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Madagascar's varied fauna and flora are endangered by human activity. [24] Since the arrival of humans around 2,350 years ago, Madagascar has lost more than 90 percent of its original forest. [25] This forest loss is largely fueled by tavy ("fat"), a traditional slash-and-burn agricultural practice imported to Madagascar by the earliest ...
It contains the largest of Madagascar's limestone tsingy fields, as well as dry forest, bush, rainforest and savanna. The biodiversity contained in this park is among the richest of any protected natural area in the world: 87% of the plants and animals are endemic to Madagascar, and 45% are uniquely endemic to the region around the park.
Land cover (left) and topography (right) of Madagascar. The ecoregions of Madagascar, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund, include seven terrestrial, five freshwater, and two marine ecoregions. Madagascar's diverse natural habitats harbour a rich fauna and flora with high levels of endemism, but most ecoregions suffer from habitat loss.
Madagascar's high endemism and species richness coupled with a sharp decrease in primary vegetation make the island a global biodiversity hotspot. To preserve natural habitats, around 10% of the land surface is protected, including the World Heritage sites Tsingy de Bemaraha and the Rainforests of the Atsinanana.
The history of the fauna of Madagascar in the context of plate tectonics and paleoclimate over the last 200 million years (Aepyornithidae arrived later than is indicated). A good example of Malagasy convergent evolution is the fossa, a Malagasy carnivore that has evolved in appearance and behaviour to be so like a large cat that it was originally classified in Felidae, when it is in fact more ...
Having completed its separation from all other land masses more than 60 million years ago, Madagascar’s plant and animal life evolved in isolation. The rainforests are inscribed for their importance to both ecological and biological processes as well as their biodiversity and the threatened species they support.
Deforestation in Madagascar is an ongoing environmental issue. Deforestation [ 1 ] creates agricultural or pastoral land but can also result in desertification , water resource degradation , biodiversity erosion and habitat loss, and soil loss .
Makira is estimated to contain around 50% of Madagascar’s floral biodiversity and harbors the highest lemur diversity in the country with 17 species. Particularly notable is the occurrence of 3 critical endangered lemur species, the Silky Sifaka ( Propithecus candidus ), the Indri ( Indri indri ) and the Black and White Vari ( Varecia ...