Friday , 29 March 2024
enfrit

Environment

Stockpiled rosewood to be ashed

The Malagasy ruling power intends to burn a number of rosewood logs down. The concerned stocks are supposed to be stuck down in remote areas, far away from export harbors and much too hard to be reached. But ecologic groups vividly oppose the initiative in response. Read More »

Preservation of biodiversity: top priority parks and areas

Madagascar National Parks (MNP) manages 5 protected areas, 19 national parks and no less than 26 reservations. It is the main entity bound by a deal to the WWF concerning the preservation of protected zones integrity, and the defense of 85% of the world's lemur and 99% of endemic bird species located throughout peripheral regions in the heart of top priority areas. Read More »

What future for the Great Isle’s turtles?

A cargo of endemic species of turtles from Madagascar, previously smuggled by raft, has been seized in the Comoros. The turtles were stacked in a suitcase and carefully glued in order to avoid movements potentially deemed to betray their presence. A certain score of them perished during the travel under these conditions. Read More »

Black coral smuggle in the South of the country

Professional divers were reported to be illegally exploiting black coral in the southern seas of Madagascar. Such an activity has long been made illegal, for black corals happen to be endangered species protected by the CITES convention which bans every form of trade based on endangered species. According to intel collected from local sources, experienced divers from the North of Madagascar are leading this illegal operation on black coral in the South. A professor searcher recalled the relevance of black coral in the conservation process for mangroves. The illegal business of black coral is likely to dramatically affect marine ecology and eventually lead to mid term pending extinction risks for several species, including local lobsters. Police forces together with a handful of scientists seized in Faux-Cap and its surrounding areas some forty bottles of oxygen used by the divers, and captured a truck shipping a cargo of black corals. On March 5th, the Androy Region's officers loudly recalled the ban on the exploitation of black coral, must have however not proved convincing enough to deter the outlaws. The international market courses of black coral actually provide with an incentive much too good to turn down. Exporters are willing to pay up to US$ 300 per kilogram of black coral, whereas simple fishermen merely require US$ 5 to deliver the same quantity. On this account, the black coral undisputedly claims the title of "sea rosewood" on the Great Isle Read More »

The capital city’s outskirts assaulted by migrating locusts

The swarms of migrating locust were thought to have or have been drifted away from the capital city's perimeter. They have not, they were not, and they are back. In the evening of May 15th, the locusts took the royal palace of Ambohimanga, in the north of Antananarivo city, and swept across the surrounding villages and their rice fields on the following days. Read More »

More than 500 living turtles seized at the airport of Ivato

A local protected animal species trafficking network has newly been brought to light. At the international airport of Ivato, the border police services and custom officers found out more than 500 turtles heaped up inside a couple of suitcases belonging to an Egyptian national. The main suspect was on his way to Nairobi, Kenya. Read More »

Preservation of Madagascar’s crocodiles and related legends

The trade of crocodiles, crocodile skin or crocodile skin based craft products certainly had a negative impact on a local economy already battered by the crisis , but not only a negative one. Thanks to this measure, rivers are restoring their stocks of legendary species which is part of the Malagasy landscape and beliefs. The CITES, the international convention for endangered wild fauna and flora species, wants to compel the local power and operators to review their activities for the sake of preserving the Nile crocodile from extinction in Madagascar . Read More »

Zombitse : lemurs , birds and the forest

The Zombitse Vohibasia National Park is a dense and dry forest surrounded by Madagascar' southern outback, as well as a safe haven for ornithology searchers, birdwatchers and lemurs. Read More »

Rosewood trade opened… again

Rosewood stocks will be sold out. The transitional leader ordered it. The ruling power will see to it. And this was actually no surprise. Once brought down by the ax, precious wood trunks have to be sold out before they drop in preciousness. But here is the catch: the authorized trade is likely to prompt people to cut more standing trees down and do what it takes to get them through controls into the existing stocks of logs captured from the Great Isle's natural parks, and retrieved from illegal hideaways. It would be so again as it has always used to be. Read More »

Environmental laws: the ministry wants to inform, ecologists want to capitalize

The HAT environment ministry is organizing a couple of days long information session in order to sensitize the audience and the operators over the green area laws and the precious wood traffic. Until the capitalization of general Raveloharison's capitalization of his extolled full commitment, the ecological balance sheet is remaining extremely poor. The Voahary Gasy alliance is denouncing and working out on the way to take the Rhodes oil plant issue into court. Read More »