/3 of

world market]

Pipeline for Ambatovy

Nickel Mine

• Tolanarro• Anglo Australian

company Rio Tinto • Good Neighbour project• Extraction or Ilmenite for

titanium – paints., paper and plastic

• Built new road, schools and employed locals

• Now has also secured unique littoral forests with endemic species as well.

$50 or best offer• Forest guide notices a real difference in the forest – very quiet

• No lemur• Forest loggers supplement

their poor diet of rice with Lemur

• One group caught 16 Lemurs in one sitting

• ~Most species polygamous but the INDRI has no tail [black and white] and is monogamous

Locals [indigenous] either see the Lemur as evil or the realm of the white tourist

• All photographs Pascal Maitre• http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/0

9/madagascar/maitre-photography• Text from September 2010 National

Geographic• Slide 20 Jud Mc Cranie – chess pieces + guitar back – creative commons – address

illustrates licences

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/09/madagascar/maitre-photography