Madagascar’s Rosewood Trees Face Extinction Political and social
chaos and a lack of international protections have put several
species of rosewood trees in Madagascar in danger of becoming
extinct from illegal logging, according to a policy forum paper
in the latest issue of Science. "Forty-seven of Madagascar’s 48
species of rosewood (Dalbergia) are found nowhere else in the
world," said Duke University graduate student Meredith Barrett,
the lead author on the May 27 article. Madagascar’s military-
backed change in leadership last year and a lucrative rosewood
market based largely in China have created a dangerous situation
for the endangered trees and the habitat that surrounds them,
Barrett said. Duke researchers performed a sophisticated mapping
and modeling study with the help of a French botanist to
estimate historical and current distributions of the reddish
hardwood, and to support their call for greater protections and
enforcement. Barrett, whose dissertation research concerns the
effects of human de