By Staff WritersNagoya, Japan (UPI) Oct 26, 2010 China’s soaring demand for luxury wood furniture is fueling the destruction of Madagascar’s forests, says a new report launched Tuesday at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan. The report from Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency shows that about 98 percent of […]
www.wildmadagascar.org September 30, 2010 One thousand endangered tortoises are being illegally collected each week in southern Madagascar, reports WWF. The trade, driven by international demand for the endemic radiated tortoise (Astrochelys radiata) and the spider tortoise (Pyxis arachnoids) as well as local consumption, is driving the slow-to-reproduce species toward extinction in the wild. Additionally, tortoise […]
www.wildmadagascar.orgSeptember 06, 2010 Despite government assurances that it would crack down on the rosewood trade, illegal logging continues in Madagascar’s rainforest parks, according to new information provided by sources on the ground. The sources report logging in three parks: Mananara, Makira, and Masoala. All three are known for their high levels of biodiversity, including endangered […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com August 01, 2010 UNESCO’s World Heritage committee has added Madagascar’s unique tropical forests to its Danger List of threatened ecosystems. The move comes following a drawn-out illegal logging crisis that has seen loggers and traders infiltrating the island-nation’s national parks for rosewood. Bushmeat hunting of lemurs and other rare species also […]
By John PlattJul 20, 2010 05:30 PM Illegal trade in endangered species continues to grow around the world. How big is the problem? Here are 10 major cases that have hit the media in just the past week: Six pallets containing 765 kilograms of elephant tusks worth an estimated $1.2 million were seized in Thailand […]
A new report by the Chatham House finds that illegal logging in tropical forest nations is primarily on the decline, providing evidence that new laws and international efforts on the issue are having a positive impact. According to the report, the total global production of illegal timber has fallen by 22 percent since 2002. Yet […]
www.wildmadagascar.org June 21, 2010 New eyewitness reports indicate continued logging of Madagascar’s Masoala National Park for rosewood despite a government “moratorium” on logging and timber exports. A source near Marofinaritra, a town between Masoala and Antalaha, reports heavy night-time movement of trucks carrying illegally logged timber from the park. The wood is believed to be […]
SEAL, a French transport company, is scheduled to ship 79 containers of rosewood tomorrow from the port of Toamasina on its vessel Terra Bona, reports Midi Madagascar. The shipment comes less than three months after Madagascar’s ruling authority banned timber exports after international uproar over the organized logging of the country’s national parks in […]
A tawny water fowl that lived in a tiny corner of Madagascar has officially been declared extinct by conservationists. The Alaotra grebe, also called the rusty grebe, had been highly vulnerable as it was found only in Lake Alaotra, eastern Madagascar, according to the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comApril 28, 201 Niall O’Connor from the World Wildlife Fund warns in a Carte Blanche production that if the ecological destruction of Madagascar continues, the poor island country could become “Haiti-like”, where he says, “most of the biodiversity, most of the forests are gone”. Carte Blanche, an African investigative journalism show, went […]
