What started out ten years ago as a rescue mission for a rare and beautiful species of Sifaka lemur resulted in the discovery of a new species of Sifaka, improved the economy of two remote villages, and the employability of many members of those villages, rebuilt a primary school, and is instrumental in moving toward a new National Park.  This is a Win-Win-Win story – science wins, the local populace wins, and conservation wins.  Leaping Lemurs!  Sometimes we do have good news

Story

This story is about Edmund and his family who lived in a mud hut several hours’ walk from the end of the nearest road into the east-central rainforest. In 1999 Edmund hunted lemurs while his wife and children raised paddy rice and other subsistence foods. Today, although they still harvest rice, they live in a two-story brick house and the children go to a new school.  Edmund and several other men from his village of Mahatsinjo now serve as research assistants for primatologists studying the previously unknown sifaka the Malagasy call “sadabe”. The brick house was built with Edmond’s salary, and the school was reconstructed and supplied with private funds from American and Canadian donors. Ranaivo, another former poacher, retrained as a research assistant, and others have enjoyed the same relative prosperity.

A similar change came about in the even more remote village of Vatateza located in primary rainforest nine linear miles east of Mahatsinjo, but it has taken less time because Edmund and his newly trained team of research assistants regularly visit Vatateza to train local men to help with the comparison study of two additional groups of Sadabe found in this primary forest.

The long-term behavioral and ecology study continues under the supervision of  local Malagasy student Jean-Luc Raharison. Dr. Mitch Irwin travels between the Madagascar sites and McGill University in Montreal. Four marked groups continue to serve as the focus of this study – two in forest fragments at Mahatsinjo and two in the primary forest at Vatateza. In addition, more local men are being trained as guides, research assistants and forestry managers, and the local school continues to be supported by committed private individuals in the US and Canada. Mitch Irwin has spearheaded a move for the government of Madagascar to protect the entire area through the creation of a new national park.

Tissue samples from both the 2002 and the 2003 captures are now being fully analyzed in the US, but all indications are that Sadabe are at least a new sub-species of sifaka lemur, and more probably, a new species.

 Visual delights

Madagascar is a photographer’s wonderland.  Lemurs approach with curiosity and dance and pose for photos.  Chameleons flash their brilliant colors, frogs abound and birds defy description. The people of Madagascar, an amalgam of Indonesian and African cultures, welcome “vazaha.” But only a small fraction of the rain forest that once covered Madagascar remains. It must be saved.

February 28, 2008, a big conservation meeting organized by Jean-Luc in conjunction with Conservation International and others was held in Antsirabe, south of the capital, Antananarivo. Top Malagasy and western conservationists attended, and in addition to scientific papers and calls for action, Jean-Luc presented a slide show with my images from the project.

National Geographic’s Wild Chronicles, which was first aired on PBS in November, 2006, featured the discovery as well as the conservation and humanitarian successes.  I was Field Producer, Consultant, Writer, and contributed video footage and still images for that Wild Chronicles segment. The project still works under a National Geographic grant which was first awarded in 2002.

More of Connie's work can be found on her website, www.ConnieBransilver.com.