Forests vanish as population expands.

Madagascar's forests have been reduced to a narrowing strip along the eastern escarpment. Of the original forest cover of 11.2 million hectares, only 7.6 million remained in 1950. Today this has been halved to 3.8 million hectares--which means the habitat for the island's unique wildlife has been halved, in just 40 years. Every year some 3% of the remaining forest is cleared, almost all of that to provide land for populations expanding at 3.2% a year. The story of 1 village, Ambodiaviavy, near Ranomafana, shows the process at work. 50 years ago the whole area was dense forest. 8 families, 32 people in all, came here in 1947, after French colonials burned down their old village. At first the new settlers farmed only the valley bottoms, easily irrigated by the stream running down from the hilltops. There was no shortage of land. Each family took as much as they were capable of working. Over the next 43 years, the village population swelled 10 times over, to 320, and the number of families grew to 36. Natural growth was supplemented by immigration from the overcrowded plateau, where all cultivable land was occupied. The valley bottom lands had filled up completely by the 1950s. New couples started to clear forest on the sloping valley sides. They moved gradually uphill until today, they are 2/3 of the way to the hilltops. There was a parallel decline in the size of each family's paddy holding--also fueled by population growth. When children marry, parents have to subdivide their own land and give them a plot. So holding in the irrigated valley bottoms have dwindled. Today only a few are big enough to feed a family. The more children in a family, the smaller their share as adults will be. The village chief lives in a small mud hut, looking out over a valley he once owned entirely. Since then he has had 10 children, and given parcels away to each. Though he is the wealthiest man in the village in cattle, his son are among the poorest. They 1/2 a hectare of paddy each. They moved from prosperity to pauperdom in a single generation.