Manombo Lemur Project
Background
The Manombo Forest is one of the last lowland rainforests remaining on the east coast of Madagascar and is home to eight species of lemur. Both the white collared brown lemur and the black and white ruffed lemur occur there and are listed as Critically Endangered in the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened species. The former is particularly vulnerable owing to its very restricted distribution, and is considered among the 25 most endangered primates in the world. Threats to the forest and the lemurs come mainly from human activities – the highly fragmented forest is under constant pressure from conversion to farmland and illegal logging, whilst the larger bodied lemurs are targeted for food, largely at local subsistence level.
Community Conservation
The people living around Manombo are extremely poor with little access to health care and education. People rely heavily on the forests for their daily needs, especially firewood, medicinal plants and wild foods. The Trust has been working closely with the local villagers and government conservation agencies to help raise local awareness of the need to stop unsustainable exploitation of the forest. The community-based approach extends to the projects research activities. Durrell have trained a team of local people to help locate the lemurs and record observations on their feeding habits and behaviour. The Trust believes that actively involving the local people in the monitoring will help them to increase awareness on the importance of these species and their habitats as well as providing employment.
Tusk Trust Support
The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is working in Manombo to try and conserve the forest’s biodiversity through research, community-based conservation and technical support to the national conservation agencies. Through the support of Tusk the Trust is currently carrying out intensive studies to determine the status and distribution of the lemur species. Detailed information on their behaviour and feeding ecology and the main threats facing them will help the Trust to develop effective conservation strategies for these primates. By concentrating conservation efforts on this flagship species and by raising awareness about the threats to them and their habitat there will be a positive knock on affect to the wider biodiversity of the region.
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