Madagascar: The Rape of the Rosewood Forests (and lemur soup)

Via the BB Submitterator, Boing Boing reader Marilyn Terrell of National Geographic points us to a just-published feature article by Robert Draper (with an amazing accompanying photo-essay), and explains:

Roughly 90% of the flora & fauna of Madagascar is found nowhere else on Earth. lllegal logging of the island's endangered rosewood trees has escalated dramatically due to the collapse of the government in March, 2009—and "the insatiable appetite of Chinese timber procurers, who imported more than 200 million dollars' worth of rosewood from the country's northeastern forests in a few months." Now forests are "unpoliced and filled with organized gangs, a free-for-all of deforestation."

All that and lemur soup. :-(

Madagascar's Pierced Heart

(Image courtesy National Geographic / by Pascal Maitre)