Unesco World Heritage Site No Longer "At Risk"

The area in question, known as Ala Atsinanana, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007 and is composed of six different national parks scattered along the 1200 km long eastern side of Madagascar and with a total surface area of slightly less than 500,000 ha (~1.24 million acres). In 2010, a UNESCO commission placed the area on the list of at-risk World Heritage sites, due to high levels of illegal exploitation of precious forest trees and capture of lemurs for bush meat in two of the six sites—problems that were closely tied to a major political upset on Madagascar, with a coup d’etat in 2009 that created havoc across the country and allowed different foreign groups to get a foothold in remote areas and illegally exploit different natural resources. However, there were flaws in the assessment. The shapefiles used by the GIS specialist engaged by the commission were not the official government files, and the calculations of forest loss within the parks were seemingly miscalculated. As documented in the analyses Steve presented using the official shapefiles, most of the large-scale deforestation took place outside the World Heritage sites. Further, at the Nairobi meeting the Malagasy delegation from Madagascar National Parks presented information on the current status of the zone and the corrective measures put in place to address the reasons Ala Atsinanana was considered as at risk. As Steve notes, “it is important that Ala Atsinanana has a correct status,” and at the confab Steve discussed in detail the truly remarkable levels of biodiversity and endemism this World Heritage site represents in relation to national and world-wide levels. The needed initial steps to remove the zone from the “at risk” list have commenced, which is important to the conservation of Madagascar's protected areas for several different reasons, and the process, if successful, will take several years.
April 26. 2024