When a hunk of land split off from the African continent 160 million years ago, the result was Madagascar—a Texas-size island with distinct ecosystems and an extraordinarily diverse collection of plant life and wildlife. An astounding number of Madagascar’s reptiles and mammals exist nowhere else on Earth. Sadly, most of Madagascar’s forests have been destroyed by deforestation, which remains the biggest single threat to the island’s wildlife. A 2017 study found that Madagascar’s remaining forests are being destroyed at the rate of about one percent each year.
