Since 3/09 Coup, Gangs Leveling Madagascar Forests - @ Least 120 Ebony & Rosewood Trees Daily

[hatrack]

Roasted lemurs and criminal gangs exporting precious hardwood: this is the sad state of affairs for Madagascar's legendary biodiversity. Since a military coup forced the president to resign in March, conservationists and biologists have watched as loggers have stripped the country's forests and killed its animals for bushmeat. Much of the foreign aid to Madagascar has been withdrawn and, without a stable government to enforce rules and laws, criminal organisations have been quick to exploit the unique animal and plant life of the country.

"It has been a gold rush for logging gangs and bushmeat hunters to do as much as they can before the government gets organised and puts a stop to it," says Edward Louis, a conservation biologist at the Omaha Zoo, who has been working in Madagascar for a decade. In August, Conservation International reported that 15 bushmeat traders, contracted by a restaurant, were arrested carrying hundreds of endangered lemurs, which had been killed and roasted. "This happened in one of the country's best managed parks," says Louis. "If it's happening there, I can't begin to imagine what is happening elsewhere."

Sometimes called the "8th Continent" because of its diversity of species, many of Madagascar's plant and animal species are unique to the island. The 100-odd species of lemur are not found anywhere else in the world, for example.

Data collected by the environmental campaign group Global Witness shows that, at the very least, 120 rosewood and ebony trees, worth an estimated $480,000, are being taken out of Masoala, Madagascar's largest national park, each day. At least thirteen illegal traders, known locally as the "rosewood Mafia", buy the wood and export it, mostly to China. Conservationists say the logging is destroying the island's national parks and having knock-on effects on the forest's animals.

EDIT

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17965-madagascar-biodiversity-under-threat-as-gangs-run-wild.html

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Yikes!

Hard to believe there isn't a Bush connection in there somewhere

[michreject]

2. LOL. I really did

Thanks for the laugh.

[hatrack]

3. Ahem! "Bushmeat".

I rest my case.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Well, they do talk about the bush meat. nt

[ladjf]

5. One more of example of how the human race is too stupid and greedy to survive.