Today, Soichi Noguchi posted a gorgeous picture of the mouth of a river in Madagascar, pouring mud into the sea with a design like an abstract painting:
Sadly, that mud is flowing off the hillsides with every rainstorm, every one of Madagascar's not-infrequent cyclone hits, and blows off with the wind. Deforestation began in Madagascar with the first European colonization, and the demand for exotic wood (or any wood, eventually), and continued as slopes were cleared for agriculture. Between the general population of Madagascar, with people simply trying to get enough to eat, and shelter, and work, and the corporations driving the agriculture, it will be amazing if Madagascar can keep from dying, biologically, before any sort of control or balance is found.
1 comment:
According to Preston-Mafham's Madagascar: A Natural History, deforestation began with the original settlers of the island, long before the Europeans arrived.
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