(English) Chameleon resilience is a reminder of what we stand to lose

Miala tsiny fa tsy mbola misy amin’ny teny malagasy ity lahatsoratra ity.

An astonishingly rare chameleon species has been discovered in a new location in Madagascar – both a cause for celebration and a reminder of the precarious nature of the world in which we live, and the creatures we share it with.

A biological research team working in an area of spiny forest in southwestern Madagascar has recorded and reported a chameleon previously believed to live in just one, four km² (one square mile), area.

One female and two male Furcifer belalandaensis chameleons, named for the closest village (Belalanda) to the four km² location previously thought to be the only place on Earth the species lives, were found five km away from the area, on the banks of the Fierenana River.

The research team was working to map and study the PK32-Ranobe protected area, in which the chameleons were found.

The discovery is particularly welcome because the forest at Belalanda is badly degraded and at severe risk from pollution and potential expansion from a mining project, Base Toliara, and because the species itself is directly threatened by wildfires and clearing forest for farmland: it may also be at risk from climate change.

While the news is good, even the forest close to the riverbank is considered under threat, necause Base Toliara plans to build a road close by.

The chameleon’s situation is mirrored across Madagascar. Of the 234 species of chameleon around the world, 98 are found only on the island.

Indeed, Madagascar is home to five per cent of all the world’s species of animal and plant, and of those, 80 per cent are found only on the island.

But more than 600 of those species are threatened with extinction. More than 3.900 (3,912) are endangered.

And the forests all over Madagascar are under threat: the island has lost 80 per cent of its natural areas and loses around 200,000ha. to deforestation each year: at the current rate, all Malagasy forest will be gone within 40 years.

And although it is true that some of that pressure comes from Malagasy people, those people themselves face serious challenges.

Madagascar is the world’s fourth-poorest country.

Very nearly four out of five – 79.9 per cent – Malagasy people live on or below the global poverty baseline of £1.73 per day. Eighty per cent rely entirely on agriculture for their income and survival.

Though Madagascar is one of only four countries recognised to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits (a ‘carbon sink’), it is experiencing some of the worst impacts of the carbon catastrophe, including drought, flooding and the permanent loss of fertile soil due to extreme rainfall.

Most Malagasy men, women and children are experiencing food shortage, hunger and its impacts, including stunting in nearly 50 per cent of children.

One way they try to improve their lives is by removing forest to access more land, and produce more food.

The Belalanda chameleon, while isolated and restricted to very small numbers in two very small and threatened regions, is not alone. Every living thing in Madagascar, including the people who live here, face threats to their survival.

That is why our work matters.

Our Resilient Forests and Livelihoods programme works with Malagasy people to help them define the chalenges facing them, and to provide them with the platform they need from which to escape poverty and leave hunger behind.

And it does so at the same time as empowering them and their communities to protect and expand their vital, vibrant, wilderness, helping not only Malagasy flora and fauna, and Malagasy people, but by ensuring the forests survive and can continue to mitigate against the worst effects of climate catastrophe, also helping animals, pants and people all over the world.

Using training we provide in – amongst other things – agro-forestry, equipment we provide, and mechanisms including savings and loans programmes which help Malagasy people finance their own innovative income generating projects and initiatives, Malagasy communities are at the forefront of the battle to save the environment of which we are all a part, and on which we all rely.

The Belalanda chameleon reminds us that nature – including people – will find ways to survive. But only if those ways, including those habitats, are available to us.

Join us to help make sure they remain so.