People and Caves in Madagascar.

Of remote Madagascar, the wider world holds two principal landscape impressions. One is a land utterly denuded of vegetation by human activity, a parable of reckless and irreversible destruction. The other is a tropical paradise of lush forest and unparalleled high rates of endemism in both flora and fauna.

Both impressions reflect realities. On the one hand, the island is a lesson in how badly humans can misuse resources in a short time. People have been there less than 2000 years, and have been largely responsible for the removal of some 85% of the original forest cov