LEMUR NEWS The Newsletter of the Madagascar Section of the I.U.C.N./S.S.C. Primate Specialist Group NUMBER 12, June 2007 DPZ Deutsches Primatenzentrum Universität Hamburg Cover photo: Microcebus sp. from Andasibe (photo by Ute Meede). LEMUR NEWS The Newsletter of the Madagascar Section of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group PSG Chairman: Russel A. Mittermeier PSG Deputy Chairman: Anthony B. Rylands Addresses for contributions Jörg U. Ganzhorn Editors Abt. Tierökologie und Naturschutz Jörg U. Ganzhorn Universität Hamburgl Ken Glander Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3 Jonah Ratsimbazafy 20146 Hamburg Rodin M. Rasoloarison Germany Michael Schwibbe E-mail: [email protected] Anne Yoder Jonah Ratsimbazafy, Rodin M. Rasoloarison, Assistant Editors Rose Marie Randrianarison Anja Ganzhorn GERP Rose Marie Randrianarison 34, Cité des Professeurs, Fort Duchesne Antananarivo (101) Layout Madagascar Heike Klensang E-mail: [email protected] Lemur News online Number of copies: 1200 Volumes 3 -present are available online at www.dpz.eu ISSN 1608-1439 Printed by Goltze GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen, Germany Lemur News Vol. 12, 2007 Page 1 EDITORIAL ERRATUM The last few months have brought exciting news. Mada- There is a mistake in the legend of Figure 1 in the article gascar’s old and new president, Marc Ravalomanana, by Rabarivola et al., Lemur News 11: page 46: we apolo- has made remarkable statements with respect to hu- gize to the authors and to the readers for not having man population growth, new regulations for hunting paid better attention. have been established, many new forms of lemurs have been described, and last, but not least the regulations for doctoral candidates within the Malagasy university system have changed. The wave of "new species" discoveries has generated a lively discussion about standards in species descrip- tions. One major concern is that many of these new spe- cies are described in publications which are not peer re- viewed. Our future policy will be to have peer reviews for all manuscripts submitted to Lemur News which de- scribe new species. In line with this policy we think that the new regulation for doctoral candidates should also have consequences for the forthcoming publication of Lemur News. Accord- ing to the new regulations doctoral candidates must have publications which can be submitted in partial ful- filment to receive a doctoral degree. We are proud that papers in Lemur News are considered acceptable for completion of a doctoral thesis and we are aware of the responsibility associated with the new regulation. In or- der to guarantee the appropriate standard for the doc- toral theses and the international recognition, we will Legend as written in Vol. 11: Fig. 1. Assumed distribu- also send these manuscripts out for peer review. Start- tion of Lepilemur dorsalis (dotted) and L. sahamala- ing with Lemur News Vol. 13 all the peer-reviewed arti- zensis (hatched). Indicated is also the locality where the cles will be published in the "Article" section. To avoid three specimens of the sportive lemurs from Ampasin- delays in the publication process, we list the criteria for dava were captured (arrow). the evaluation of manuscripts in the "Guidelines for Instead of the above legend please include the following Contributors". legend: Fig. 1. Assumed distribution of Lepilemur dor- Despite these new procedures for some manuscripts we salis (hatched) and L. sahamalazensis (dotted). Indi- want to keep Lemur News as a vehicle for the publica- cated is also the locality where the three specimens of tion of news and ideas which are important but may not the sportive lemurs from Ampasindava were captured warrant a full-fledged scientific article. These contribu- (arrow). tions will not be sent out for review. They will be pub- lished under the "News" section. We hope that these modifications are in the interest of our contributors and readers. NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS Contributors to Lemur News are very creative in terms of formats and very elaborate ways of assembling their manuscripts. About 75% of our workload consists to re- vise these formats. This is time we can not assign to sug- "Madagascar Naturellement": gestions on how the manuscripts could be improved. Birth control is my environmental Please don’t be fancy. Just follow the guidelines and do not add any special formatting options in your text. priority Also, we tend to receive two to three "final" versions of Marc Ravalomanana manuscripts. Take your time; but once you submitted a "final" manuscript, it will be "final". The article has been published in Worldview Magazine, Lemur News Vol. 3 was the first issue where we distin- Volume 19, Number 3, 2006. It is reprinted with permis- guished between "Aricles" and other contributions. sion from the Presidential Office. Since then we were able to publish 121 articles, written by authors from 10 different countries. These articles My country’s strengths outnumber its weaknesses and have achieved more than 1000 entries according to we believe in our ability to succeed. Potentially, we are a "Google Scholar". We think we are on the right track. rich country. We have important natural resources, a favorable climate, strong cultural values, hard-working The Editors farmers and opportunities in agriculture, livestock, fisheries, mining and wood. We also have a unique and rich biodiversity. To the out- side world, my country is best known for its natural Page 2 Lemur News Vol. 12, 2007 wonders. For its size, Madagascar contributes more to country, a woman will have five or six children in her earth’s biodiversity than any other place. Eighty per- lifetime. I see families struggling to feed nine to 10 chil- cent of our flora and fauna are unique to the island. We dren. I see their children–my country’s future–weak are best known for our lemurs. In fact, there are more from malnutrition and disease. I see farmers destroying than 70 varieties. But we boast other evolutionary oddi- their land in their effort to provide for their children. ties, as well: the tenrec, which is a miniature hedge- These sights hurt my heart. hog-like animal; the fossa, which is a mongoose relative I know we must help these families. Nearly half our pop- that looks like a cross between a puma and a dog; 223 ulation is under the age of 15 and now entering their re- known species of frogs; more than half the world’s cha- productive years. There will be severe health risks for meleon species; neon-green day geckos; three times as these children: early-age pregnancy, births too close to- many kinds of palm trees as mainland Africa; and for- gether and high incidence of chronic maternal poor ests of endemic spiny plants. health. Out of every 100,000 women, 500 die from preg- Yes, we do have one of the most valued ecosystems; but nancy-related causes each year; in the United States, it is also one of the most threatened. Why has this oc- only 8 die. Too-frequent births mean that children grow curred? In a word, poverty. Madagascar is among the up without enough to eat and in poor health. In my world’s poorest countries: of 17 million Malagasy peo- country, 75 out of every 1,000 infants die in their first ple, 13 million live on less than $1 a day. In fact, the ave- year of life; in your country the figure is 6.43. Family rage income is 41 cents per day. More than 75 percent planning could prevent 25 percent of our infant deaths; live in rural areas, barely living off the land that sur- safe water, childhood injections and other health inter- rounds them, using whatever resources they can find. ventions could prevent most of the remaining deaths. This poverty costs my people, our country and the Only if we focus our efforts where the poor people are–in world. Our traditional slash and burn method of agri- rural communities–and on what their problems are will culture is called tavy and it drives the Malagasy econ- we be able to move from a subsistence to a market econo- omy. We convert our tropical rainforests into rice fields, my. Therefore, we have integrated programs to reach destroying plant and animal life and exhausting the more people with new ideas. Such programs acknow- soil, leaving behind nothing but scrub vegetation and ledge population increases. All of what we do in Mada- alien grasses, eroded hillsides and the constant threat gascar Naturellement blends programming from our of landslides. When you understand the farmer’s dire need, you can Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan, the Politique Gene- see why he practices tavy. As long as there is forest land rale de l’Etat 2005 and the Madagascar Action Plan. freely available for clearing, he may as well use the land I asked the Ministry of Health to change its name to the before his neighbor does. Ministry of Health and Family Planning in 2004, ma- The damage is easily visible in the degraded and frag- king Madagascar one of the few nations where family mented forests of the east and the cactus scrub invasion planning is so explicitly recognized as a key health in- of the spiny forests to the south. You can see it in our tervention. The ministry hosted a national family plan- rivers that run red with the soil of the central highlands. ning conference in December of last year and wrote a na- Each year, about one-third of the country burns. We tional strategy that has already achieved some impres- have already lost about 90 percent of our forest and each sive results. Malagasys now have six contraceptive year we lose one percent of what is left.