Most Popular This Week Today's Top News The Miracle in
Madagascar — a Blueprint for Saving Species A study aimed at
preventing the continued destruction of wildlife in Madagascar
is being heralded as a scientific triumph that could act as a
blueprint to save many other species from mass extinction.
Scientists believe they now have a viable road map that could be
used anywhere in the world to protect the many thousands of
animals and plants living precariously in biodiversity
"hotspots", which are increasingly threatened by human
activities. The findings are being seen as vindication for a
radical new approach to saving endangered species by treating
wildlife as a complex web of interacting animals and plants,
rather than the old idea of saving one species at a time.
Madagascar was chosen for the experiment because it has one of
the richest varieties of wildlife in the world, with a high
proportion of endemic species living nowhere else. It has also
experienced massive destruction of its forests, with barely 1