Madagascar Hotspot
Major causes to the extiction
Ironically, isolation that allowed the Madagascar and the neighboring islands of Madagascar to evolve as a diverse and a unique flora and fauna has also contributed to the environmental degradation of Madagascar. Since human beings did not arrive on island until fifteen hundred to two thousand years ago, the native animals were the na�ve and were easily slaughtered by colonists. The islands’ location which was of the coast of the continent of Africa made them their important stopping of points on the trade routes and heavens for the pirates. In Mascarenes, there is an evidence to thus suggest that extinction spasm of the native megafauna was thus directly related to the hunting. The major cause can thus be said as to be hunting. The people of Malagasy came to Madagascar from Asia and Africa, bringing the agricultural methods with them which included irrigation of rice cultivation, cattle grazing and the slash and burn agriculture. When all is applied to the lateritic, infertile soil, these practices can thus lead to the soil degradation which might be another cause. Another cause to the extinction could thus be deforestation too. The photograph thus describes when Madagascar was suffering from one of the worst soil erosion and land degradation in the world.
ecological threat to the madagascarhotspot
Island of the Madagascar is one of world’s highest priorities of conservation due to the unique species and the ecosystems, which are thus reportedly threatened by the rapid deforestation. Although it has been designated as a global ‘biodiversity hotspot’, the conflict in reports have always been there on nature of island’s forest declined to the date. Differences in the forest estimates have thus resulted in the limited temporal scale of the previous studies, the non-standardized definition of the forest and incongruence of the satellite data between the different investigations. The birds region is too seriously threatened.
Solutions that could help conserve biodiversity and specific conservation measures being taken
In Madagascar, government is thus beginning third phase of the national Environmental Plan of action, with the ambitious 5 year program of the conservation and sustainable activities of management. Today, near about 2.5 percent of the Madagascar’s land area is thus officially protected in total in 46 areas which are thus legally protected, including the national parks, the strict nature reserves that were established for conserving ecosystems and the special reserves which were thus designed for the protection of the particular species or the group of species. At World Parks Congress in the year 2003, the Madagascar’s president, Marc Ravalomanana, thus announced the plans to triple the protected area coverage for the next 5 years and thus asked for fifty million dollar in assistance from international community to thus do so. In first 6 months following the announcement, twenty two million dollar in commitments were thus pledged by the international and the organizations for the local conservation, the international development agencies, the multilateral development bank and the national governments to the Biodiversity Funds of the Trust that was thus created in the year 2005.
In the year 2001, the Birdlife International identified in total of hundred and forty one Important Bird Areas (IBA) thus covering about an area of near about fifty four thousand km square units within Madagascar and Indian Ocean Island Hotspots. More recently then, the Conservation International and the other partners in the Madagascar thus expanded upon the work to identify the total of hundred and thirty two Key Biodiversity Areas that were thus based on distribution of the globally threatened species that thus covered eight taxa: birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, freshwater fishes, plants and gastropods. Many of the areas of the Key Biodiversity have thus been identified as the sites for the potential conservation for thus tripling the area protected network in Madagascar.
The activities to thus safeguard and identify hotspot’s natural habitats remaining and are being implemented thus hand in hand with the projects that thus maximize and thus demonstrate value of the conservation to country. For example, in many sites of Madagascar watershed value thus provided by the conservation of remaining forests is of good economic value to surrounding countryside. In some of the Key areas of Biodiversity, ecotourism has thus provided the viable source of the income for the local communities.
species lost and endemic species
High levels of the endemism and the biological diversity have been found in Madagascar. Ninety percent of the plants of the deserts of southern spiny are found to be endemic at species level and forty eight percent are found to be endemic at genus level. The species thus lost include birds such as cuckoo rollers, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and some of the freshwater fishes.
one plant and one animal that are endemic species
The plant that is included in the endemic species is the bottle tree scientifically called the baobab tree. The baobab species are thus pollinated by the nocturnal lemurs, found in drier regions of south and the west and well adapted to the conditions of desert. The photo is thus included and six out of eight of the species are thus endemic to the island
The animal chosen that is endemic is from the reptile family. It is the giant chameleon scientifically named Furcifer verrucosus. The photo is thus included and it is known that at least ninety percent of reptiles like the giant chameleon are found nowhere in the world except Madagascar.
References
- Paleomagnetic evidence for a stationary marion hotspot: additional paleomagnetic data from Madagascar. (n.d.). Retrieved on May 13, 2010 from http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/mad.pdf
- Biological diversity in Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands. (n.d.). Retrieved on May 13, 2010 from http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biological_diversity_in_Madagascar_and_the_Indian_Ocean_Islands
- Madagascar ecosystem of the Madagascar & Indian Ocean islands biodiversity hotspot. (n.d.). Retrieved on May 13, 2010 from http://www.cepf.net/Documents/final.madagascar.ep.pdf