No more than twenty feet above my head, on a single tree branch, perched the majestic black and white lemur called the indri. Peacefully he sat, reaching his arms straight out, slowly, to enable his long, thin, black fingers to reach the leaves. One by one, he plucked them off and put them in his mouth. It was so quiet for those few moments that I could actually hear the crunching sounds as he chewed each leaf. Sated for the time being (and probably fed up having his meal disturbed by the clicking cameras of the gawking onlookers below) he leapt from the branch to the trunk of the tree and, without pause, flew over our heads to another tree and off from there throughout the dense woods behind us. It was a moving experience.

A few kilometers away from the heart of the secluded wildlife reserve, a wide red dirt road divided the forest. Along this road, open carts haul graphite from the mine to processing plant, presumably to end up as "lead" in pencils. Gray graphite flakes which had spilled from the carts littered long obtrusive lines along the center of the road. It was a dismal sight.

With the rich green forest in front of me and the dead dry land under my feet, I couldn't help but wonder whether the approximately five percent of Madagascar's remaining original forest land could withstand the ongoing encroachment of mining and logging companies. As we crossed the Mozambique Channel and flew over the land for the first time, I remember looking out of the airplane window wondering whether lemurs and other magnificent wildlife used to inhabit trees on land now reduced to vast tracks of lifeless red escarpments. In his book Ghost of Chance, writer William S. Burroughs appropriately describes the land there as "a vast mud-slide of soulless sludge."

On this island off the southeastern coast of Africa, it seems easy for extractive industries to come in, take what they want and can profit from, and leave a skeleton of a country behind: to the detriment of both wild plants and animals and the people who live with them.

With its magnificent, unique wildlife, precious but disappearing, Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island and one of its poorest countries, was an interesting place to host a meeting of the Animals Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). If the tenth CITES Conference of the Parties was held in Zimbabwe to bias delegates in favor of reopening the trade in elephant ivory, then one can similarly presume that the Animals Committee was held in Madagascar in order to promote the resumption of international trade in Madagascar wildlife - notably, chameleons and geckos, all of which are listed on Appendix II of the Convention, meaning commercial trade is allowed but regulated.

In 1994, CITES Parties determined that countries should not import chameleons or geckoes from Madagascar (with eight species exempted) since the Management Authority could neither prove that the harvest quotas were scientifically based nor that the export of these specimens would not be detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild. Unfortunately, the problems there persist and the future of many of these species is questionable. From 1993 to 1997 alone, over half a million live reptiles and amphibians were exported from Madagascar including numerous chameleons and geckoes that were not supposed to be in international trade. Some individuals who favor international wildlife commerce want to see an experimental management system put in place that would allow a limited number of reptile breeders to export these species. Of course, this scenario would facilitate illegal trade as wild-caught lizards could be laundered in through the "breeding" facilities and fraudulently sold as "captive bred." The reptile "breeding" facility we visited at Mandraka included animals that the caretaker admitted were not bred there, but were removed from the wild. It is dangerously premature to reopen the trade in chameleons and geckoes from Madagascar; no resolution was reached at the meeting .

Other important decisions were taken during the course of the conference, however. AWI has advocated the establishment of a Working Group to examine the effect of using parts and products of CITES-listed species in traditional Asian medicine. Bears, tigers, pangolins, musk deer and other species are exploited for this purpose. Although we did not succeed in this effort at the previous meeting in Venezuela, with the support of the Committee Chairman, a Working Group was convened this time around. Hopefully, its members will be able to undertake an accurate assessment of which species are used and which countries' medicinal practitioners use them, what level of trade (both legal and illegal) in these species exists, and what measures could be taken to replace the use of these animals with herbal alternatives.

The Committee also considered a draft list of species which are allegedly "commonly bred in captivity." Adoption of this list, which included species such as tigers and bears, would have made it easier to breed endangered species and export their parts or products made from them for profit. Currently, CITES Parties, most notably the range states for the species, have the ability to comment on the registration of such facilities before they are established and the species' parts or derivatives find their way into commercial trade. At least for the time being, the dreaded "list" has been scrapped.

The Animals Committee also periodically reviews certain CITES-listed Appendix II species which seem to be in significant levels of international trade to see whether or not specific recommendations should be made to Parties to ensure that the species don't become endangered to the point where they should be uplisted to Appendix I and commercial trade completely cut off. For instance, Parties should pay close attention to the exploitation of the hippopotamus whose teeth are used as a substitute for elephant ivory. In fact, imports of hippo teeth into Hong Kong more than quadrupled from 1994 to 1995 and then doubled again from 1995 to 1996. Being present at the discussions about the future of such species helps ensure that a precautionary conservation approach will be employed. Without our input, many species requiring close attention and specific action may simply be glossed over.

Although we had many tangible successes during the Conference, it was nonetheless hard to be in a place where the people and wildlife suffer so greatly and the future is uncertain. The man who organized our wildlife tour after the meeting, Hery Andrianiantefana, told one reporter, " It is taking a long time, perhaps too long, but gradually we are getting across the message that our wildlife is our biggest asset." Seeing foot-long chameleons stretched out on low tree-branches and wild tree frogs squatting on huge rainforest leaves made me a believer in the power and importance of wildlife viewing - "ecotourism" must replace the industrial deforestation and desertification that threatens the future of the country.

Burroughs concludes that "beauty is always doomed" by man "with his weapons, his time, his insatiable greed, and ignorance so hideous it can never see its own face." I don't know if it's too late to save the wild lands and wildlife of Madagascar; I do know that it's never too late to try.

Awi Quarterly, Summer 1999, Vol. 48, No. 3