Madagascar: From Crisis to Conservation Opportunity

Featured Speaker: Andrea Baden, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College, City University of New York

Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, is home to more than 12,000 plant and 700 vertebrate species, 80 to 90 percent of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Sadly, much of this biodiversity is currently threatened by human activity, making it among the hottest biodiversity hotspots in the world. Primatologist and lemur specialist Andrea Baden describes her recent work with Madagascar’s critically endangered ruffed lemur (Genus Varecia), an important seed disperser and indicator of rainforest health, and shares how her results are being used to inform conservation practice in an effort to save this endemic island rainforest species.