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UWE Bristol students help save critically-endangered lemurs
A group of students from UWE Bristol have been carrying out essential fieldwork that will protect the lives of some of Madagascar’s rarest lemurs.
Since 2016, the team of around 20 undergraduates has been partnered with masters students in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, to observe the unique wildlife of the area and work with local communities to ensure its protection.
Their involvement has now pushed local leaders to follow through with crucial plans to create a 65,000 acre nature reserve on the island – securing the safety of the critically endangered diademed sifaka lemur, as well as many other species.
is needed now More than ever
The critically endangered diademed sifaka is hopefully a little more secure now.
The protected area is due to begin official construction in 2020. Other threatened species within the reserve will include Sibree’s dwarf lemurs, Betsileo bright-eyed tree frogs and Ramanantsoa dwarf chameleons, as well as two native orchid varieties.
The university team has travelled to Madagascar to visit the last remaining zones of the high-altitude forest. The trip provides them with the chance to learn about completing fieldwork and conservation work in the developing world.
The students in Madagascar in 2017. Image: UWE Bristol.
Dr Mark Steer, a senior lecturer in the department of applied sciences at UWE and expedition leader, said: “Thanks to the amazing work that the staff at Sadabe have been doing, coupled with the willingness of the students to get stuck in and help make things happen, we’re now seeing a complete reversal.
“When I first started visiting this area in 2015, there was very little prospect of gaining any formal protection for the forests. Now, it’s become very exciting how quickly everything has moved, three years on.”
Sadabe is the non-governmental organisation formed by scientists in Madagascar, who aided the students and facilitated their research.
Executive director Jean-Luc Raharison said: “Without the conservation efforts going on here, the forests and their diversity of species would already have gone. We have been aiming to set up a protected area here for a long time, and it is wonderful that the student expedition has had such a positive effect on the local communities.
“Now these local communities are fully in support of the proposals.”
For more information, visit https://info.uwe.ac.uk/news/uwenews/news.aspx?id=3843
Read more: 12 amazing discoveries made at UWE
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