Thank you!

Thanks to your support and generous donations, we’re delighted to announce that our Madagascar: A Forest for the Future appeal has reached its £586,250 target!

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Madagascar needs your help! This unique island is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. Evolving in isolation for 88 million years, today 82% of its plants and 90% of its animals are found nowhere else. But after centuries of deforestation, this extraordinary wildlife is now under serious threat.

Up to 90% of Madagascar’s natural habitats have already been lost, and in the Vangaindrano District, just a single forest remains: Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika. It’s the last home of lemurs in this area, a nesting site for threatened hawks, a treasure trove of strange rare plant species and an indispensable resource for the local Antesaka people.

By joining World Land Trust and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Madagascar Programme (MBG-Madagascar), you can help to expand this precious habitat by 200 ha, restoring degraded land with 500,000 native trees and bringing 1,000 new jobs to local communities. Natural disasters and human exploitation are threatening the forest’s survival, but with your help, we can secure its future.

Madagascar’s most famous wild residents are the lemurs, an ancient group of primates native only to this unique island. Lemur-like animals first emerged around 70 million years ago, and modern lemurs still retain ancestral characteristics that distinguish them from most other primates, like longer snouts, better night vision, and a specialised “toothcomb”. There are an estimated 112 species of lemur living today, almost all of which (98%) are threatened with extinction. 31% are Critically Endangered – one step away from being declared Extinct in the Wild.

Protecting lemurs is one of the most urgent conservation priorities in Madagascar, and that’s not just for their sake. Lemurs play a crucial ecological role as seed dispersers – without them, the future of Madagascar’s forests and all they provide for both people and wildlife would be in jeopardy. As the island’s largest fruit-eaters, lemurs can swallow seeds that smaller birds or bats are unable to, making them the primary or indeed the only seed disperser for many plant species in Madagascar, including some of the largest canopy trees.

At Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika, you can protect the home of at least six lemur species, including as yet unidentified species of dwarf lemur and mouse lemur.

Click the images below to find out more about these threatened primates.

Comprised of a very rare vegetation type – low-elevation humid forest on basalt – Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika is home to some equally rare plants, including Hibiscus vohipahensis. Discovered right here in our project area and yet to be found anywhere else on Earth, its survival rests entirely on the future of this forest. There is also the Sylvichadsia grandidieri tree, known from Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika and just one other protected area; the Critically Endangered palms Dypsis elegans Beentje and Dypsis singularis Beentje; and the threatened orchid Aerangis seegeri Senghas.

Home to 11,500 plant species, Madagascar’s floral diversity is truly exceptional, and our understanding of it continues to grow every year. More plants are discovered annually in Madagascar than in any other country, and MBG-Madagascar believes an astonishing 3,000 are still unknown to science. The Ankarabolava-Agnakatrika project represents “the last chance to save any vestige of what would have been a massive forest spread across the whole district,” says Chris Birkinshaw, MBG-Madagascar’s Technical Advisor. Although many plants will have been lost forever, we can secure a safe future for those that remain – and save those that still lie undiscovered, hidden in the depths of the forest.